Is eBay a Lottery?
There are now so many fraudsters, crooks, scammers, copyright thieves, and others on eBay, that it has become a lottery. Does eBay care?. Is this illegal under US law?
goingfast3 - Scammer?
We helped eBay members avoid over $1 million fraud. eBay can't even say "thank you"!
Buying investment gold via eBay is more of a gamble on the honesty of the seller than a real auction.
Is eBay Really a Lottery?
Whenever we send copyright infringement notices to eBay, which is a daily occurrence, we include a paragraph warning or alerting them that in our experience, may people who steal our images also steal other things, and that if a vendor uses stolen images, it is likely that he does not own the items he is offering for sale. eBay appear to take no notice of our "good neighbour" advice, and usually allow the seller to relist the same or similar items, sometimes they steal other people's images as well.
In a significant number of cases, although we don't keep count, we notice that a few weeks later, the seller is "no longer a registered user". We never get any feedback or thanks from eBay, but our guess is that the seller has failed to deliver the goods after being paid, buyers have complained to eBay or the police, and his membership has been revoked. Because we don't receive any feedback, we can only guess, and it does seem that eBay goes to great lengths to avoid bad publicity.
Auction Site, Venue Provider or Illegal Online Lottery?
The French Government think eBay is an Auction House. As we wrote this, a French court had declared that legally eBay is an auction site, and as such it should be legally responsible for the content of its site. eBay counter that they only provide a venue for members to run their own auctions.
We say this argument might be tenable if eBay did not impose so many conditions on thier members. eBay dictates what payment methods a member must accept, what bidding increments it must use, and many other conditions which, in our opinion, render it as an auction company, and not simply an auction hosting facility.
It also try to abdicate responsibility whenever it can.
It does of course make lots of comforting P.R. sounds, stating in many places that "eBay is a safe place to trade", "eBay takes trust & safety seriously", etc. It provides a facility to report suspected fraudulent auctions, and also other irregularities such as misleading item titles and descriptions.
Some time ago we conducted an experiment, and reported a number of misleading auctions. We monitored the progress of these auctions to compleltion, and for a further 90 days approximately, and eBay failed to remove a single one of them. Oru comclusion from this was that eBay pay only lip service to "trust and safety", and that there normal policy is to let any and all auctions continue to run if possible. We further believe this is to maximise their fees, and that buyer protection comes only a poor and distant second.
Getting Worse
With recent and continuing fee increases, some hailed as reductions, we think that many professionals have abandoned eBay, or significantly reduced their presence on it. As a result, the proportion of dodgy offerings has increased. More and more it appears to be, or to be becoming the worlds largest flea market for stolen goods and fakes.
Illegal Lottery
We understand that online gambling is illegal under US laws, and this would include lotteries. As eBay seems to be a lottery, should it be banned by the American Government?
Copyright Notice
Please see our "Copyright" page for further information.
Copyright Infringements Remedies
Our suggested draft remedies for copyright abusers dependent on category - competitors, bloggers, pseudo-expert & advice sites acting as eBay & Google portals, eBay & other auction site sellers.
Other Copyright Abuse
Other Copyright Abuse
Copyright Thieves on eBay
We already have a page naming and shaming dealers using our images without permission. It's time we did the same for eBay, although if we include them all, this could be a very long page.
Alphabetical Listing of Other Copyright Theft Sites
Other Web Sites
All comments about copyright also cover content of all our other websites including, but not limited to:-
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The Most Copied Coin Image on the Internet
The Second Most Copied Coin Image on the Internet
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