Ebay follow up

I responded to Ebay's message with "yeah right; the object of Ebay is
to make money not help the buyer" and "no way they could've
'thoroughly' investigated in an hour.

Seems they did focus on my comment about the ***. They just responded
and said that was a feature. However, they will reopen the case if
another complaint comes in but this time just cannot prove it yet.
They said if more people complain, it'll be noted (apparently they
have kept my complaint).

It's not a lot but something. I still suspect that on cases where
they can see what's going on, they overlook it because of the money
made, or string it out.

What they really need is to fix that field in the complaint form; I'll
re-email them. I don't see what good hiding the ID's are. And as to
Barefoot's claim it's so that people can't warn others, that's not
true as you can certainly email them anyway.

Sue,

Barefoot's right... the new policy is intended to prevent 2nd chance
scammers from contacting the underbidders on high priced items. You're
incorrect when you say that you can still email them. I'd urge you to find
an ended high-dollar item and try to email the underbidders. You can't do
it. I can attest first hand that the fake 2nd chance offers had gotten
completely out of control before eBay instituted the ID masking. eBay HAD to
do something.

I can also tell you that eBay has some pretty sophisticated software that
matches IP numbers, personal info, etc. to detect shill bidders. Sellers
(including some big ones) are kicked off all the time for shill bidding.
eBay just doesn't go around announcing it so you don't realize it's
occuring. Don't get me wrong... shill bidding DOES still take place but eBay
has made it costlier and riskier to do so.

Lastly, I have to completely disagree with your sentiments that eBay is all
about protecting big sellers (i.e. cash cows) rather than buyers. This
simply is not the case. eBay has either kicked off, restricted or chased off
many of it's largest sellers, including recently it's largest seller
'bargainland'. eBay has also chased off some of its biggest sellers in the
autograph category including (stupidly) Todd Mueller autographs, the
categories biggest seller.

I think you're incorrectly taking your one small example of where you
disagreed with eBay's decision and extrapolating it (incorrectly) to the
site as a whole. There's much to bash eBay about but you certainly can't say
(at least not accurately) that they're protecting big sellers. The facts
simply don't bear that out.

-A



"Sue H" wrote in message
...
I responded to Ebay's message with "yeah right; the object of Ebay is
to make money not help the buyer" and "no way they could've
'thoroughly' investigated in an hour.

Seems they did focus on my comment about the ***. They just responded
and said that was a feature. However, they will reopen the case if
another complaint comes in but this time just cannot prove it yet.
They said if more people complain, it'll be noted (apparently they
have kept my complaint).

It's not a lot but something. I still suspect that on cases where
they can see what's going on, they overlook it because of the money
made, or string it out.

What they really need is to fix that field in the complaint form; I'll
re-email them. I don't see what good hiding the ID's are. And as to
Barefoot's claim it's so that people can't warn others, that's not
true as you can certainly email them anyway.

Couple things; first I just emailed one of these people the day I
first complained; so I don't know what you are talking about. I had to
fill out my ID, email and fill in a little box with numbers/letters.
It went through (I did not get a response from them though I did get
an automated email showing my message and that it was sent).
At least I think it was one of those (ended auction, he had left
negative feedback for the guy and I told him of my suspicions/though
now I am wondering if it wasn't one of the _ people ... there were a
lot of those too!)

2) the software I don't know about but the whole thing took less than
an hour. Yeah; right. Some THOROUGH investigation

