Philip Cohen

Skype's Legal Drama Ends: It's Time to Start Innovating

Leftfield,

Quote: "They have been kicking small sellers off the site for a year now to reduce their workforce."

Actually, I thought it was the exact opposite. They have had to reduce their workforce to lower outgoings (to protect profits) because of the reduction in revenue because "they have been kicking small sellers off the site".

But what good will Skype's independence do for the rapidly-going-down-hill eBay marketplace?

The eBay Ad Campaign Has Begun: Will It Help?

Hey eBay+++,

Spend a little time looking at the "Completed listings" of some professional sellers and you will most likely see very few islets of green in the great oceans of red. ...

And of those that are selling, they are probably making good use of "buyer did not pay".

eBay's PayPal X Platform Could Drive an Increase in Transactions

eBay's PayPal X Platform won't drive an increase in transactions on the eBay Marketplace: it's continuing its journey down the toilet.

Where is the “eBafia Don” taking eBay?
www.auctionbytes.com/f...

The eBay Ad Campaign Has Begun: Will It Help?

Hey, eBay stooge, I feel hurt, you haven't yet commented on my earlier post; cat got your tongue?

"Where’s the “Ho Ho Ho” taking eBay?"
www.auctionbytes.com/f...

The eBay Ad Campaign Has Begun: Will It Help?

Why is the “Ho Ho Ho” destroying eBay?

Well, actually, he’s not trying to destroy eBay, in his peculiar way, he’s trying to save eBay.

The “eBafia Don” is just smart enough to know that eBay is little more than a “house of cards” that could one day be found by a court in some land to be the criminal organisation that I (and many others) believe it to be, and as a result of such finding the “eBay House of Cards” will likely then be blown down by some governmental consumer affairs regulator—if there is one out there that is actually interested in doing the job it is charged with doing—protecting we simple peasants from such unscrupulous commercial traders.

I say criminal organisation because it can be clearly demonstrated that eBay knowingly facilitates, indeed aids and abets before and after the fact, the defrauding of consumers by the many unscrupulous shill bidding professional sellers that now infest eBay, and in so doing eBay profits from the higher “final valuation fees” that result from such criminal activities.

As a reinforcement of that contention it can be clearly demonstrated that, contrary to eBay’s claims, eBay has no “proactive” nor truly “sophisticated” tools for the proactive detection of such criminal activity. Such activities not detected and reported by users go undetected, period. The only actions taken by eBay are re-actions to user reports. Users have to do the job eBay falsely claims to be doing, but with both hands tied behind their backs (by eBay).

eBay even denies that “shill bidding” fraud is a problem on eBay auctions and indeed they further deceive consumers by claiming that their auction platform is “as secure as any such platform can be”. It is clearly not secure, and it is nowhere as secure as it could be, and eBay knows it, and consumers should not be misinformed by them of this fact.

The probability is that eBay cannot afford to effectively police shill bidding on its auctions lest it devastate the many unscrupulous professional sellers from whom, I suspect, it receives a great deal of its revenue.

The Ho is trying to downplay auctions because he well knows that eBay’s auction system is so open to abuse by unscrupulous sellers that long ago some court should have served notice on eBay to cease the conducting of such “clunky” open-to-abuse auctions, or at least supply the transparency that would give genuine buyers the opportunity of better protecting themselves from the many unscrupulous shill-bidding professional sellers laying in wait for them.

eBay has done just the opposite. Rather than make any attempt at fixing the auction system or making the process more transparent, the Don has introduced a system of masked bidding aliases that serves no purpose other than to further lessen the transparency of the auction bidding process. In the past, the naive cheat had to resort to the obviously devious seller-selected “private listing” auction (and many naïve shill-bidding sellers still do use it), a mechanism that serves no other purpose than as a hide for shill bidders. Experienced eBayers know to avoid, like the plague, those sellers who use “private listing” auctions for being the auction cheats that they most probably are.

On the UK site the form of bidder masking it is even less transparent than in the rest of the eBay world. The masked alias used there (“Bidder x”) gives sophisticated shill bidders free reign with absolutely no fear of detection by users; the UK cheat no longer needs to resort to “eBay’s classic shill bidders’ tool”, the “private listing” auction.

But, rather than attempt to do anything about the broken and abused auction system, the Ho apparently had the idea that he could change eBay into something other than what eBay is (or used to be). His assumption was clearly wrong, as the continuing falls in revenues and profits from the eBay Marketplaces periodically reaffirm.

Why is this destruction of eBay continuing? Understand one thing, the executive management and board of directors of eBay are concerned about only one thing, themselves. (Is it any different anywhere in the “for profit” world?). Having chosen the wrong course, these latter-day Captain Queegs are apparently intellectually incapable of recognising the error of the many bad decisions that have been made in recent years and, as a consequence, eBay continues on its journey down the sewer, no doubt soon to reach the even rougher waters of the big ocean.

And that is a real shame.

PS: Maybe Meg is not so dumb; she’s passed the poisoned chalice to the Don and has taken off running—with the money. The real test of her intelligence will be whether or not she has also dumped (if not contracted to do otherwise) her eBay stock for something more secure instead …

eBay Set to Launch New Ad Campaign

For all the eBay “buyers” who are still trying to find a bargain on eBay and are (hopefully) agile enough to avoid all the shill-bidding professional sellers that now infest eBay, eBay recently touted two Diamond/Titanium PowerSellers as major success stories of selling on eBay. They apparently could not find any scrupulous sellers (or simply did not bother to look). An analysis of bidding patterns on these two sellers’ auctions suggests that they are probably both habitual shill bidders. A full comment thereon at:
www.auctionbytes.com/f...

