My reply on the mail received March 19th 2006:

----- Original Message -----
Dear Marley,

You state that "we have no control over the quality, safety or legality of the items advertised the truth or accuracy of the listings, the ability of Sellers to sell items or the ability of Buyers to buy items."

Since when? eBay prohibits a wide range of items from being sold - including alcohol, guns, drugs, etc. Many of these items are illegal to trade in under U.S. Law, or under the laws of one or more states. Many others, however, violate no U.S. law at all. Examples would include Nazi and KKK memorabilia. Both highly collectible and historically important.

eBay also does not allow for sellers to take whatever forms of payment suit our fancy. Saying in a listing that payment by either cash and/or Western Union, for example, is a violation of eBay policy and will get a listing pulled.

VeRO, as I'm sure you are aware, does nothing to insure the quality of antique and vintage items. The fake Nippon and Occupied Japan, for example, that flood eBay's listing pages are not even company marks. Others, including Roseville, McCoy, Hull, etc. are no longer in existance.

How does one effectively deal with these situations, and these violations of law? We are talking about imports that are knowingly being sold as coming from countries and/or companies that in fact never made them. In many cases, couldn't have made them.

You say that eBay is very concerned about fakes and fraud - but those of us who have sent in literally thousands of complaints and notifications about some of these sellers without seeing any result at all are very much in doubt that eBay is doing anything.

I look forward to a reply.

Thank you.

Lee Berkovits