The "auction" (for lack of a better word) is over. Look at what happened.

[steve B]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

Steve yes you could by Socratic method push even the most ethical person to the point where he would have to admit that he is not being completely pure or consistent. But so what? That doesn't undercut the legitimacy of taking the obvious step of foregoing card purchases from known or strongly suspected fraudsters. It's like Robert Bork allegedly said -- just because there is a slippery slope doesn't mean you have to ski it to the bottom.

All true.

The comment I made that we started on was someone elses about having no contact at all with questionable sellers, and was more about where does one draw the line. Obviously someone known to shill or alter or both regularly should be avoided. Someone who essentially condones it by letting it slide maybe is a little less obvious. And Of course Ebay appears to condone if not encourage all sorts of misbehavior.

Which path is the one avoiding the slippery slope?
Certainly not buying from obvious scammers is reasonable.
Either avoiding or being careful with auctions from the big consignment places that don't look too closely at some bidders?
Abandoning Ebay entirely?

The last doesn't seem reasonable.


There's a lot of slippery slopes, it just seems odd to me at times that nearly all of us (Myself included) choose which to ski down based on how inconvenient it would be to avoid it.


As an aside, Does Bork ski? Since 1975, I've only ever walked off two slopes. Both times I was pretty certain that continuing would get me seriously hurt. But both times it was sort of embarrassing.

Times like this I really do wish I was better at writing.

Steve B

[drcy]

William F. Buckley once joked that he saw liberal Harvard economist John Kenneth Galbraith cross country skiing and Galbraith's skiing skills matched the competency of his economic theories.

[packs]

No opinion on his selling habits but I have noticed that Probstein has stopped putting his user name in the photos of his items.