- Joined
- Oct 5, 1998
- Messages
- 340
Hey all,
Thanks, again, for the general support and for all your comments. And I do mean *all* your comments. I would chip in that:
1) eBay protects buyers (as has been pointed out earlier by some savvy folks) from these types of transactions so there really isn't significant risk. Out of respect (at the time) for the seller I paid immediately after winning the knife at auction. I think this is just the reasonable way to do business. In fact, when this thing started to go South I called eBay and they recommended this practice - counting on buyer protection when bidding on an item with low seller feedback. It is part of their business model.
2) This post is really meant (also pointed out above) as a warning to anyone dealing with these specific people. I have transacted 100's of deals online and really can point to maybe 2-3 that were bad. This just happened to be one. IMHO MattWRog hit the nail on the head from *both* my perspective and eBay's - this is exactly why eBay is built this way and why PayPal is structured as it is....to give a measure of protection to their customers so that there can be trust (in the economic theory sense) and therefore business. If these commercial practices result in de facto endorsement of fraudulent practices since buyers are encouraged to participate in the market via risk mitigation by eBay (as Gastonknife seems to comment above) well that sounds like a great economics thesis project, if it hasn't already been done.
3) I take the critical or negative comments above this way: If you believe I was blindly handing over cash and hoping for the best, I wasn't (nor would I recommend that). What I was doing was engaging in a transaction, with guaranteed protection from eBay, in good faith with people who later turned out to be fraudsters.
Once again, thanks for the support.
Mark
Thanks, again, for the general support and for all your comments. And I do mean *all* your comments. I would chip in that:
1) eBay protects buyers (as has been pointed out earlier by some savvy folks) from these types of transactions so there really isn't significant risk. Out of respect (at the time) for the seller I paid immediately after winning the knife at auction. I think this is just the reasonable way to do business. In fact, when this thing started to go South I called eBay and they recommended this practice - counting on buyer protection when bidding on an item with low seller feedback. It is part of their business model.
2) This post is really meant (also pointed out above) as a warning to anyone dealing with these specific people. I have transacted 100's of deals online and really can point to maybe 2-3 that were bad. This just happened to be one. IMHO MattWRog hit the nail on the head from *both* my perspective and eBay's - this is exactly why eBay is built this way and why PayPal is structured as it is....to give a measure of protection to their customers so that there can be trust (in the economic theory sense) and therefore business. If these commercial practices result in de facto endorsement of fraudulent practices since buyers are encouraged to participate in the market via risk mitigation by eBay (as Gastonknife seems to comment above) well that sounds like a great economics thesis project, if it hasn't already been done.
3) I take the critical or negative comments above this way: If you believe I was blindly handing over cash and hoping for the best, I wasn't (nor would I recommend that). What I was doing was engaging in a transaction, with guaranteed protection from eBay, in good faith with people who later turned out to be fraudsters.
Once again, thanks for the support.
Mark
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