Hi.  My name is David and I live in Albuquerque, NM.  I have been online since 1980 with my first Osborne CP/M luggable and a 150 baud, acoustic coupled modem.  I have used eBay since 2000.  Before starting my eBay business, I had several manufacturing, wholesale and retail businesses starting with a very small business making tube type guitar amps and speaker cabinets when I was in high-school.  Later, after being drafted and serving in the Army, I went on to start a chain of video stores in 1978; then a record store, hi-fi shop, satellite TV store (selling those 10' and 12' dishes in the early 80s) and a software and computer store. 

Both as a buyer and a seller, I like eBay and enjoy the huge offering of goods and the large audience of active buyers.  Buying and selling on eBay isn't really an auction, it is more of a garage sale or flea market with a set closing time for every item offered for sale and a little information available for both buyers and sellers to investigate each other before striking a deal.  For those reasons, I usually try to list my merchandise with buy-it-now prices and occasional make-offer options.  A real auction has no set time limit, continues taking offers until there are no more buyers willing to raise their bids and almost without any recourse available to buyers or sellers.  Dealing here has many advantages for buyers, but it also allows unscrupulous sellers to cheat people and for avaricious, aggressive sellers to bend all the rules to the breaking point without much that honest, conscientious sellers can do about it.  I've seen very little desire nor action on eBay's part to nail the cheats, even when given detailed information as to who they were and how they were cheating. 

The feedback posted for buyers and sellers can be helpful, but it can also be deceptive.  The new, 5 star format, may help in the long run, but it can also be manipulated when there have been only a few ratings posted.  For example, I sold an expensive coffee maker described as not working and in need of repair.  Retail was $129 and my selling price was $9.95.  My shipping costs were $3.00 higher than I charged the buyer.  The buyer posted one star ratings in 3 categories because he/she was wishing that the coffee maker was in working condition and that I just didn't know how to use it.  The way it is, there is no way for me to respond to the undeserved low ratings on that sale.  One of the most common  complaints about sellers here on eBay is that they charge too much for shipping.  I know that from my own experience as a buyer here.  On electronics items in particular, sellers more often than not, charge 500-600% and more over their real shipping costs.  I am determined to not pad my bills by overcharging for shipping and that costs me about 11% out of pocket on my shipping costs each year.  I have received less than 5 star ratings for shipping charges on items that the shipping was free.  

Although the single line of text eBay offers in the feedback lists can tell a little about why a rating was posted and deserved, that sparse description is far short of the space needed to fully explain a particular rating that falls outside the norm.  For example; I sold a rare receiver for about half the going rate for that model on a make-offer sale.  After about 6 days, the buyer started emailing me repeatedly looking for his package.  I gave him all the tracking info and even scanned the UPS receipt with the description of the item and the tracking info and did all the tracking available to me.  After 10 days, UPS declared that the package had been delivered.  Unfortunately, the delivery address and the delivered weight were not even close to what my UPS receipt said.  UPS tried to wash their hands of the matter declaring that their delivery receipt absolved them of any and all claims.  The customer was panicking by this time and I gave him a refund via PayPal while I investigated.  After 2 months, a LOT of emails, a lot of phone calls and a lot of visits to the UPS shrinkage department, it was determined that two packages ended up with the exact same tracking number.  Since the other package was delivered first, my package was 'lost in the system' according to UPS.  I eventually got a refund on the package three more months later, but not from UPS.  The Staples/UPS Store manager felt that I was getting the run around from UPS and cut me a check from the store account.   The eBay buyer had been paid for the item 5 months earlier and he should have had a positive feedback posted for me.  Well, obviously he posted a negative or I wouldn't be rehashing this whole tale for you.  That's right, he posted a negative.  All I had room to post in my reply was that UPS lost his package, he received a full refund (including shipping charges) and I had no control over UPS.  So he replies back that I was running some kind of scam and that I never shipped his receiver in the first place.  Now to anyone with two brain cells, he was just acting like an idiot.  I've been on eBay for 7 years, made well over 5,000 sales and never had any claims that I tried to scam anyone over anything.  You tell me - How is it possible to scam a person who got a complete refund via PayPal?  

One continuing gripe I have about eBay is their arcane, vague, arbitrary and capricious policies concerning items that banned from listing here.  I have had more than 5 listings jerked off-line for being against the rules and 4 of those were later determined to have been 'legal' all along.  EBay's response after zapping the lisitings and later finding them legit?  "Oh, we're sorry.  You can relist them after all."  Of course by then every trace of the listings and their associated photos have been abolished from the galaxy.    

English is my first language, so you won't have any trouble communicating with me.  Being online 12-16 hours a day, I get to all requests, questions and e-mails very quickly.  I dislike, intensely, third-party check-out systems and scrupulously avoid buying from anyone using them.  My other major peeve on eBay are the listings that have teeny, fuzzy or stock photos of the product being offered and people who use the childish fonts, huge fonts and fonts that change color 8 times on a page.  The people who try to cover every conceivable contingency with a 2,000 word thesis of their rules and regulations for doing business also give me a pain, so I keep my 'rules' to a bare minimum.