On Mar 10, 2006, at 6:44 PM, Robert Wright wrote: > It would certainly improve eBay as a whole and make bidders feel > safer, > increasing collecting traffic and awareness. eBay could also > advertise the > sentinels' involvement, which might cut down on fraud listings to > begin > with. It would also dispose of any liability since any > interference would > come from the sales broker itself instead of individual > collectors. And > eBay would only need to investigate, not necessarily interfere.
Here's the problem. eBay is not an auction house, so doesn't need to (and can't) do due diligence on each auction item to make sure each item hasn't been stolen, is a fake, or just plain doesn't exist. They would never sanction volunteer "sentinels" (why does that make me think of "The Matrix?"). They do, in my opinion, have an inadequate mechanism to report fraudulent auctions. I'd like to see a "report this auction" button next to the bid button. It would also be nice if eBay provided an escrow service through PayPal. Any way you look at it, it still boils down to being your responsibility. http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/pubs/online/auctions.htm Loran
