[Phil Waterman]

Hi

As I said in my title - I'm sorry I have to agree, E-bay and Paypal started off as a good concept to sell stuff people to people as a good idea that seemed to work well. Until the money started to be the driving factor.

For years I was a bad ebay customer I'd decide what an item and its shipping cost was worth to me and that is what I'd bid to start. Almost never entering a second bid, and yes there are certain things that I really wanted that I would pay more for.

Like many of you I have watched stuff be offered then suddenly disappear to come back at a higher starting price.

I still have some searches looking for particular items but I stick to my rule now of what is it really worth to me and that's all I'll bid. I have not done any new searches in at least a year because from my way of thinking they have reworked their search engine to make searches less specific so that you have to look at a lot more stuff. Also the number of totally unrelated items that will come up in a search just goes to show how people have learned to game the system. Does ebay care only if they don't get their cut.

Cheers Phil