Anthony's Llc Dismal PF Report Card = Follow Up To 10/23/17 Discussion

ebay is a flea market. That needs to be clearly understood. I would not go to a flea market to purchase anything of value. Fun to look through but if I want something of quality it is not at the top of the list. Actually, it is not even on the list.

And that's why the hobby is great: You can choose to shun ebay and others can thrive in it. You can enjoy SAN and traditional auction houses, and others may eschew those for ebay.

It all depends on what and how people collect, their budgets, and their comfort levels.

If I were strictly looking to fill spaces in albums, perhaps I would stick with traditional venues and dealers, but I am looking for the obscure, the unusual, the esoteric, the nontraditional. That is material that is infinitely more likely to show up on ebay (usually sold by people who don't know what they have) than through traditional channels...

Then again, I grew up going to flea markets (Zern's in Gilbertsville, PA). Every Friday and Saturday, that was the place to go. It's where I got my first exposure to "treasure hunting" (or "dumpster diving" if you prefer) with coins, stamps, currency, etc. So it's an environment I enjoy.

I buy from Siegel, Kelleher, Rumsey, et al. through SAN regularly, and also from high profile national show dealers... but I enjoy discovering the diamond in the rough at a bargain price from ebay far more.

To each their own.

The goose that layed the golden egg for a very few. The goose that plundered the wallet for a great many. ebay.

You are entitled to your perspective, but I disagree completely. If that were the case, ebay would not be as successful as it is.

That was one of the things that drove me nuts over at the Delphi forum. Adamant traditionalists that used to shout militant warnings about how everything on ebay was either junk or a ripoff and how collectors needed to stay off ebay or risk losing everything.

Please.

For every Anthony's there are hundreds of ebay sellers not out to rip people off. As with anything consumerist, the negatives get magnified here and on other forums because very rarely do people come out to post contentment. You only see the negatives.

Your confusing financial success with good business practices. ebay has the former but not the latter. Not everything on ebay is a ripoff. Plenty of good sellers. You are losing focus. ebay ignores and even facilitates the bad sellers. I myself have chimed in on other threads with good sellers that I bought from in the past before I made a personal decision to not support the overall enterprise with my pittance. We all have choices and I do respect yours even though I may disagree. They would do well by the hobby in general by cleaning up their act.

I wasn't referring to ebay's business practices. I was referring to your skewed perception/misrepresentation:

Nothing but the truth Rev.

Cheers!

Very true. Many members here sell on ebay and have never cheated anyone out of a penny. I just purchased a North Borneo stamp and when it arrived it was not the one the seller was showing. The one I received was off center and 3 areas where the stamp was toned.

I contacted the seller and he replied within the hour and profusely apologized, instructed me to keep the stamp I received and the correct one is on the way. He explained that he deals in mostly British commonwealth stamps and had many sets of the one I purchased and accidentally sent the wrong one.

Is he a dishonest seller? I'm sure I will receive the correct stamp and because there was zero hassle and the seller was genuinely polite and professional I will leave positive feedback as if it never happened. I believe anyone can make honest mistakes and if his stamp desk looks anything like mine I can understand how this could happen.

I will never know if the seller makes a habit of this hoping people don't complain but I'm sure someone would have left at least a neutral feedback but his is 100% positive.

Yes, there are crooks on ebay but like Rev stated, there are 100 good ones for every bad one.

There are good sellers on ebay. The do not cancel out the bad ones that ebay turns a blind eye to and those bad sellers hurt them as well. ebay tolerating the shysters creates an atmosphere of distrust and hesitancy that the good sellers have to overcome. It is a shame that a Rupp Brothers for instance has to have their listings commingled with the likes of Philip Ryle or Anthony's. This is not about those good sellers. This is about ebay cleaning up its act out of respect for those sellers and our fellow collectors.

ok it has been stated that an issue has to be easy for an employee to understand (ie, that they not be a stamp expert). The reselling of the same stamp over and over by and to accounts controlled by the same seller certainly should fit into this category.

Further, scrubbing of negative feedback needs to stop. If the issue is too difficult for an employee to understand (ie. it is a philatelic issue), then it should not automatically be decided in favor of the party that got the negative feedback. It should be left there where those that do have the knowledge can decide for themselves.

We can debate the merits of it but the feedback is not being "scrubbed", wiped, or even "acid washed" (sorry, had throw that one in there... some will get it). When a transaction has been cancelled, ebay considers the matter fixed. All evidence of the transaction goes away.

Is it bleached?

I really do not care what term anyone wants to apply to removing data. It is not correct, it is not done in any kind of rating system.

Cancelling a transaction should never, ever change the data. Anyone who has any experience with Quality Assurance systems knows you delete or never change data. The data is the data with all its warts. Going in and changing data is not allowed and would result in any Quality system being failed. The data should always reflect what actually happened, deleting data prevents the data from being useful.

It is absolutely incorrect to say a vender has a 100% Feedback when the truth is that some data has been removed. There is not a single justification for removing data and then trying to say any resulting metrics have value. This is black and white, either the data reflects what really happened or just throw it all away.

Just reading ebay's own 'rules' about the rating system reflects that it has design flaws which would instantly disqualify the rating system from any certification by a QA body. They know this, they know the rating system is nothing more than a marketing tool for them. And it works. If this thread has shown us anything, it is that the ebay rating system is badly flawed and misleads buyers.
Don

That's right. It should. But does it?

An irate buyer gives what he thinks is a justified warning feedback, "Watch out for this guy, he's a crook." Are those the facts? If the vendor objects and wants it removed, should ebay "let it stand" out of deference to a hands off policy? If they do, does their decision count as agreement with the accusation? What may the seller do? Since ebay has deep pockets it could be worthwhile for him to sue ebay for libel, assuming he has the resources to get it started. Whether or not he would win, ebay will still have to put up a defense. Realistically though, how many sellers could afford to do that? Hmmm. Let's see.

A little over a decade ago a guy and his wife and daughter ran a mom and pop coin sales operation out of ebay, and one year he got nailed for misreporting his income to the IRS. He had reported his gross sales for the year at a little over $300K. A tidy sum, but only half of what the number REALLY was, according to the court document of the case. This they did three years in a row. Never underestimate the income potential of some of these sellers. ebay cannot afford to gamble on who will cost them a defense and who won't.

At that rate, if 1 million of these were bad transactions per day, that represents 1 in 2,000; 5 hundredths of a percent. Wanna bet the failure rate is actually higher than that? Where does that leave ebay? Playing whet nurse to a million hassles per day?




That is probably the most solid statement that has been made in this thread. And the sum total of all the grousing here about ebay's business practices isn't going to do squat to get it fixed. A different strategy focused on educating buyer expectations needs to be pursued. (Seller guarantees?)

We've spent enough time at the glue factory already.