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We all know that Ebay was a great idea. So many people connected around the world to buy and sell all kinds of items. However the obvious problems with this situation pops up to often and Ebay has no management not does it seem the desire to manage these problems.

For instance, over half the people who win an auction on Ebay simply do not pay. Ebay has no way of making them pay yet still charges the seller to list on Ebay. This is like paying for a classified ad without any contact information. Its useless. Further, Ebay's fees have grown each year and this year to an exorbitant rate. Yet, they still cannot nor do they seem to be concerned with the massive amounts of fraud.

Any kid can sign up to an Ebay account, buy and sell some small prices items to ear a history rating then start defrauding people until Ebay finally catches on and cancels their account. Then the perpetrator just does it all over again often cultivating many Ebay ID's at once.
For instance, I once sold an expensive guitar to a fellow in Washington. One week later I saw the same guitar (serial number in photos) in another Ebay sellers listing. They had copied my pictures and ad text to the letter. Simple copy and paste. I contacted the guy who bought my guitar to see if it was him selling it. It was not. We both contacted Ebay to report this obvious fraud. Not only did it take Ebay 3 days to respond but they responded saying they could do nothing until an actual fraud had been committed. This is BS as they had my listing for this guitar still on file for anyone to see. The pictures including serial number were plainly just copied and pasted. Both myself and the new owner could contest that this new listing was fraud yet Ebay wanted to wait and let the fraud happen. It did. Someone bought that fake guitar sent money and of course didn't receive anything. Ebay closed down the perpetrators account and that was that. Some poor sap was out $1500.

Ebay offers protection? No they don't. They offer up to $200 with a $25 deductible. That means the poor sap that got taken for $1500 on an auction Ebay knew was fraud received $200 for his trouble. So what kind of protection is that? Anyone anywhere can do anything on Ebay and the buyer is at the mercy of another parties honesty. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out the odds here are not good. While their are plenty of good people buying and selling on Ebay the sharks get around the fastest and they cover a lot of ground. That 2% of bad apples has free reign on Ebay and there is plenty fraud to go around.

So how is this Ebays fault? Its their forum that's how. If an auction house sells your goods its up to them to collect and most brick and mortar auction houses are quite good at that. Ebay simply says "you're on your own" and charges you for the displeasure. Ebay by law IS responsible especially in the above mentioned example where they had indisputable proof that fraud was occurring. In fact by law they are party to fraud in that case. I tried to contact their legal department. I emailed 16 times and phoned 3 times before I could even get someone to agree to give me the address of their legal department. I received no response to that correspondence.

Yet, look it up on the web and you will see people complaining of their accounts being shut down for no reason. For instance a good seller that has a vindictive buyer complain they never received an item. Ebay often just shuts down the sellers account regardless of their status. What does this tell you? It plainly explains that how Ebay handles things is up to whatever coke bottle glasses teenager gets the customer service email. One kid ignores things while the other gets trigger happy deleting accounts. This further explains that their is lack of management or real concern over at Ebay in regards to their operations and responsibilities. Ebay seems to feel they have no responsibilities. How they are still in business is beyond me. Legally they have committed millions of dollars in fraud.

Napster was shut down for offering users the tools to copy music. Basically the law held Napster responsible since it was providing the service that allowed people to steal. How then can Ebay stay in operation when basically its the same service? Ebay offers the tools to commit fraud and worse yet, does not seem to have any management to control these issues and doesn't even recognize this as their responsibility. It is their responsibility and I see no reason why a large class action lawsuit should not wipe out their business. They have had plenty of time to get it together yet all they seem concerned about is keeping the share price overly inflated with profit statements. We all want to make money but how many of us would get away with running a business that was party to fraud worth millions of dollars?

With their takeover of Paypal things only got worse. Did you know that Paypal can refund anyone for anything for any reason without your consent? Lets say you sold a $1000 item to Joe one month ago and Joe being a scammer complains he never got the item or that it was defective. Paypal (read the terms of service) can deduct the amount from your paypal account. Not only that but if you do not have the money in your paypal account they can deduct from your credit card attached to the account and you r bank account you make transfers too. They can do this and have many many times. This again is fraud. It is unfair and unsafe.

I encourage everyone to research what I have wrote here. You will find that more and more people are having problems with the Ebay service and many people see no value in their services. Not only that but they are charging people for the displeasure of being robbed. This article had been read and passed by legal counsel. All facts are true and provable.

Ebay is in for some large legal trouble. Its up to the general public to write their congressman and ask "How is Ebay not facing the same charges as Napster" If Ebay can get away with what Napster could not then corruption is the only explanation. As a community we cannot allow such corruption.

Update: Paypal (the payment system owned by ebay) has recently lost the class action suit in which the were found guilty of unauthorized access to customer bank accounts including wire withdrawls. Also, they were found guilty of not providing users adequate contact information nor providing proper dispute resolution. 9.2 Million has been ordered set aside so Paypal can pay the people it ripped off. This is a milestone for the long fight against the unfair practices of Ebay and Paypal. Perhaps this will open the naysayers eyes.