| Here’s a funny thing: go into McDonald’s and ask if they have any crap. All you’ll get is a blank look, despite the apparent obviousness of the question and the Happy Meal photos above the counter. Then go online to EBay and type in the word "crap." Lo and behold, you’re instantly linked to dozens of items that proudly – or shamelessly, at least – include that word as part of their selling pitch. Truth in advertising at last, it seems.
Well, maybe not. I tried this experiment a few days ago and came up with almost 200 separate items for sale on EBay. They included: piles and cans of fake dog crap; several "crap" 1970s T-shirts; copies of Cut the Crap by the Clash and "Piece of Crap" by Neil Young; and many, many offers of America’s "#1 colon cleanser," with a picture of a beaming, middle-aged couple and the slogan "Are you full of crap?" OK, they included the word, but none of these products was, per se, necessarily crap.
But then there were the offers of "Lot of Avon crap… er, stuff" (starting bid $5; no bids) and "Broken cycle bell for mountain bike – real naff & crap" (one cent; one bid). Both items, presumably, were a case of "what you see is what you get."
My favourite find, however, was the book Crap Towns: The 50 Worst Places to Live in the UK. (I know, I know: how they got it down to just 50 is another question.) Starting at just £1.99, how could I resist? So with a couple of clicks I placed my bid, sat back, waited, and two days later received the happy news that I was now the proud owner of Crap Towns.
And so another piece of garbage joins the ever-mounting pile of crap I’ve bought since I started bidding on EBay nine months ago. It all started innocently enough, with the purchase of those few hard-to-find CDs, books and videos that I’d idly coveted over the years. Thus I now possess the first Members’ LP, the best of Selecter, a Max "Cheeky Chappie" Miller live-in-concert CD, and (for reasons that entirely escape me now) the first and only Mel & Kim album, F.L.M. In addition, not only do DVDs of High Noon, Psycho and The Life of Brian now sit on my shelf, but also – and more disturbingly – some fondly-recalled-but-sadly-dated TV programs from my youth. None of these is quite as amusing as I remember them being at the time, but at least I’ve cleared up one urban myth: on Captain Pugwash, a show about pirates for five to seven year olds, two of his crew do not go by the subversively smutty names of Master Bates and Seaman Staines. Shame.
I know this all sounds bad, but I’m a relatively moderate case. For the most part, I follow two simple rules that keep my EBay habit under control: 1: don’t get involved in bidding wars (they inflate prices exponentially); and 2: set an upper limit for each item then just walk away. Of course, I’ve broken both of these rules several times.
Others have it much worse than me, however. A few years ago, a friend of a friend met us at the Ship & Anchor on a Saturday afternoon, proudly displaying a small box that he’d just purchased on EBay for $50. Inside the box was what looked like an ignition switch. "What for?" we asked. That was unclear. "Where’s the key?" we asked. That too was unclear. Perhaps I remember the incident unfairly, but I do recall swearing at that moment to steer clear of EBay, seeing it as a hunting ground for suckers.
And so there I was, waiting for my copy of Crap Towns to arrive. It seemed like a bargain at just £1.99, but then there was the small matter of £5.50 to cover shipping and handling. Add up the costs and convert into Canadian currency, and I was paying roughly $18.50 for a book that, seen in a store, I barely would have glanced at. Ka-ching! – another sucker is born.
There is a difference, of course, between roping in the willingly gullible and actually committing illegal fraud. But with more than five million new items appearing for auction each day, EBay obviously offers plenty of opportunities for scam artists to exploit. Some of these, such as shill bidding (i.e. recruiting friends to artificially bid up prices), have been subject to investigations by the FBI, yet are difficult to prove or convict.
And even when fraud is detected, it’s often too late to do the defrauded any good. This was the case last year with Liquidation Universe, an online computer company based in Utah. Originally, it had operated legitimately, selling millions of dollars worth of laptops and receiving more than 700 positive feedback responses from happy customers. At some point, however, it began to take auction winners’ money without ever delivering the computers. Although the auctions were covered by SquareTrade – a form of insurance for online purchases – it turned out that while the vendor (i.e. Liquidation Universe) was covered up to $1,000 per sale, all buyers in total were covered for that same amount. As a result, the duped bidders were able to salvage only a fistful of change each.
So is it a case of caveat emptor – buyer beware – or does EBay have a duty to protect those who use its services? Apparently not. "We are not involved in the actual transaction between buyers and sellers," reads one of EBay’s operating rules. "As a result, we have no control over the quality, safety or legality of the items advertised, the truth or accuracy of the listings…."
Suddenly, EBay starts to look a lot like McDonald’s, after all. Do you want fries with that crap, sir? |
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