EBay is an online auction site that was founded as AuctionWeb in San Jose in 1995 by Pierre Omidyar. AuctionWeb became eBay in 1997, and the rest is, of course, history. Millions of items which range from cars and computers to furniture and rare collectables are listed for auction, bid on, bought and sold every day. Anything that is not illegal (or prohibited or restricted by eBay's selling policy, such as firearms, drugs, tobacco) can be listed for sale or auction. It is a global garage, yard or car-boot sale that revolutionised the international market for collectibles by providing a mechanism to bring huge numbers of buyers and sellers together. It is also, however, a site where the unscrupulous find it easy to off-load counterfeit goods on the unwary, or to use ambiguous descriptions to sell sub-standard merchandise to the novice. EBay employs a complex system of fees, charging $0.20 to $80 dollars for a listing in the US and 2% to 8% of the final selling price. Additional revenue is provided by the selling fees from PayPal transactions, an on-line billing company that eBay acquired in exchange for $1.5 billion of its stock. The best protection against fraud and the aforementioned 'unscrupulous' is eBay's feedback system. On completion of a sale, the buyer and the seller both have the option to leave feedback comments about each other. They may rate this feedback as positive, negative or neutral.Referring to the feedback history of a seller on eBay is the only real way to ascertain if they are trustworthy or not, and any judgement must weigh risk against price. Making a decision of wether to buy/bid or not is further complicated by a culture where positive, but not necessarily honest, feedback is all important. People can be reluctant to be truthful in their feedback for fear of receiving negative feedback in retaliation.To cap it all, possibly the most frequent complaint against eBay is that the commissions it receives from large vendors make it slow to act against them in disputes. EBay has been and is involved in several high profile court cases. One example is alawsuit brought by the jeweller Tiffany & Co, who have accused eBay of profiting from the sale of counterfeit Tiffany goods. On a lighter note, some weird and wonderful items have appeared for sale on eBay: the country of New Zealand was auctioned from a starting price of $0.01 Australian Dollars until eBay pulled the plug, by which time the price was $3000; and a single cornflake sold for ¢1.20. To conclude, it must be said that the vast majority of 'eBayers' are honest buyers and sellers. Keep your wits about you and remember, buyer or seller, winner or loser, there is a certain someone who wins at every eBay auction.....
This abstract was checked by WhiteSmoke Solution. Learn More.