3) They never have shown concern for the consumer on my end or I've
never encountered any "oh my, Ebay is so great" stories. I've
encountered a LOT of issues there and have emailed a few times about
different things. First response is a) automatic generated feedback
(it SHOCKED me they responded second time and used my name in the
header and it was more personal; that was a first). b) second
response (aside for this one) never comes. They rarely, if ever,
follow up with you. Did you make a difference? Seller banned? Seller
suspended? Seller warned? Dispute over feedback solved? An offer to
help you get your stuff you were ripped off? NOTHING.
c) the system is REALLY difficult to get into. They don't seem to
WANT people to complain ... do they? Average time to find an actual
link to "email" them or fill out something is unreal. Can take as
long as an hour to find where to go, what to fill out and do it.
Sometimes longer! Even if you are familiar, it's still a LONG
process. My guess is they do that for a couple reasons. One is so
people forget it and don't do it. The second is if they have too many
people complain, they have more work to do and need more help which
costs them too much money. Aren't I right here? d) by protecting
these people with masked ID's, you can't complain about them (well I
guess they might be able to figure out who it is on their end who
knows as that's not obvious; but we can't put it in the field to
complain about and that is something that needs to be fixed. They are
now aware of this problem; let's see if they fix it. Doubtful. Let's
take a bet right now okay? Let's put a post it note on this post and
at home and meet here in say 3 or 4 or 6 months from now and check
this out and see if I will be right or not) that's not consumer
friendly.

In addition, I've a friend who twice recently had Ebay problems with
feedback (someone leaving retalitory feedback) which also happened to
me and others I know and he had someone overcharge him (think that was
him) after the fact for shipping even though auction ended. And I
think we've all had the experience of totally getting "ripped off"
with not receiving items and Ebay only sends a generic automated
feedback to the people in their "dispute" system. It's all crap. The
message received is "we don't care about you and your little problem
so we sent this to placate you but really, you will still never get
your item nor see the seller punished; in essence, we will do
nothing".

And as for Todd, I've seen him not too long ago; as recently as
probably 4-6 weeks ago. When did he get booted? People complained
about him for a LONG time too and he was able to sell on there for
YEARS and I am sure same with others.

Private bidding etc supports sellers and in essence is MAINLY used by
forgers and unscrupulous people. Their little deeds like that and
masking the ID's lean MORE towards the bad than the good. How is THAT
a good thing?

Make no mistake. Recent articles and even that Ebay one hour special
on CNBC or MSNBC (think that's where I saw it a couple times) shows
that 90% of their improvements to their system are geared towards
these things:
searches (to make things easier to find, including now
misspelled words, bid assistant etc)
stores (to make checkout easier and seller features easier to
use)
promotions/gimmicks/contests (ebay now mails your home with
junk mail and sellers now send you unsolicited materials)
Special deals for listings (none for frequent buyers).


The places where improvements have NOT been made is the
Feedback system (they do have a new seller star system which does
NOTHING and they have not stopped retaliatory feedback).
Complaint system (still hard to get in, now doesn't even take
these masked ID's to complain about and nobody talks to you personally
unless it's huge or you have connections or are very savvy)
Nothing legal in place to make sure you are not scammed (still no
reimbursement and people are still not suspended or removed) and if
Mueller was removed, there are a TON more out there NOT removed
No response from people trying to help. Offerings of forming a
group to help with forgeries are gone unanswered. A couple people
have tried. I know someone here said they were in with Ebay to do
this, but I see no changes to be honest (Vero system is not that great
and doesn't help us, the consumer). Now, there are even official
items forged. A message from Dave Prowse (rep) recently informed me
that a CIV item had been forged. Sure enough, I went in and though
HIS item was gone, there was even a forged Temeura Morrison (who the
heck would fake him as he's EASY to get and cheap). Sad.

They hold these consumer groups to get feedback and help Ebay. Mostly,
it's comprised of sellers. The "consumer" end is small and even on
the show they had showing them sitting around the table shooting
ideas, you see, the sellers are the ones they are paying attention to
and writing on the white board (any suggestion to make it easier,
faster, better to the bottom line). Any suggestion to the negative is
not even talked about! It comes on occasionally; go to TIVO and do a
search/save thing for Ebay and it'll tape for you next time it's on.

It's amazing to me how the changes that come seem to be geared toward
the end line; money. Do a MSNBC search for Ebay articles and read the
past two years worth of articles where Ebay is changing and then come
back and tell me they are not geared to the seller/or the all mighty
bottom line to them. If you can find material that is on a national
site to prove me wrong, I'll be happy to read it.






