eBay sellers

[William Donzelli]

> So ... you trust us enough to take our money, but you don't trust us.

The percentage of crooked and dishonest (and just plain stupid) buyers
on Ebay is far too uncomfortable. Ebay buyers generally often liken
themselves to gleaming polished white marble pillars of truth and
justice in the online market. They are not. Ebay does not provide much
protection anymore. Sellers must protect themselves.

> How does the intention behind the message alter the veracity of the message?

We don't know - it is generally a case by case thing. Sometimes fraud
is *really* obvious, like when a buyer sends a correction that is
clearly wrong, and literally states that the asking price is too high
because of the "mistake".

> Do you put any comments on the listing of "this description is best
> effort" or "buyer is responsible for accuracy"?

Do you think anyone reads Terms of Sale? Seriously? Hell, I get buyers
that don't even read the descriptions!

> What constitutes "a bunch of research time"?  1 minute?  5 minutes?
> More time than it took to publish the listing?

Maybe. Some of us are very busy, and need every 10 minute chunk of
time. Perhaps the ten minutes taken up doing research is not worth as
much as those same ten minutes listing another item.

> Is there something that random people submitting corrections can do to
> make it easier for you such that you are more likely to accept the
> correction and update the listing accordingly?

Certainly. Citations. Passing a URL through the Ebay system is
trickly, to say the least, but leave an obvious pointer, like "Check
this document 123-456-78 in bitsavers, page 26".

--
Will