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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;-jeffB, post: 25404552, member: 27832&quot;]I&#039;ve sold a few raw coins there in the last few years, and bought quite a few more in the years previous.</p><p><br /></p><p>&quot;Changed much over the years&quot;? Good golly, yes. Spiraling fees, tax (over)collection, feedback prevention, search deterioration -- a lot has gotten worse. On the other hand, it&#039;s <i>grown</i> by orders of magnitude, and that means there are a LOT more sellers <i>and</i> buyers<i> and</i> stuff, both good and bad.</p><p><br /></p><p>When I joined (late 1998, and no, they didn&#039;t acknowledge my 25th anniversary <img src="styles/default/xenforo/clear.png" class="mceSmilieSprite mceSmilie3" alt=":(" unselectable="on" unselectable="on" />), <i>anyone</i> could leave <i>any</i> feedback for <i>anyone</i> -- it wasn&#039;t even tied to a transaction. (If you left more than one feedback for the same person, though, only the first one counted toward their &quot;score&quot;.) It was much more of a <i>community</i>, and less of an <i>industry</i>. But you were also a lot less likely to find exactly what you were looking for.</p><p><br /></p><p>I was a Power Seller for a couple of years, and did mid-five-figures of total business during that time. I fell away from it for a few years (for reasons unrelated to eBay). When I went back to try to start selling again, and I discovered that they&#039;d blocked sellers from leaving non-positive feedback for buyers, that was pretty much the end for me as a serious seller. I rarely left negative feedback for buyers, but that was because <i>there just weren&#039;t that many bad buyers</i>. When buyers learned there were no feedback consequences for bad behavior, it <i>encouraged</i> the bad buyers.</p><p><br /></p><p>The increased fees wouldn&#039;t have been as much of an issue for the stuff I used to sell (spot a treasure at surplus, buy it for a fraction of value, clean it up, find it an owner who&#039;ll appreciated it). For coins, and <i>especially</i> for bullion, they&#039;re pretty much a game-ender. Between the fees and increasing <i>shipping</i> costs (not eBay&#039;s fault), you&#039;re looking at a 15%-20% spread that doesn&#039;t benefit the buyer <i>or</i> the seller. It&#039;s hard to make money with that kind of overhead.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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