We appointed ourselves.

Well, it really depends.  Ebay's system is set up so that those you do report have no idea who reported them.  OTOH, if you email sellers and tell them you are reporting them to Ebay or in our circumstances you get a wide variety of responses.  

Some sellers take down the auction immediately and apologize for not knowing what they were doing was wrong (some are probably telling the truth but most are probably not).  Others take the auction down, but call you every name in the book and claim that you are just pissed because they are moving in on your territory as a seller.  like it really has nothing to the fact that what they are doing is illegal, its because you are jealous of them.  

I have never been warned by Ebay for anything that I have ever done in regards to this issue.  I can imagine that I have probably been reported several times, but truthfully there isn't much Ebay can do according to their own rules.  Also, the fact that my emails to the sellers are factually correct, Ebay would be siding along someone who is breaking the law by using thier site, which in fact would subject them to CI lawsuit damages by doing so.

As far as retailiation goes, I have on a couple of occasions had sellers list auctions that trash me & my user ID in the auction description fro bith pdfers and other circumstances where I got people booted for shilling.  These have not lasted very long though, after I report to them the potential damages that they will be inline for by libeling me on such a huge auction site such as Ebay.  I even had one ass hat, post my address from 15 years ago that I gave him because he thought that I would be dumbe neough to give it to him.  Needless to say that didn't last long either.  

I did have one other auction of my own that was shilled for the sole purpose of leaving me negative feedback, but because I was suspicious of the bidder from the begining, I took steps to proect myself and I was able to prove to Ebay that the bidder was fake and they removed the neg that was left for me.  

That's about it for me.

Maraudar wrote:...Who appointed the members of this forum as the Ebay Police?

Maraudar

One of the finest things about The Acaeum is the fact that folks here don't "look the other way" when wrong is being done.  They do what they can to protect the buying public from unscrupulous dealers, the copyright holders from theft and me from displaying my ignorance in auctions.  I love to see the posse form up when the word is passed that a bad guy is on the prowl.  You all are brave and inclined to take action.  Hooray for the good guys!

Since eBay's monitoring is about as effective as the Iraqi police force

That has t be the most accurate thing I have ever read about Ebay. Thanks for taking the time guys to answer the question.  Like I said I was curious.. Back to my regularly scheduled day of madness.  



Maraudar

Maraudar wrote:
Who appointed the members of this forum as the Ebay Police?

Not really blasting you, Marauder, but....

This is like a murderer asking why an eye witness has the "right" to testify against him.  It is the murderer himself who appointed the witness...by committing the crime.

A person selling bootleg materials is committing a crime.  Crime.  Pointing out that a crime is a crime is an entirely reasonable action.

A bootlegger is stealing...from the publishers and from owners of the actual publications.  They are also polluting an online community with corrupt behavior.  Such a person has no high moral ground on which to stand...and has no business striking preposterous poses...such as asking me why I have the "right" to report him.

An Ebay seller who tries to auction illegal copies of game materials has publicly committed a crime.  Saying so does makes me neither a vigillante nor an ego maniac.

I don't even have to talk about whether or not a bootlegger is guilty.  They have publicly documented their own guilt.

So...by reporting an illegal auction, according to the rules of Ebay and using Ebay's own reporting system...well...that hardly seems unreasonable.