On Fri, 26 Oct 2007 14:05:32 GMT, "Auto Cop"
wrote:

Sue,

Barefoot's right... the new policy is intended to prevent 2nd chance
scammers from contacting the underbidders on high priced items. You're
incorrect when you say that you can still email them. I'd urge you to find
an ended high-dollar item and try to email the underbidders. You can't do
it. I can attest first hand that the fake 2nd chance offers had gotten
completely out of control before eBay instituted the ID masking. eBay HAD to
do something.

I can also tell you that eBay has some pretty sophisticated software that
matches IP numbers, personal info, etc. to detect shill bidders. Sellers
(including some big ones) are kicked off all the time for shill bidding.
eBay just doesn't go around announcing it so you don't realize it's
occuring. Don't get me wrong... shill bidding DOES still take place but eBay
has made it costlier and riskier to do so.

Lastly, I have to completely disagree with your sentiments that eBay is all
about protecting big sellers (i.e. cash cows) rather than buyers. This
simply is not the case. eBay has either kicked off, restricted or chased off
many of it's largest sellers, including recently it's largest seller
'bargainland'. eBay has also chased off some of its biggest sellers in the
autograph category including (stupidly) Todd Mueller autographs, the
categories biggest seller.

I think you're incorrectly taking your one small example of where you
disagreed with eBay's decision and extrapolating it (incorrectly) to the
site as a whole. There's much to bash eBay about but you certainly can't say
(at least not accurately) that they're protecting big sellers. The facts
simply don't bear that out.

-A



"Sue H" wrote in message
.. .
I responded to Ebay's message with "yeah right; the object of Ebay is
to make money not help the buyer" and "no way they could've
'thoroughly' investigated in an hour.

Seems they did focus on my comment about the ***. They just responded
and said that was a feature. However, they will reopen the case if
another complaint comes in but this time just cannot prove it yet.
They said if more people complain, it'll be noted (apparently they
have kept my complaint).

It's not a lot but something. I still suspect that on cases where
they can see what's going on, they overlook it because of the money
made, or string it out.

What they really need is to fix that field in the complaint form; I'll
re-email them. I don't see what good hiding the ID's are. And as to
Barefoot's claim it's so that people can't warn others, that's not
true as you can certainly email them anyway.

Sue,

Many of the issues you raised (fraudulent sellers, retaliatory FB, etc.) are
simply not problems that can be fixed with a "magic bullet". There are too
many gray areas here. For example, what may be retaliatory one person you
may be just a seller or buyer's way of expressing that the transaction
wasn't acceptable for them either. How in the world is eBay supposed to
filter through each and every supposed example of retaliatory FB and
arbitrate that. That just be ridiculously time consuming and cost
prohibitive and therefore unrealistic. No one ever thinks negative feedback
is justified when they receive it.

I can tell you for a fact that eBay execs have told a group of their biggest
sellers straight up that they believe all sellers are replaceable; buyers
are not. From the top down at eBay, they operate under this theory. Now,
that may not mean that eBay can/will eliminate every fraudster, address
every whim or satisfy every buyer by any means. But it does mean that in its
overall policy, eBay would rather err on the side of buyers.

Regarding the new star feedback system, you're incorrect that it's not any
different than the old system. eBay is using it (and will be using it even
more dramatically in the future) to suspend and/or restrict sellers with low
star ratings.

You mentioned search... eBay just instituted a new search that severely
penalizes sellers who don't specify a S/H amount by putting their items at
the bottom of search. Additionally, they will soon be implementing a policy
that will put sellers with low FB and star ratings lower in search. These
are pro-buyer policies.

Regarding the "consumer groups", again, it's incorrect to say they're mostly
made up of sellers. How do I know? Because these consumer groups are called
Voices and I'm a member. Voices is evenly split between buyers and sellers
and the sellers are segmented into all different sized sellers. My
particular group that was flown out to San Jose consisted of 5 buyers and 4
sellers (one other seller had to back out at the last minute due to a family
emergency). Out of the four sellers, one was a "big" seller (relatively
speaking) one was a "medium" seller and two were small hobby sellers who
also were buyers. The vast majority of the issues raised were "buyer" issues
and most of the seller issues were site "tweeks". In other words, they
weren't issues of money.

