[meteorite-list] Meteorite Auction Days Numbered?

[cdtucson at cox.net]

Eric,
EBay has been sued many times. Luckily they keep winning. Even so they have had to make numerous changes.
Supposedly the USA sales account for about 46 percent (4 billion dollars) of their total sales so, by limiting some of the off-shore visibility they may be cutting their own throat. On the other hand people who depend on off-shore sales could lose a possible 54 percent of their revenue. Ouch!
According to the link below they are actively trying to stop the fraud but, it takes people like us to hit the "report" button in order to stop the auctions. They told me that three day auctions are very hard to catch in time though. Consequently some stuff does fall through the cracks. 
For these reasons I think eBay will continue to try and continue as many sales as possible without becoming too much "the Man".

http://www.businessweek.com/the_thread/techbeat/archives/2008/07/ebay_claims_vic.html

Carl
eBay seller ;
Meteoritemax

--




                                                             
"Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for dinner. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote". 





  

 

---- Eric Wichman <eric at meteoritesusa.com> wrote: 
> The writing has been on the wall for a while now. Hopefully I'm wrong... 
> With all the fuss over the years with suspect and obvious fake 
> meteorites on Ebay, misleading and incorrect information and 
> identification of terrestrial stones claimed as meteorites by 
> inexperienced folks trying to make a quick buck on that lava rock they 
> found in their driveway "that wasn't there yesterday". Problems of 
> international shipping and the tightening of export laws in other 
> countries which govern, or at least try to govern the exportation of 
> meteorites.
> 
> Ebay is starting to take measures to prohibit meteorite sales on their 
> "international" sites, as per a recent post on the Met-List a little 
> while ago. (I'm assuming some dealers used to list items internationally 
> on multiple international Ebay sites like others have, but now Ebay is 
> seemingly prohibiting this practice. Hopefully this is not a sign of 
> things to come.)
> 
> Recent posts about suspect Lunar meteorites, and the numerous other 
> "suspect" and supposed meteorites that get listed on Ebay, the countless 
> emails from meteorite dealers to Ebay about apparent and obviously 
> fraudulent Ebay auctions featuring fake meteorites doesn't really help. 
> This coupled with the ambiguous and non-standard international export 
> and import laws in other countries regarding meteorites, I think selling 
> meteorites on Ebay might become a thing of the past. There are too many 
> other products with much less hassle and risk  for Ebay to allow to be 
> listed, without dealing with the liability of the possibility of suspect 
> and or blatantly fraudulent meteorite auctions which might cause buyers 
> undo loss, or inadvertent proliferation of non-meteoritic material 
> throughout the meteorite community. This causes much confusion on what a 
> meteorite really looks like, and identification of meteorites by 
> psuedo-experts, and backyard meteorite hunters who quickly list their 
> "find" on Ebay hurts the community, and ultimately the science. Not that 
> Ebay cares about that, but if any of these things increase their risk, 
> and meteorites become too much of a liability, or it costs them too much 
> money to wade through the possible legal and/or business policy disputes 
> that arise from meteorite listings, then they would have no reason to 
> continue to allow meteorites to be listed.
> 
> Meteorite auction days on Ebay might just be numbered.
> 
> Regards,
> Eric
> 
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