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"