Additionally, Voices is an ongoing program that includes many weekly
conference calls, emails, a chat board, etc. Who do you think has the most
time to participate in these things? I'll give you a hint... it's not
sellers; especially not large ones. Most of the input on these things comes
from buyers not sellers.

As a member, I know what policies are coming down the pike months before
they happen. For quite some time now, the focus has been on getting the
fraudulent sellers and poorer performing sellers off the site. Almost every
recent new policy and almost every upcoming one is targeted to that goal.
BTW, this is costing eBay A LOT. Listings are dropping for the first time
ever and much of it is due to the fact that so many sellers are being kicked
off, suspended and restricted. They're actually having to look at fee cuts
to get the existing sellers to list more to make up for it.

Again, eBay just kicked off Bargainland... their biggest seller. Again,
these things are happening without fanfare. Just because you are not reading
them in the New York Times doesn't mean they aren't occuring.

This brings me to your next point... you want eBay to tell you what action
they take against a particular seller. Well, unfortunately they can't do
that. There are legal privacy issues that eBay must abide by... they have no
choice.

Next, the shilling software. The shilling software operates even when there
are no specific complaints. Many sellers are kicked off for shilling without
ever having a single complaint filed against them. Some are kicked off
improperly and have to fight through eBay red tape for weeks to be
reinstated. Again, eBay errs on the side of buyers here.

Regarding masking, I know you don't like it and you feel it makes it easier
to shill. To an extent, I actually share your concern. However, thousands of
eBayers were being ripped off by fake 2nd second chance offers on high
priced items. Many of these people lost thousands of dollars. I think you'd
agree that something had to be done to protect these people. Possible
solutions were kicked around for nearly two years before ebay implemented
masking. No one, including eBay themselves, was thrilled with the solution
but it seemed to be the best one. It continues to be tweeked.

Regarding Todd, he wasn't kicked off... he was chased off. eBay's stupid
PSA/DNA quick opinion policy was the culprit. The worthless quick opinions
found several of his items were not authentic and he was briefly suspended.
He knew they were authentic and sent them in for full opinions... all of
them passed. It cost him so much grief (and money), he moved his entire
business off of eBay. He had a positive FB rating of 99.5% and
tens-of-thousands of satisfied customers, so if you think he was one of the
problem sellers, we'll have to agree to disagree.

Again, as with any big business there is much to criticize about eBay. That
criticism should be accurate and factual, though. Stating that eBay favors
sellers over buyers may have been accurate at one time, but it definitely
isn't now and hasn't been for awhile.

-A

Sue,

I've been scanning through these eBay posts and just wanted to say a
few things.

Just like anything else in this world, there are pros and cons.

I've been on both sides of the eBay world and still am. You just make
the best of the changes that you can or go somewhere else.

Some of the issues you talk about are correct, but others are not.

As a seller, we have to mind our p's and q's both with listings and
our buyers. Otherwise, eBay takes our listings off, and after so many
offenses, suspends us. Sometimes without notice or explanation.

With the buyers, feedback is very important. After all, that's what we
look at when we want to buy something, right? As sellers we're
subjected to the scrutiny of our buyers whether it's true or not. They
can say whatever they want. Sellers in general HATE the new feedback
system! Why? Because buyers get to grade us on everything to do with
the sale. Regardless of whether it's in our power or not. For
instance, shipping and handling charges and shipping time. I charge a
very low amount for handling on my auctions. It does not even come
close to time or fees involved. Considering the foundation that eBay
was built on. The buyer is buying something at a bargain so they pay
shipping costs. Well, that involves a LOT more than the cost of the
postage. Anyway, the lowest score on my feedback is shipping and
handling costs. I am up front and honest about my handling on my
listings, and anyone can see, for instance that a postcard would cost .
41 cents to send, but I charge $1.00. You don't just stick it in the
envelope, address it, lick it shut, and send it off. There is a lot of
care and expense involved in making sure the package gets to the buyer
securely.

