Monday, October 24, 2016

Action Item: Please be a Market Force Against Fraud

I noticed and blogged about this scam -- I call it "listing pollution" -- a few months ago. Now I'm trying to do something about it with a Change.org petition. I'd much appreciate your signature on that petition.

Note: No, the petition does not ask any government to do anything about the problem. This is something the market can easily handle in the form of feedback to eBay letting them know it's costing them sales.

And it is costing them sales. At least three times in as many months I have gone looking for something at eBay and ended up buying elsewhere (Amazon or brick and mortar) because this phenomenon makes it incredibly hard to find the best price on what I'm looking for. When I need something low-end -- something that costs maybe $5 or $10 if I pick it up at the store here in the US -- that I'm not in a hurry to get, I hit eBay because there's a good chance I can find it for a fraction of the price, shipping included, from some outfit in China. Or rather there was a good chance. These days it's difficult to do that because of so many "99 cents ... oh, wait, we were lying, it's actually $15" listings.

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