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Discover Mid-America — September 2007

Protecting yourself when the "Safe Harbor" isn't

The powers that be at eBay have long argued that it's nothing more than a neutral ground that brings together buyers and sellers. That "only a venue" legal mantra has so far enabled the company to resist the regulation that governs traditional auction houses. Several recent case precedents have begun to erode the basis for that position while highlighting the risks to consumers posed by online auctions.

These days, I don’t buy much on eBay, and I would never risk a purchase like this if I couldn’t see it first. This soft porcelain figurine of an old man with a cat is of indeterminate age but has the classic features of antique folk art models, including the disproportionate size of the cat. As a cat lover, I couldn’t resist it. This item, is probably
English or Continental and has unusual detail for soft paste porcelain, especially in this miniature (height 3.5") size. I bought it recently in one of my favorite multi-dealer antique shops.

In a 2006 incident, a collector bought several pieces of what were represented as Weiss costume jewelry only to discover that they were fakes. Although the buyer finally managed to get her money back after she complained to the seller, eBay refused to take down other offending auctions by that seller because, as New York Times reporter Katie Hafner reported, "eBay said it had no responsibility for the fakes because it was nothing more than a marketplace that links buyers and sellers."

None other than the famous Tiffany company has recently confronted this position head on by alleging, in a suit still pending, that eBay's lax enforcement of its own anti-fraud policies has the effect of facilitating the sale of counterfeit Tiffany, thereby violating Tiffany's copyright and defrauding consumers.

The base of my grouping of the old man with cat shows signs of hand-working and has the telltale gritty feel that identifies the body as soft-paste, with is made by mixing clay with frit (ground glass). The potting has been worked so thin in places that light shows through it (top center of photo).

Stewart Richardson, an eBay seller of high-end collectibles such as Lladru porcelain, Swarovski Crystal, et. al., was also the trusted owner of an established and respected on-the-ground business in the same field until 2002. That year federal law enforcement authorities estimated that he bilked buyers out of more than $300,000 in a period of just a few days worth of eBay auctions from a mythical estate. Richardson was finally apprehended in 2005 and was sentenced to more than six years in prison.

One might think that the eBay "feedback" system would protect eBay customers from the likes of Richardson. On the contrary, one of the reasons he managed to con so many people out of such a staggering sum of money over such a short period of time was that he had previously racked up an enviable positive feedback record on more that 6,000 sales!

The ‘Retaliatory Neg’

Many folks who buy and sell on eBay have an enormous stake in preserving 100% positive feedback records. A reaction akin to grief often ensues upon attracting one's "first negative." Some users will do just about anything to avoid running afoul of the inevitable lunatic customer whom no one can please any of the time. The worst elements doing business on eBay play to this fear by threatening what's known in the eBay community as a "retaliatory neg." Here's how it works: "I notice you have a squeaky clean feedback record, and if you give me a negative comment, I'll make sure to give you one and wreck your spotless little record."

A few years ago, eBay instituted a sort of "talk back" line in the feedback to enable recipients of negative feedback to defend themselves. Because the ill-motivated element on the site isn't as smart as it thinks it is, it is usually quite easy to tell, merely from the quality of the interchange, who's in the right. The trouble, alas, is that too many people don’t read.

Astute reader Herb Oberman of Dallas, TX recently pointed out to me yet another problem with eBay safety features: the phenomenon of "mutually removed negatives" which can then be used as extortion by a bad-faith user. Here's how that works: "Okay, you gave me a negative, so I gave you one, ha, ha. So now I'll agree to have eBay remove my negative comment about you if you'll have them remove yours against me." Either way — retaliatory neg or mutually removed neg for extortion — the reliability of the feedback system is undermined.

The identity switch

Many a snake in the virtual woodpile has managed to shed and slither away from a user ID whose feedback has become a liability. These buyers and sellers put on a new skin and resume their worst practices until the new ID becomes too tattered, in which case they just shed that one, too.

These shifting — and shifty — identities had become a sufficient problem for eBay's reputation that the site began posting, in user profiles, the number of times an eBayer has changed identities. If the user has more than one identity change, that could well indicate a problem with the user.

Avoiding feedback fizzle

Numismatics is a collecting area in which fraud has become so rife that the field has produced an entire spin-off industry known as "third party authentication." This "cleaned" 1890 $20 gold piece has been graded by Professional Coin Grading Service as an "AU 55," meaning that the full detail is visible "with friction on less than 1/2 the surface, mostly on high points." The "UNC" stands for "uncirculated," a coin that is in new condition, though not necessarily perfect. [Photo by the author, courtesy of rare coin dealer Art Wilson and the Vermont Antique Center at Quechee Gorge Village, VT.]

Using eBay feedback to protect yourself from deadbeat buyers or scamming sellers means you have to read it. Vengeful and retaliatory negs are, by their tone, usually readily apparent and can be ignored. What you're looking for is patterns that reveal particular problems with users: failure to pay, slow payment, misrepresentation of merchandise, etc.

I often get email from fellow collectors bemoaning their bad experiences buying on eBay. Some of these are complaints about shipping damage. In most cases, I find that the seller has a number of negative feedback comments about poorly packaged merchandise damaged in delivery.

"Didn't you read the feedback?" I can't help asking, though the answer is by that point not only moot, but predictable. Either people just didn't bother to check the feedback or, as one burned customer admitted to me, they didn’t think it could happen to them: "I thought I'd be among the 90% satisfied customers rather than the 10% that weren't."

By the same token, be aware that some of the worst users with the worst attitudes may have 100% feedback records. Check for username switches and, before entrusting yourself to someone with a "pure" feedback record, scroll through a couple of screens of those positive comments and read between the lines to pick up on any cues to ambivalent transactions.

eBay's "safe harbor" is in unregulated international waters, and users may find this harbor all but impossible to navigate. Whoever the harbormasters are over there, they seem overwhelmed by the traffic and are sometimes completely unresponsive to complaints. So if you're going to sail in those waters, break out your spyglass and look sharp for pirates!

Peggy Whiteneck is a writer and collector living in East Randolph, VT. If you would like to suggest a topic she can address in her column, email her at allwrite@sover.net.

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