Yes, there are sellers out there that jack up the shipping to cover
way more than their costs. But, obviously people are buying from them
or they wouldn't do it. Just don't buy from them! Do you go into a
store and say, what is the price of this without shipping and
handling? Do you think the items you buy from a store don't have that
cost attached somewhere down the line? A person makes the choice to
buy something from someone when you know before hand that it's going
to be high, and then complains about it?

eBay does have a very strict policy on shill bidding. I've known quite
a few sellers who have been busted. Either by having their spouses
from another computer bid, or they themselves having another user name
on another computer bidding. eBay takes it VERY seriously, and I
believe them if they've told you they've checked it out and it's
clean. As mentioned previously, they have ways. MOVE ON!

Good Lord, there are so many other ways to buy things in this world,
why spend your time in a place that makes you miserable?

I could, quite frankly, go on and on about the injustices and the
grief sellers and buyers, go through on eBay. And, believe me, there
is a lot! The bottom line is, is that I can still work and shop in my
jammies, not pay overhead, have a pretty flexible schedule, and be
home for my family. And, if I don't like it, I can go somewhere
else.........

~Renee'~


On Oct 26, 11:25 am, "Auto Cop" wrote:
Sue,

Many of the issues you raised (fraudulent sellers, retaliatory FB, etc.) are
simply not problems that can be fixed with a "magic bullet". There are too
many gray areas here. For example, what may be retaliatory one person you
may be just a seller or buyer's way of expressing that the transaction
wasn't acceptable for them either. How in the world is eBay supposed to
filter through each and every supposed example of retaliatory FB and
arbitrate that. That just be ridiculously time consuming and cost
prohibitive and therefore unrealistic. No one ever thinks negative feedback
is justified when they receive it.

I can tell you for a fact that eBay execs have told a group of their biggest
sellers straight up that they believe all sellers are replaceable; buyers
are not. From the top down at eBay, they operate under this theory. Now,
that may not mean that eBay can/will eliminate every fraudster, address
every whim or satisfy every buyer by any means. But it does mean that in its
overall policy, eBay would rather err on the side of buyers.

Regarding the new star feedback system, you're incorrect that it's not any
different than the old system. eBay is using it (and will be using it even
more dramatically in the future) to suspend and/or restrict sellers with low
star ratings.

You mentioned search... eBay just instituted a new search that severely
penalizes sellers who don't specify a S/H amount by putting their items at
the bottom of search. Additionally, they will soon be implementing a policy
that will put sellers with low FB and star ratings lower in search. These
are pro-buyer policies.

Regarding the "consumer groups", again, it's incorrect to say they're mostly
made up of sellers. How do I know? Because these consumer groups are called
Voices and I'm a member. Voices is evenly split between buyers and sellers
and the sellers are segmented into all different sized sellers. My
particular group that was flown out to San Jose consisted of 5 buyers and 4
sellers (one other seller had to back out at the last minute due to a family
emergency). Out of the four sellers, one was a "big" seller (relatively
speaking) one was a "medium" seller and two were small hobby sellers who
also were buyers. The vast majority of the issues raised were "buyer" issues
and most of the seller issues were site "tweeks". In other words, they
weren't issues of money.

Additionally, Voices is an ongoing program that includes many weekly
conference calls, emails, a chat board, etc. Who do you think has the most
time to participate in these things? I'll give you a hint... it's not
sellers; especially not large ones. Most of the input on these things comes
from buyers not sellers.

As a member, I know what policies are coming down the pike months before
they happen. For quite some time now, the focus has been on getting the
fraudulent sellers and poorer performing sellers off the site. Almost every
recent new policy and almost every upcoming one is targeted to that goal.
BTW, this is costing eBay A LOT. Listings are dropping for the first time
ever and much of it is due to the fact that so many sellers are being kicked
off, suspended and restricted. They're actually having to look at fee cuts
to get the existing sellers to list more to make up for it.

Again, eBay just kicked off Bargainland... their biggest seller. Again,
these things are happening without fanfare. Just because you are not reading
them in the New York Times doesn't mean they aren't occuring.

