Correspondence Related To Ebay Petition

Please note a law that was passed in Illinois on August 16, 2002.
Actual text of the law is here and doesn't live up to the publicity release linked above. 

The petition was sent on August 9, 2002 as a link to Rob Chesnut, Vice President of eBay's Trust & Safety Department. His reply, which I consider a good start, was:

"Richard, I just looked at it.  I wasn't aware that there was a problem in the stamp category. As you know, we're not in a very good position to determine when a stamp may be fraudulent...we don't possess the stamp and we're not stamp experts, and we don't like to believe that our sellers are dishonest or accuse someone based on the word of a third party.  But we took some steps to affirmatively clean up a couple of our other categories, and we'll look at this to see what we can do for stamps.  I'll talk to the category manager for stamps and to the person in my department who handles these issues, and get back with you.  Appreciate your note and the concern of all the folks on the petition."

I sent an email to Mr. Chesnut on August 16th. as follows:

"Dear Mr. Chesnut,

I want to thank you for your email response and posting on the Trust and Safety board. There is deep concern in the stamp collecting community about the level of description fraud in the stamp category as evidenced by the petition requesting changes. This petition has 200 signers now. Issues of trust are of primary importance in all of the collectible categories. Ebay and stamp collecting are at a crossroads right now that will determine the future of ebay’s position in the stamp market.

Linn’s Stamp News estimated the total market for stamps in the year 2001 was $930m a year with only $53m attributed to internet auctions (see April, 2002 article). I expect internet auction sales to dramatically increase in the next ten years. If ebay wants to capture some of that increase, they should start deploying resources now.

The best resource available is the existing base of loyal, knowledgeable and passionate collectors who already use eBay.  In the past year eBay policies have increasingly hindered and frustrated attempts by this community to police the area.

The stamp chat board provided by eBay can be very useful if the community is able to post questionable items and practices. The community there can often ease a bidder’s doubts about authenticity of an item or confirm justified suspicions. It provides a classroom for collectors who feel that the board is their personal mentor to the challenging field of stamp collecting.

To be effective, there has to be freedom to mention specific items and sellers. Also, when there is a consensus that fraud is occurring, there has to be a contact person at eBay who can confirm the validity of the complaint and act on the information in a timely fashion.

The members of the ebay stamp collecting community can be the most cost effective tool available to growing ebay or they can become a very public albatross around the neck of ebay.

Sincerely,

Richard C. Frajola"

A reply was received from Mr. Chesnut on August 17th. as follows:

"Richard, really appreciate the concern.  This is such a tough area for us, we've struggled with it and achieved some success in the autograph area. I've been out of the country on business for a week, I'll meet with the head
of the collectibles category next week to discuss what we can try to do here.  Rob"