EBay/Google Dumbassery.
I've always sort of admired eBay and Google. They've generally put out a superior product that renders a valuable service, and then they've harvested the profit that was theirs for the taking. eBay's was more patent, of course-- they take a simple cut of the ads placed on their site.
Google, on the other hand, offers a free product. They managed to get their cut from the front-end, by having such a high-visibility site that companies would actually pay Google for viewership on it.
One of those sites is eBay.
EBay has one very irritating drawback, though. Not only will they allow their subscribers to use the site to trade in firearms, they now disallow most firearm accessories. Well, yes, it's their site. But they're screwing with what they originally had, which was very near to the dream of near-perfect capitalism. And since they've injected their own politics into the issue, I can feel free not to patronize their site.
But see here what happens when eBay and Google team up to respond in their own commercial fashion to my search regarding the caliber found in the Winchester Model 7:
Google, on the other hand, offers a free product. They managed to get their cut from the front-end, by having such a high-visibility site that companies would actually pay Google for viewership on it.
One of those sites is eBay.
EBay has one very irritating drawback, though. Not only will they allow their subscribers to use the site to trade in firearms, they now disallow most firearm accessories. Well, yes, it's their site. But they're screwing with what they originally had, which was very near to the dream of near-perfect capitalism. And since they've injected their own politics into the issue, I can feel free not to patronize their site.
But see here what happens when eBay and Google team up to respond in their own commercial fashion to my search regarding the caliber found in the Winchester Model 7:
(Click to enlarge.)
Yowza! ".351 Winchester For Less"?!? Really?
Um, no.
Seems like, if they won't let you trade in the item, they wouldn't claim that they do. This speaks poorly of eBay, and of Google's algorithms.
Labels: Gripes, guns, social conflict
posted by Matt G @ 4:05 PM
3 Comments:
Matt, another issue with Ebay now is the Paypal stuff... Your bank account can be cleaned out by anyone and you have no recourse. This is one of many. My neighbor's wife bought a $29.00 item, was charged $2900.00 and is in the third year of a lawsuit trying to recover the $$.
http://www.aboutpaypal.org/
nfo: since e-commerce was a new thing, I've been a big proponent of using an extra bank account for any online transaction that doesn't go only to a "normal" merchant. (Walmart.com and others you normally deal with in person are less likely to be an issue, so I use a normal account with them.)
So many banks offer a free checking account these days, that it it pretty easy to have an account that is kept at the minimum balance to stay free, and funded by either instant (if it's at the same bank as your regular account) or overnight (if it's not) transfers from your "real" account. That way, you can limit the damage that a dishonest merchant can cause.
kd5nrh- I don't disagree, but I just think it is pretty bad when there are known issues that Ebay refuses to address/fix. I use one card with a very low ($500) limit for the same thing.
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