Pete,

I was addressing Jim directly. It's considered impolite to jump uninvited into someone else's argument, unless, of course, you're Irish. <g>

We were discussing eBay rule's against auction interference. I said "eBay has the choice of allowing users to protect the bidders, or setting up other ways of dealing with clearly fraudulent descriptions. I think eBay made the wiser choice."

Yes, I will own that statement. Please consider the entire context of my argument, rather than grabbing and quoting individual phrases, without also quoting the accompanying reasoning.

Given a choice between allowing users to email bidders over every perceived "fraudulant", "innacurate", "unfair" or "deceptive" auction descriptions, or setting up authorized prodecures to deal with these issues, I believe eBay made the wiser choice.

I believe that for two reasons:

1. I cannot imagine a set of rules that would allow auction interference in what you would consider to be "legitimate" circumstances, that would not also allow it in petty, frivilous, or downright mean spirited cases. Like I asked Jim, EXACTLY what should the rules be for interfering with another man's auctions?

Some here would be whipping out nasty emails every time they saw the adjective "rare" used in a case THEY considered innappropriate, and I assure you some sellers would not hesitate to point out to every bidder, in perpetuity, that a copeting seller had received even one single negative feedback comment, or ever had one unhappy customer.

According to Jim's reasoning (and your's I guess), when I used the word "rare" on that Cal Games chip a few weeks ago, you all should have been allowed to email the single bidder on that auction, and ALL my bidders, to warn them that I write innacurate descriptions!

No, allowing auction interference whenever the "interferer" feels it's justified would result in chaos, and real harm to the eBay community.

2. I believe the system eBay has put in place is as good as it can be, considering that NO system will please 100% of eBay users. eBay has been very effective in preventing all sorts of "fraud", and works to improve the system on a daily basis, and they have the same goal that we all have, they want a safe and secure trading environment for all users.

You and Jim seem more concerned that eBay will not recognize you as "experts" in the field of casino chips, and single out this one auction out of 4,000,000, and automatically take your word that the auction should be yanked. You say there is no Redwood Lodge, the seller says there is a Redwood Lodge, the seller clearly disclaims any collector value, and you're pizzed off because they refuse to invest the time to go read the archives, correspond with both you and the seller, probably multiple times, and end up infuriating one or both of you.

You know, this reminds me of growing up with three sisters. Rule #1 was "don't hit your sisters". So, they would constantly bait me, bring me almost to the point of hitting them, then go crying "Michael was going to hit me!!!!". I would try hard to explain that it was really their fault, not mine, and my parents consistently delivered "gutless" responses. "I'm sorry, Son, I didn't hear what she said, but don't hit your sisters, now go back and play, I'm on the phone".

This occurred maybe 1,000 times while growing up, and back then I hated my parents for being so gutless. From my perspective, I could not understand why they would be so unfair, obviously favoring the real troublemakers over me, and letting them get away with murder while constantly rebuffing my legitimate complaints.

Of course, I finally grew up.

With kids of my own, I realized that petty squabbles are just a part of the family landscape, and acting as judge to settle every little dispute just isn't possible, much less advisable.

Pete, this isn't FRAUD, this is a petty dispute between you and no one. This isn't a forged Monet, a counterfiet Lincoln signature, a fake Versace handbag. This is not a case of a seller auctioning thousands of dollars worth of goods and then absconding with the money. With 4,000,000 auction running at any given time, the best eBay can do with the thousands of complaints they must receive daily is a "triage" process, and focus their resources on the REAL threats to the community, not every trivial dispute that some user with an attitude thinks is important.

I bet the buyer is delighted with his purchase, he got 1,000 clay casino grade chips for well under the cost of new chips, and if he had any illusions about reselling them as collectibles, it's his own damn fault because the seller warned him. They buyer is not asking for you to champion his case, he doesn't even have a case! He's happy! Get over it!

So, back to my statement. Yes, given a choice between allowing auction interference, or setting up alternate ways of dealing with the multitudes of gripes, complaints, "wolf crys" and legitimate alerts that will come from a community of his size, I think eBay has chosen the best, and only, route.