As you've seen here, quite often Ebay will stop an auction of used underwear, even if the idiot seller declares "item will be washed" or "item is new with tags," after declaring "yum, it smells, I've worn them for days."
You'd think Ebay isn't TOTALLY full of fools or greedheads.
BUT, how about the plague of sellers who are duping eBooks?
"Just a venue" Ebay says it's up to book-fans to report this shit. If you see someone offering a digital download, use "report item" and a few days later, it'll be removed. IF it hasn't gone through as a BUY IT NOW.
So thousands of dollars are being made by bootleggers who keep doing it till they get suspended.
Worse: now sellers lie. Instead of "I will e-mail you the link..." they lie: "As digital downloading is illegal, I will MAIL YOU THIS ITEM ON A CD."
And Ebay says that's ok! In that case, it's up to the author or publisher to send an e-mail complaint!
Here's a seller who, in every ad, lies, lies, and LIES. The biggest LIE is that he doesn't send digital downloads. Now notice what his FEEDBACK says!
Hmm. Pretty strong evidence, don't you think?
Shouldn't this guy be stopped for fraud? Shouldn't eBay dismiss his caveat and shut him down?
The seller charges from $5 or $7 for the pdf (a "bargain" off the real, authorized Kindle price of $9.99 or $11.99). He then lists the postage as one cent. Ha ha ho ho hee hee.
It's FUCKING OBVIOUS he's NOT even putting the PDF on a CD and sending it through the mail for a dollar.
It's OBVIOUS, but not to EBAY.
Call up one of their phone-answering monkeys and you get THIS:
"A feedback saying it was a digital download is not enough proof."
How about checking this guy's private messages, which will prove that he mails links to his "cloud" service?
"It's not our policy to do anything like that."
How about checking and seeing that he's NEVER used eBay's template for paying postage? (All eBay sellers use that template, because they get a discount every time they use it and it makes it easy to know if you've mailed the item or not and what the tracking number is).
"That's not our policy. We are not required to investigate this kind of matter."
What? To NOT investigate fraud? How very fortunate for you and your bootlegger. Not so fortunate for the author or the publisher.
At the moment, torrents, forums and blogs are loaded with people throwing around movie avi files and music mp3 files. They just aren't doing it that much with books. Not enough literate pricks on Kickass, right? Only if it's Playboy or Penthouse, or the latest from granite-faced asshole James Patterson.
Since people easily get music FREEEEEE and can even find it on GooTUBE, eBay isn't loaded with parasites selling dupe "mp3 files on a CD." But they sure do it with books.
Nobody on Ebay is "iTunesBOY" saying "Pick any 10 albums for 99 cents" but there are scumbags doing that on eBay, offering "any 10 books for 99 cents," and offering entire collections on Patterson or Rowling, or individual best seller titles and writing "I have permission" or "this is in public domain." And Ebay is ok with that.
Yes, eBay knocks off a lot of blatantly stupid PDF/EPUB/MOBI/Kindle sellers. But ones who use the right sneaky caveat just laugh all the way to the piggy bank with their nickel and dime profits.
THIS seller has over 400 positives. Since most people don't bother leaving positives, figure he's had at least 1000 sales. At $6 or $7 on average per book, that's $6,000 to $7,000 this prick has gotten in "royalties" from authors who got NOTHING.
CHRIST. FUCKIN' CHRIST. If Christ ever comes down to Earth, I hope he blows a fucking hole in the executive offices of EBAY, on his way to destroy the offices of AMAZON and GOOGLE.
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