Don,

You are not alone. I think everybody here wants to be known as an honest member and trader. For those of us who deal chips as a part or full time money making endeavor, our integrity is perhaps even more important to us.

This thread seems to involve two or three separate issues:

1. If a seller knowingly gives false information about an item, is it "fraud"? I think everyone here definitely agrees that it is, myself included, and it is clearly a violation of eBay rules, the Code of Ethics of this club (of which I am a member), and quite possibly criminal and postal law. No controversy there.

2. For lack of a better phrase, "sins of ommission". If a seller writes a description that is factually accurate, but purposely omits information that has a direct effect on the value of the item in question, is this "deceitful"? Most here think so, including me. I don't recall anyone defending that practice, even though it probably is not a rules violation on eBay (being a caveat emptor environment). I think that most here would also agree agree that it is possible that a seller can be honestly unaware of a fact that has an effect on the value of a chip, and therefor not guilty of any dishonesty.

3. The only controversy seems to be in how we handle situtations where we spot an auction that appears to be in violation of #1 or #2 above. Some think it's OK to just post a derogatory message here, linking directly to the auction and the seller, without informing the seller under discussion that his integrty is being challenged in public. That seems to be the status quo on this message board, and probably has been for a long time.

Others including me (OK, apparently mostly me), feel that such a practice has a tendancy to harm innocent people, who might not have as much knowledge about a given item as the experts here.

How does this effect you? Hardly at all. If you knowingly commit fraud, you're history.

If you do your best to research an item you intend to sell or trade, and present your items honestly as best you can, you have nothing to fear. Hopefully, anyone who spots an error in your description will give you the benefit of the doubt, and do you the courtesy of emailing you before they start a thread publically accusing you of fraud or deceipt. If not, hopefully someone will inform you, so you have a chance to defend yourself at or near the top of the thread, rather than way down the list of posts, or not at all.

Relax, and chip on!