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Technology Stocks : eBay - Superb Internet Business Model -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: stockvalinvestor who wrote (3244)	5/22/1999 11:36:00 AM
From: Lynn	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 7772

First, I want to be perfectly clear: I do not hold shares of EBAY now although I have been considering picking-up some shares for a while. Now I am going to hold off due to some concerns I have after taking a very careful look at eBay auctions over the past 2 months. Basically, I think down the line other auction sites, when they get more items up for auction (the likes of Amazon), are going to hurt eBay unless eBay: 1.) strengthens its requirements for signing-up so less people play games by having multiple userids to bid up their own auctions or offer things that do not exist; 2. Hires a lot more people to deal with problems reported to SafeHarbor or Fraud. Right now it takes eBay personnel 6-10 days to respond to even a serious problem according the the computer generated response one gets when sending something that needs attention. Everything is on a first come, first served basis. Personally, I do not think a report of selling child pornography should wait at the bottom of a pile until a _suspected_ shill bidding case is investigated. Basically, I do not think eBay's honor system, its set-up with the assumption most people are trustworthy works. For some auctions, fine. For others, especially anything that deals with computers, watch out. I don't know how people do it, but I found one person who appears to have 23 aliases, all with addresses at free e-mail web sites (like yahoo). At Amazon, in comparison, I have found none of these goings-on yet which I attribute to Amazon's sign-up requirement of sending a credit card, which they verify, no matter what one's e-mail address--people with an address at AOL have to send the same information as people who register using a hotmail address. No, I do not hold any shares of Amazon and I am not planning to buy any shares either. I am merely pointing out that an auction site, like Amazon, that offers honest sellers and bidders a greater sense of security than eBay does is going to take people away from eBay. Checking-out the seller (and some of the bidders) at eBay to make a determination if it is an above-board auction or not is just too much work. Feedback giving a bidder and seller a sense of the kind of person they are dealing with? Only if one takes the time to make sure the feedback is legitimate--I found one guy with 14 positive feedbacks and 1 negative. The only real, based on a transaction feedback was that of the negative person. Yes, this was reported--but more stringent sign-up requirements and verification of who a person claims to be would cut-down on this garbage which causes more work for bidders and sellers that eBay employees in the long-run (since the bidders/sellers have to do the research, send all the evidence)--and gets people like me to look outside eBay for certain kind of auctions. If eBay gets it act together, I shall consider picking up some share in the future. Now, just too many problems. In case you are wondering, yes, I did find someone selling under-age pornography while trying to verify if another person's feedback was real or phoney [it was phoney]. The message I sent about this should be looked at by eBay in another 6 days or so, way after the auctions are over. Lynn