This brings me to your next point... you want eBay to tell you what action
they take against a particular seller. Well, unfortunately they can't do
that. There are legal privacy issues that eBay must abide by... they have no
choice.

Next, the shilling software. The shilling software operates even when there
are no specific complaints. Many sellers are kicked off for shilling without
ever having a single complaint filed against them. Some are kicked off
improperly and have to fight through eBay red tape for weeks to be
reinstated. Again, eBay errs on the side of buyers here.

Regarding masking, I know you don't like it and you feel it makes it easier
to shill. To an extent, I actually share your concern. However, thousands of
eBayers were being ripped off by fake 2nd second chance offers on high
priced items. Many of these people lost thousands of dollars. I think you'd
agree that something had to be done to protect these people. Possible
solutions were kicked around for nearly two years before ebay implemented
masking. No one, including eBay themselves, was thrilled with the solution
but it seemed to be the best one. It continues to be tweeked.

Regarding Todd, he wasn't kicked off... he was chased off. eBay's stupid
PSA/DNA quick opinion policy was the culprit. The worthless quick opinions
found several of his items were not authentic and he was briefly suspended.
He knew they were authentic and sent them in for full opinions... all of
them passed. It cost him so much grief (and money), he moved his entire
business off of eBay. He had a positive FB rating of 99.5% and
tens-of-thousands of satisfied customers, so if you think he was one of the
problem sellers, we'll have to agree to disagree.

Again, as with any big business there is much to criticize about eBay. That
criticism should be accurate and factual, though. Stating that eBay favors
sellers over buyers may have been accurate at one time, but it definitely
isn't now and hasn't been for awhile.

-A

to be honest...this whole complaint...you can show her PRECISELY the
policies that ebay has, right in sue's face...and somehow you're wrong
and she's right...
i tried to tell her, without going in to all that (and not knowing all
this either), and all i got was a bunch of slander and lies...

and i'll go one better on the ebay/psa dna policy (another thing she
complained about)...not only can you get an item kicked off with the
"quick opinion" policy...but if an item was deemed "not authentic,"
ebay can, and most often will, cancel EVERY AUCTION. not only that,
but also bar you from selling autographs on their site unless every
item you sell is authenticated by one of their pre approved
authenticators (obviously, psa dna is the #1 company they rely on)...

and how do i know, i recently had a customer have this happen with a
harry potter poster i sold her...and we had to get it psa dna'd...
in an attempt to protect my customer, i used my source at psa to make
sure that EVERY ITEM SHE SELLS IS AUTHENTICATED...which means over
2000 items at this point. and on top of that, i'm psa'ing almost
everything else i have as well. large or small item...and everything
i've sent in has passed...
now my customer is in the posistion of having to psa everything..she's
not happy about it. it's cost prohibitive, for the most part...but she
re sold that harry potter poster for over $3000. and when i talked to
a higher up about the harry potter poster and why it didn't pass, it
ended up that they just didn't see the daniel radcliffe autograph
really clear when they made the quick opinion, but once they saw it up
close, they had a different opinion and it was my belief that several
authenticators at psa took a look at it.
now here's the kicker. my customer, when she did finally get a hold of
a person at ebay on the phone, was told that in the future yo will
have to have some sort of certification number from their pre approved
authentication houses to even sell an autograph on ebay. and that's
supposed to be coming soon (but it's something that i've heard for
years)...so now, i offer, to my customers, the opporitunity to get the
stuff that i sell, psa dna authenticated (because that's the most
important according to ebay)..

i'm sure sue will brush this off...and i'll tell her again, OTHER THAN
THIS BOARD, I'VE NEVER BEEN ACCUSED OF ANY FORGING...and it's all by
people she knows or people that post once and run away, only to come
back with another fake name tomorrow..
and yes, i did use this as an opporitunity to talk about my business,
but it all ties in anyway, and it's more than appropriate.
m

and how do i know, i recently had a customer have this happen with a
harry potter poster i sold her...and we had to get it psa dna'd...
in an attempt to protect my customer, i used my source at psa to make
sure that EVERY ITEM SHE SELLS IS AUTHENTICATED...which means over
2000 items at this point. and on top of that, i'm psa'ing almost
everything else i have as well. large or small item...and everything
i've sent in has passed...


