Ebay & Fraud & The Bottom Line.
Ebay tolerates fraud in its venue. On three separate occasions when bidding for an item on Ebay, a bidder with no transactions to his credit, outbids me. The next day, the item is up for sale again with the seller saying something about the non-paying bidder. This is done in order to determine what the maximum price was that bidders were willing to pay. Let me explain. Let's say I stipulate a maximum bid of $150. However, the bidding in the last minutes of the auction only goes up to $80. The seller, would like to sell for the highest price he can get but he doesn't know my maximum amount--what is he to do? All he has to do is set up a bogus account and bid an outrageous amount. Let's say he bids $500. When he does that he wins the auction but most importantly, he now knows exactly how much I was willing to pay for the item because the winning bid will be slightly more than my maximum. The seller's bogus account holder (himself or a friend) now defaults on payment and...