been taken over...it was a people's flea market, and an auction where if you were lucky you really could get an honest bargain, and it was a place for small, honest, new business.

But then the professional money makers came in and starting playing all those manipulative games...like repeating the stinking same product over and over again so you take up all your lunch hour seeing the same crap...or the reserve price, which as far as I'm concerned was designed to LURE people in with a low price which was so totally not real it could be nothing but a clear HUSTLE, as in criminally enticing the sucker.

Ebay became just another venue pandering to the sellers at the expense of the buyers, a little MINI Repugnant Reaganesque America, a little Potter's Town where them that got are them that get, and not only that, but if they can, they'd like to make the buyers as miserable as they can in the process.

Unfortunately, what Candoxx says is true. I joined eBay when it wsa fairly new and at first concentrated only on collectible interests. Of course, eventually I realized I was spending myself broke and got 'way more than I needed. But most of my sellers were ladies, polite, with excellent email communications, superb packing, and very prompt shipping.

After I quit chasing the increasingly pricey and obviously unnecessary collectibles, I branched out into other rather arcane areas of interest. I started running into men sellers who either were functional illiterates or saw no need for email at all. Packing was casual at best, shipping was whenever they got around to it and the experience was far less pleasant. I usually got what I'd won eventually, but it took forever and some items were damaged or ruined by careless packing.

About that time sniping (with professional software) became popular and I started losing more auctions because someone grabbed the item for 50¢ more in the last 5 seconds. I heard a lot of people left eBay then but I don't know if that was true or not. There was plenty of anger over it, and no question it hurt incremental bidding. I no longer bid on anything I wasn't fairly sure of getting and I didn't bid high for fear of being stuck with something I'd paid too much for. There was talk of eBay fixing the sniping problem by random ending times but nothing ever came of it. I just slowed down my bidding and buying.

After that came the next popular scam--the "handling" charge. While everyone knew that fuel costs had gone up, sellers who noticed bidding had dropped way off because of sniping began padding more of their expected take into the shipping & handling charge. UPS even made it easy for them by allowing them to add the handling to the actual UPS shipping charge while never disclosing the price breakdown to the buyer. So expensive shipping became even more expensive with the hidden handling charge.

I suppose neither sniping nor bloated shipping costs were deal-breakers because I continued to buy on eBay and still do occasionally. But I have become much more selective and both sniping and handling scams have left a real sour taste in my mouth for the whole eBay experience. I buy mostly what I cannot get locally or from other markets and only when I think the "total deal"--goods, price, shipping, handling make sense. A lot of auctions I would once have bid on, I simply pass over now because one or more of the numbers simply stink.

Added to that, eBay's cavalier "whatever goes wrong is not OUR fault" and you're really pretty much on your own. I did get refunds for some undelivered merchandise but since the refund doesn't come from any eBay or PayPal insurance, but is instead drawn directly from the seller's PayPal account, there is nothing to keep a seller from filing a non-paying bidder charge against you (and I had this happen) if you don't file until 45 days after the transaction. So even their "buyer protection" guarantee really isn't what it seems and settlements are always only at their discretion. If I didn't know that the top echelon at eBay had carted astonishing amounts of money out of the place I wouldn't be so bitter about their way of doing business. But we do know and the fact you're "on your own" really doesn't cut it since it's NOT a yard sale or a local auction where you can be assured of what you're getting and see it for what it is.

Between their poor treatment of sellers, high fees, and utter indifference to buyers, it's a wonder to me that anyone is left trying to trade on eBay. It really isn't what it used to be. Someone who ran a sharp and clean operation with reasonable fees could probably run them right out of business.

As for the individual who remarked about eBay's peculiar business model and critical procedural decisions being made purely in some sort of vacuum, I think it's like some religions--they haven't a clue, but they make it up to suit their purposes as they go along.

I don't know how much longer eBay will last. One can usually get merchandise cheaper from online stores (Amazon.com comes to mind) or even brick-and-mortar stores than on eBay. Plus it is usually legit as opposed to the creeps & fly-by-nighters that have infested the site. I know I've been a victim of counterfeit goods as have many others. A bargain is a bargain no more. Add to that vendors who have become greedy and want full mark-up, and it's a recipe for disaster.

Unfortunately, eBay has become so lax in enforcement of their own rules that, they permit for stuff to be sold, say for $1.00 and a s&h of $10.00, I guess to bypass the commission structure. So they have to raise their rates both out of greed and to cope with dishonest venndors, and everybody loses.

Success goes to people's heads and they forget how they got successful. Once on top, they stop listening to their customers and the downward spiraling starts.

I think this downward trend will claim many more victims, companies you can't even get in touch with.

When they go belly up, they will get no sympathy from me.

That's just about my experience. The only thing you didn't mention is the "one hidden flaw" syndrome. I have bought over 1500 things on eBay since 1999, and quite a few of them would arrive with something missing, or broken, or not working, that was relevant to why anyone would by the thing. Yet somehow the seller just forgot to mention it, or the pictures showed all sides of the thing except the one side with that big flaw on it.

The item I remember best was the bakelite radio with a middle sized crack in the back right side. (A crack makes a huge difference in the value of a collectible radio.) When I wrote the seller about it he swore it happened in shipping. Nope. If you look really close at one of his pictures, magnified, you could see it.

I posted elsewhere about the greed of eBay's managers. They are the worst! But quite a few sellers are chislers.

And yes, if you buy from a lady you will essentially always get good service. If you buy from a man you will get treated like crap maybe 5 percent of the time.