My bright (yet impractical) idea for combating ebay scammers

kranky

There is no shortage of people who can spot a bogus ebay auction. The problem is that there's very little that can be done about them.

Wouldn't it be great if you could view an auction and at the same time be able to see comments from other collectors who have viewed it? You'd go to a particular site first or maybe install a small program, and then when viewing specific ebay items the site or program would retrieve and display comments other people made about that item.

Find a way to provide the service for free (ad-supported?) or for a small pay-per-use charge. Make it very simple and quick to leave a comment so people won't mind doing it.

I think it would be cool to be able to view an auction for yet another 100 mil Silver Proof Morgan, or an altered raw 1909-S VDB and see a dozen or so comments from people pointing out exactly what the item is. And on the coins where it's not clear-cut, you could see the difference of opinion in the comments.

Or, let people pay a small fee to have an auction reviewed by someone knowledgable and use the same technology to pass along the comments.

No risk of getting ebay accounts nuked for "auction interference" and it would defeat the Private Auction and Private Feedback tactics.

Of course there would be a lot of details to work out but I think it would be technically possible to do. If I'm wrong, I know that poorguy or coppercoins will let me know.

Looks all good to me.

lordmarcovan

It's a cool idea, but it would be a full-time job for somebody... more likely several somebodies!

DHeath

Kranky,

You jogged my memory. That software used to exist. The company was called Third Voice, and it offered a sort of web sticky note that any user could use to leave comments or read other user's comments. They're now defunct because they were pretty unpopular with website owners. There was also concern about pornographic messages and the like. Still, it's a cool idea.

KlectorKid

Good idea unfortunately people that do not take the time to research an item are sure not to bother installing/paying for a program. Still a good idea for commenting on coins but probably not an effective scam stopping device.

CoinOnTheCob

I think some eBayers would pooh-pooh other eBayers for the sole purpose of unhealthy competition.

kranky

dheath, I remember Third Voice (but I didn't remember the name). I think one of its shortcomings was that the comments were anonymous, which would be unnecessary in this situation. Restricting it to work only with ebay would make it pretty uninteresting for people to use it for distasteful messages.

I guess the key issue is would ebay coin buyers be willing to use such a service to help protect themselves.

CoinOnTheCob, you're right that some people would try to use it maliciously but having some degree of accountability (all comments linked to a username) would help.

I know it's just a pipe dream but something like it is going to be the only way to combat the ebay scammers. Ebay will never start policing the auctions because it would destroy their claim that they are only a venue. And reading stories like 100proof1957's about the guy who got scammed for $2700 - long after people knew there were problems with the seller - just got me thinking.

Dog97

When I'm selling something I'd rather NOT have comments from the crack head ½ass so called experts attached to my auction.
Also has the potential for fraud. List a bad coin and have 10 buddies post remarks like "great for grade," "high end coin," "original bag tone" etc