............and the people have spoken... http://xrl.us/7r3o

MrB

...........and the people have spoken...http://xrl.us/7r3o

MrB

why, because my customer got $3 grand for a poster that she wouldn't
have sold for $500 without it? that doesn't make sense...
your link doesn't make sense either...bunch of people who say "i
wouldn't buy unless it's steiner or psa dna'd?" what are you trying to
say???

i do see the couple of posts where people send in stuff and it doesn't
pass even though they got it themselves. but that's going to happen, i
guess...that's what most of the link you sent, was for.
m

by the way...10 complaints means nothing in the overall scheme of the
entire autograph collecting universe...
psa dna gets bad grades from the better business bureau because people
have been buying autographs for 20 years thinking the stuff is real,
and it was deemed not authentic. so that person, instead of
complaining to the source, complains to the bbb...and you don't have
to be a member of the bbb anymore anyway...
and all those complaints about they only taking stuff from "known
associates", well, every other authentication house has the same
complaints rolling about them too...

look, i'm not entirely happy that it comes to having to take things to
psa or gai or jsa (who, by the way, has almost no authority and has
lost a lot of his business that he used to have with psa and if you
look the three of them up on ebay- just punch in psa dna or james
spence without putting in anything else- you'll usually see that jsa
has the stuff that sells for less money or has no bids at all)...but
the bottom line is, and i hate to say it...your word, my word anyone's
word, doesn't matter. it's not worth it anymore...no one takes our
word anymore...except the small minority of people who are our friends
or regular associates....but times are so bad in the autograph world
that at least SOMETHING helps people to sell their product other than
just "i got this myself." sadly, a lot of people say they got
something themselves for the simple fact that they think this will
change an authenticator's mind. they didn't get it themselves, they
just want it to pass. what can you do?
and there's all sorts of wild rumors about steiner, autographworld,
psa dna etc...that are just rumors (they could be true) but the fact
of the matter is, a lot of those "complaints" that you just showed are
in the vein of," i heard that they do this...or this..." not a bunch
of "it happened to me" type stories...and until you really STOP
listening to third party gibberish and STOP trying to pass that on as
an authentic story and only listen to the "it happened to me" stories
(in this type of instance, not in general) then you really don't know
the story...
so the people haven't spoken, they passed along "i heard this..."
stories...that's is neither fact or opinion.
sorry.
m

I've said it before, but I still don't like the idea of paying someone for
an opinion that has a high probability of being erroneous. If PSA, Steiner,
the bum on the corner, whatever claims to be an expert in authentication,
then they should give a guarantee. No, not that worthless COA. I'm talking
about a guarantee of their work. The BS I read on the Ebay link about "I'd
rather PSA to say it's not real" doesn't float. IF PSA can NOT 100%
guarantee that the autograph is real or not, then they should refund the
money that the customer paid, minus s/h fees. This is especially true if
the customer knows for a fact that it's legit. Any other legit company of
any honesty will not take the customer's money if they can't do the work
properly. If a house painter does a house, but only partially, then they
should not be expected to be paid. If a grounds keeper mows only half a
yard, they don't get paid for the work. Why should PSA expect to get paid
for a wishy washy "It might or might not be real" version of an
"authentication"? Will PSA refund the customer's money if one of their peer
companies proves that the autograph that they denounced turns out to be
legit simply because PSA did not know for sure?

Don't take this as a "bashing" to you. I am a concerned collector that
simply wants to know the facts. This is what any concerned potential client
of ANY company will, and do, ask beforehand.

--


Mike
Gummby3
-= Star Collector =-
www.star-collector.net


"barefoot" wrote in message
ups.com...
by the way...10 complaints means nothing in the overall scheme of the
entire autograph collecting universe...
8 SNIP 8