Although a seller may maintain a high positive feedback percentage and sell only high quality products there seems an ethical problem when for example they offer a $100 retail price item at a ‘buy it now’ price of $.01 with shipping and handling set at $99.99. Not only is it in violation of the auction site terms, it can be a real rip off if you are foolish enough to be the buyer. The worst part is unscrupulous sellers list items that way all the time and the auction site does precious little about it.

Let’s just say you become the buyer, pay your money and the item arrives exactly as represented. For two weeks all is well but then some manufacturing imperfection makes it no longer functional. No problem, you have a 30 day return policy from the seller and after exchange of emails you send the item back. In a few days an email from the seller informs you they do not have a replacement item and they will refund your money. So you login to your Pay Friend (a fictitious business name) account and see a payment of $.01 into your account. “What? There must be something wrong, I spent $100 for that” you think and send off another email. The seller reply explains you paid $.01 for the item and it was clearly written there is no refund for shipping charges. Yep, the seller just pocketed nearly $100 and there ain’t much you can do. Of course as already stated, I question if anyone buying from those sellers has any common sense.

The auction site claims that although they cannot monitor and prevent all such types of auctions and direct sales there seems a disproportionate number of sellers engaging in this type of sales practice. In my view if the auction site management is incapable of stopping this practice they are likewise incapable of properly operating their business and should halt business until such time as they have effective methods of dealing with it. If they can’t fix it then they should not be in business. The lack of ethics they allow while operating the site speaks volumes about their own ethics. That is precisely why I have become both less active dealing with their sellers and far more cautious about which sellers I do business with.

Since then many of those have been weeded from my following list but there are still some and I must admit there are times when I find myself both amused and befuddled how some choose their 140 characters. The most recent example appeared last evening (9-23-09). I copied and pasted the text as quoted below but not the product link (can’t even recall what type health product it was):

“One simple lifestyle change you can make today that could lower your death rate by 60%.”

Uh, yeahhhhh…lower my death rate by 60%! Let’s see here, lower my death rate by 60%. I may be mostly agnostic but for the sake of this rant it’s a bit hard to fathom that since Adam and Eve and their “original sin” there has ever been anything less than a 100% death rate. Well hell, for that matter even if I were atheist I think we’d all agree the death rate has been and remains 100%. Seems to me the “grim reaper” is not particularly prejudiced either. He doesn’t care where you live, what color you are, what religion (or not), your social status or anything else for that matter, there’s a 100% death rate.

Perhaps I don’t recall what the heck product was being offered, and for a good reason: maybe someone else will word their promo right and entice me into buying the product. As for the person that offered to lower my death rate 60%, I know their username and I’ll take my business elsewhere.

Whew! It felt good to get that off my chest. So I conclude this short rant with a quote from the first hour of the “Rush Limbaugh Show” 8-5-2009:

“A community organizer cannot complain when communities organize.”

That pretty much says it.

Part of my last rant mentioned a post on another blog claiming banks bear the blame for the economic situation because of sub-prime lending. Because this individual is using his blog in an endeavor to make home business money and MLM money, I will not post a link so as to neither endorse nor negatively effect his efforts. For that reason I will paraphrase his statements to avoid encroachments..

His rant started somewhat like this: ‘The way it started was because all banks exercised uncontrolled greed during the real estate boom and treated money as a limitless commodity. They shortsightedly ignored financial fundamentals as though believing it would not end.’

All banks? I ask with knowing smile and one eyebrow raised. Seriously now, we are well aware not all banks dug themselves so deeply into sub-prime instruments that they could not remain in business without intervention. The bank I do business with is not in that situation and I’ll wager many others also are not.

As for uncontrolled greed it seems to me there were an awful lot of people exercising uncontrolled greed, knowingly buying higher valued properties than they ever imagined possible, shortsightedly ignoring financial fundamentals as though believing it would never end. How’s that old saying go? If it sounds too good… and honestly there is a majority of people that mortgaged within their means rather than be controlled by greed.

During the boom it would have been easy enough to talk myself and my best half into moving into a bigger place. I mean at least a four stall garage (heated of course), living room large enough to accommodate a 60 inch TV, monster stereo with monster speakers (well you get the idea) and a yard large enough to require a lawn tractor and all the accessories. After all, we could have qualified for the mortgage. Never mind the expense of buying, operating and maintaining the lawn tractor and accessories or the expense of heating or cooling the much larger house, maintaining the house in livable condition and still being able to go out to dinner or a show once in a while. Yep, in my view many made themselves slaves to the most house they could qualify to buy. Looks to me it was the banks and consumers that were greedy. Well hot damn! Seems that sword was double edged.

The truth be told, myriad factors have gone into creating the current financial situation and if you are using your blog to promote your MLM and other home based business concepts it may be advisable to avoid posts accusing anyone for the current financial situation. Deal with promoting the products you are hoping to make money with and if you feel you must, post the ranting accusations elsewhere.

He further continued: ‘That’s the tip of the iceberg. There are all the fees banks charge, savings and checking maintenance, credit card interest, stuff like that.’

Banks like all other businesses charge for what they provide. That’s part of making a profit. Hell, the person that wrote that blog post is trying to make money through his blog. Greedy bastard him! Just like the banks!

One gripe I must agree with though: it hardly seems right taxpayers should keep failing banks in business. Personally I think they should be allowed to fail. However there is another factor: my best half works for a bank. Their company picnic was Wednesday evening. Among the things we learned was FDIC premiums for banks increased approximately ten fold this year even though they are not a bank being bailed out. Don’t you just love when government helps? Is “helps” the right word?

As I continued reading it became obvious he is upset with one of the larger east coast bank systems because he made use of his debit card as a credit card. That way he didn’t have to inconvenience himself with punching in a PIN number. His thinking was that it would be OK since there was a large check deposited and waiting to clear and several other checks he had written weren’t appearing in the system as of late Friday. So come Monday (hey, wouldn’t that be a great song title) he checks his account and finds his checks had cleared over the weekend and now he had $175± in overdraft fees and the bank would not remove any fees because they had so obliged earlier this year. So now he’s going to change banks.

A few bits of good to know information for those like me that frequently use debit cards. If you make use of the debit card as a debit card (you must punch in your PIN#) you will never overdraw because the transaction will be denied without sufficient funds. On the other hand if you use the debit card as a credit card most banks will accept those transactions even if it puts your account negative up to a specific dollar amount and guess what: yep, they charge overdraft fees on each transaction. Boy can you put yourself in a world of hurt in no time flat. You can also opt to not allow your account to be overdrawn in that way but it is something you must demand either when opening the account or by calling the bank customer service department. This advice comes from me, whose missus works in a bank customer service call center and gets calls about this all the time.

It feels I’ve drifted off subject but only to the extent of offering good information many people seem unaware of. So now back to the original. Here’s a guy doing a blog about making money on line and offering information and advice about the right way to do it while at the same time explaining he can’t manage his checking account. Oh sure, I wanna be in his MLM downline! Don’t you? Any question why I posted no link to his blog?