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Posted By: Brian

Being relatively new to this forum, I wondered if the idea of a blacklist has been extensively explored? A search of postings on the site did not reveal any previous extensive discussions, but maybe I am looking in all the wrong places....

Auction houses have blacklists. Why are buyers not afforded equal protection? The concept of feedback in eBay is a good one, but clearly it has its problems. In my opinion, even one unmitigated offense is too much. This type of thing does not belong in our hobby.

What I propose is keeping an archived list of people who default on their transactions. For example, I would seriously think twice before sending a large sum of money to the seller mentioned in the initial posting. But my memory could fail, and I might lapse, giving in to temptation. If there were an archive, it would be there permanently, and I would weigh the potential for loss.

I think our wingnutted community has some leverage, as we are likely to constitute most of the active buyers of high-priced vintage material on eBay and in auction houses. If even one large deal is resolved satisfactorily as a result of pressure brought to bear on the seller, the list would have served its purpose. Those who default but rectify the situation within a reasonable time frame could be removed from the list or moved to a less damning list ("sellers who resolved conflict").

Of course, this could be a slippery slope, so what if Leon (sorry, Leon) and a couple of other forum members could adjudicate and determine if there are sufficient, reasonable grounds to put someone on a "warning" list? Written, credible evidence would be paramount. In a perfect world, we would not need this oversight, but as the price of vintage material becomes more insane and harder to obtain, the problem will intensify. It would be nice to have a way to protect unsuspecting buyers and to hit the cheaters in their wallets when they commit a crime.

I could immediately add a name to this potential list--I am sure that most forum members could do the same.