And “eBay is turning around” (and around, and around)? Take a look at the very few islets of green (ie, shilled auctions and (pseudo?) Best Offer “sales”) in the ocean of "blood" in the completed listings for one of these sellers, at:
completed.shop.ebay.co...

eBay needs more that a new ad campaign, it needs a new executive committee, one that has some understanding of marketing and just what is (was) the eBay marketplace. The currents incumbents clearly have not got a clue and are quite deservedly continuing their journey down the sewer; undoubtedly, soon to reach the even rougher waters of the ocean ...

Shoppers to Spend $400 Million on eBay Using Its iPhone App

The Diamond PowerSellers are doing very well on eBay too, so says eBay ...

How to become an eBay Diamond PowerSeller—the unscrupulous eBay way, at
www.auctionbytes.com/f...

And I'm nor a disgruntled eBay seller, I'm a disgruntled eBay buyer ...

Earning Recaps: Yahoo, Microsoft, eBay, UPS, Amazon

Re eBay: Hang on, if, since the introduction of masked bidding IDs, every one of the many unscrupulous sellers on eBay now has 10-20 shill bidding IDs, that increase in "active users" should be a lot more than (only) 2%; methinks there has probably been a real decrease in genuine users. Face facts, the "Ho Ho Ho" has not got the faintest idea of what he is doing at eBay, except for holding his finger on the toilet flush button ...

Amazon Crushes Third Quarter

Well, that says it all.

When then is the eBay board going to get rid of the chief idiot and his fellow lunatics who are presently running berserk at eBay—the "Ho Ho Ho", being the chief amongst them.

eBay Q3: Earnings Not Too Shabby, Outlook Tentative

Let's just accept eBay+++ as the resident eBay stooge and simply ignore him. What else do you expect a (probably paid) eBay appologist to be saying? Those of us who actually watch the activity on eBay know what is happening. I am only surprised the downturn in the marketplaces was not more obviously expressed in the financial statements; but I guess that's "accounting" for you ...

eBay Sentiment: In Neutral Ahead of Earnings

"Only eBay knows their actual results,..."

How true! I'm looking forward to "Noise" Donahoe's little song and dance routine this evening as he attempts to hide eBay's real results. I wonder if he will be doing his own comera work again?

In the meantime, some light reading for eBay "buyers":
www.auctionbytes.com/f...

Earnings Preview: eBay

And, from a buyers perspective, some more food for thought …

Shill Bidding on eBay: Case Study #2

Shining some light on the more sophisticated and therefore harder to detect shill bidding activity by many “professional” sellers on eBay auctions

This time including a spreadsheet analysis of multiple auctions, from some "professional" sellers from the US and Australia. Needless to say the analysis demonstrates, once again, that, contrary to eBay’s claims, shill bidding by many “professional” sellers is rampant on eBay auctions. The full comment and spreadsheet download links at:
www.auctionbytes.com/f...

eBay: Growth at the Right Bid

On the surface this may sound like a reasonable analysis, but as others have pointed out, what about what’s going on under the hood? What about the continuing “clumsiness” of the whole eBay organisation?

eBay has had it’s phenomenal success on its auction platform, a platform that can now be demonstrated to be insecure in the extreme for buyers; every eBay “device” now seems to favour the unscrupulous seller. We buyers really appreciate that.

For those who would expect more “service” from eBay I would suggest that there is no way that more service can be provided, even if eBay had any desire to so provide, while the Ho is cutting staff to try to offset the effect of a continuing reduction in revenue. What are those 15,000 remaining people doing anyway?

I would agree that the only future for eBay under the “Ho Ho Ho” and his crew is further down the toilet. And my reasoning for that assumption, from a buyer’s point of view, is detailed at www.auctionbytes.com/f...

Equities Roundup: Gains, But Commodities Strongest

"Kaufman upgrades eBay (EBAY) to buy from hold, increasing its objective to $29 from $22 on an improved outlook."

Another dreamer (or paid eBay lobbyist). Anyone who holds onto eBay stock, in anticipation of an improved eBay performance in the September quarter, is undoubtedly going to be in for another disappointment later this month, assuming they can work their way through all the "Ho-speak" spin ...

The reason why at: www.auctionbytes.com/f...

EBay Reporting Sales Gains

Anyone who thinks that eBay's sales, by either auction or fixed price, are going to be up this quarter is living on a different planet to the one that I am living on. If any eBay statistics have any appearance of being better it is because the many unscrupulous shill-bidding sellers that infest eBay are now mostly buying their own stuff with their dozens of shill-bidding IDs and you can bet that they are not paying any FVF on such "sales" so eBay is not going to benefit from this criminal activity. Have no fear, the "Ho" is still furiously pressing that flush button and the organisation, quite deservedly, is sailing on down the sewer and, frankly, anyone still holding eBay stock in anticipation of an improvement in eBay profits on the 22nd is a fool.

And, some more food for thought …

Shill Bidding on eBay: Case Study #2

Shining some light on the more sophisticated and therefore harder to detect shill bidding activity by some “professional” sellers on eBay auctions

This time a spreadsheet analysis of multiple auctions, from some "professional" sellers from the US and Australia. Needless to say the analysis demonstrates, once again, that, contrary to eBay's claims, shill bidding by many “professional” sellers is rampant on eBay auctions. The full comment and spreadsheet download links at:
www.auctionbytes.com/f...

And, the earlier case study of blatantly naïve shill bidding at:
www.auctionbytes.com/f...

And my even earlier ramblings on the matter of “hidden bidders”, “A comment on eBay’s introduction of absolute anonymity for (shill) bidders” at:
www.auctionbytes.com/f...

A most disingenuous, unscrupulous, criminal organisation—eBay that is.