[Groop] DVD of Groo collection on eBay

[Tone]

	I get busy for just a couple of days to deal with taxes (and I
must say OUCH! due to the amount I owed) along with some early packing
for the likely move to P.A., and I get back to 25 e-mails. I know I said
after my honeymoon there must be some kind of conspiracy involving
everyone writing e-mails while I am away, but sheesh. :)
	Maybe I should not feel bad though. Perhaps you guys just feel
the need to write more when I am not around to make up for missing my
lengthy e-mails. That is so touching! So much love in this Groop. ;) 

Gary,
	I like your idea of screwing with any bootleg DVD comic sellers
on eBay. We really would not have to jeopardize our own eBay ratings.
Just a small handful of us could make one or two fake free yahoo or
hotmail addresses each along with an extra eBay account. Afterwards when
one of us notices a bogus comic dealer we could notify the Groop and
each take our time to inflate the BS auction. This way we would
obviously not have to care about any potential negative feedback since
we would all be using secondary eBay accounts.
	Heck if we wanted to, we could probably LET the idiot dealer
leave negative feedback or try to report us for not paying, since we
could just respond with our own negative feedback about the dealer
selling illegal copied merchandise, and they would be stuck with crappy
feedback forever. I know before I bid on anything I usually review a
sellers feedback rating and make a point of scanning through the actual
comments left, especially the negative and neutral ones even if there
are only a few out of hundreds.
	In the long run even if we were to use our own accounts, a
person could always make mention of and an explanation for their
vigilante-resulting negative feedback in any sales they have up. That
way, buyers might see it and actually appreciate your honorable efforts,
and want to do business with you because they can see you are
trustworthy. It would be like an e-community watch.

Promethea,
	I just read your post about eBay's slant toward sellers, due to
the fee's they make off of them. That makes me think twice about the
idea I directed back to Gary just now.
	If you think about it, it is in eBay's best interest NOT to take
much or any action against illegal Sellers. If they let certain sellers
"slip by" to continue selling crap on eBay, then obviously eBay will
naturally make money off the fees they charge them. Clearly if the
seller is selling digital copies of stuff, then their inventory is
nearly limitless and eBay can profit in a practically endless manner
from the seller's future auctions. Also in the same respect, if a seller
puts up an illegal auction and gets called out on it by the community,
then eBay can keep the fees they already charged and simply un-list the
auction. Even if eBay terminates that seller's account in order to look
legit in the eyes of the law, they obviously know how easy it is for
that same seller to set up a new account and continue to try to sell
that illegal crap... thus perpetuating the "fencing" operation and
gaining even more profit off the same exact goods.
	After thinking about this, I would not be surprised if eBay were
to actually give vigilante buyers warnings against taking civilian
organized action. Sometimes it sucks how much the world revolves around
money.

Womble,
	You said, "eBay are awful at checking listings against their own
rules." You know what ticks me off even more about this? EBay does not
put the extra effort of policing itself when it comes to OBVIOUS illegal
activity, yet in the past they forced me to terminate a legitimate
auction I had up. I use to collect a bunch of those Fantasy/Sci-Fi art
collector cards, then at some point I wanted to auction them off because
I needed the extra space and the extra cash.
	Well, I wanted to make sure it would be easy to sell and
convenient for any potential buyers, so I decided to break up my entire
collection into three separate auctions. I planned it so each auction
would involve one non-sports card album with a number of complete card
collections all in sheet-sleeves. The first auction would list all
available possible card collections, and the winner would then pick
seven of the sets and get them in one album. Afterwards I would cut down
the second auction accordingly and offer a choice of one album with half
of the leftover collections. For the final third auction the eight card
collections left would be offered in the last album.
	This way the winner of the first auction would have the best
pick of my full collection, but only be able to choose seven sets as
opposed to the eight sets in the other two auctions. It turns out eBay
had a policy of not permitting auction involving "choices." They allow
for sizing options and flat-color choices for such things as clothing,
etc., but not choices involving specific actual designs/artwork. Since
it was my first warning ever and I already had bidders, eBay permitted
me to complete the first auction, but warned me against putting up any
other auctions involving "choices." That annoyed the heck out of me.

Womble,
	Oh wait, I just read your other e-mail, which pointed out the
problem involved with that example you gave earlier of an illegal book
auction. In your later e-mail you brought up, "if you win you get your
choice of 1 of these 10 books" then you said, "to make people bid
against each other for different books."
	That "choice" factor sounds like it is pretty much same thing
involved with my Fantasy/Sci-Fi art card auction. What you said about
making people bid against each other for different books does not seem
all that much of an issue to me. What is the real difference between
that and auctioning everything separately, which therefore would "make"
potential buyers bid on individual multiple auctions? The only major
difference I see in that is eBay might be cut off from extra bid charges
to the seller if the seller decided to not go through with auctioning
the leftover books after the first auction.
	My intention all along with my card auctions was to sell them
all. The way I saw it, and still see it, is I was actually able to
provide my buyers with the option of choosing which specific card sets
they wanted, rather than having to buy several pre-defined mixed sets.
What if I did have pre-defined sets and a potential buyer really only
wanted half of the sets I offered? In that case would it not be so much
better to provide the opportunity to a buyer to get everything he/she
wants in the first place? I think that also would make it
easier/smoother for me to end up selling all the cards, rather than
offer three separate pre-defined albums of card sets. In that latter
case someone might only want to buy one album's worth, but see that
their ideal choices are split between two different offered albums. That
would suck for them.

Azamin,
	Whoa, 380 unread Groop e-mails. That would not be so bad to come
home to. I say that because every two DAYS I get about 380 e-mails
all-together! If I did not check my e-mail for a month, <sigh> I might
just crash my computer. For me out of 380 messages every two days of so,
approximately 250 would be junk e-mail. Unfortunately I still have to
sift through my delete folder before emptying it out completely because
you never know whether there might be that ONE important e-mail from an
address not yet in my permitted e-mail address list. Usually that is
just one e-mail out of perhaps one hundred.
	380 e-mails in two days ARE certainly excessive, but I have
learned to deal with it in a pretty effective manner I would say. I
think I get so much junk mail because I have had my e-mail address for
over ten years, and for a good chunk of that time I had it listed on a
high-traffic web site from an organization I was a part of as well as my
own site.
	If anyone has their e-mail address posted on ANY webpage, I
highly recommend NOT making it an actual hyper-link or immediately
obvious e-mail address. For instance, at the least you should type it
out as text similar to "Tone [AT] moon-shine.net" as it would be in my
own case. This way you help avoid any of those automatic web e-mail
scanners/spiders/robots spammers utilize to acquire e-mail addresses. I
would not be surprised if spammers will get smart enough to update their
search robots to look for "[AT]" or similar alternatives, so I recommend
people use actual posted image files of their e-mail address even more.
If you try this method make sure not to make them clickable/linkable
either, since spam scanners do also look at the HTML code working in the
background of a website. Obviously having an image of your typed-out
e-mail address is a bit inconvenient for people potentially wanting to
e-mail you, but it certainly deters getting spam. I just wish I had
realized this LONG ago. :)
	By the way, Azamin, NICE point of remembering how Groo the
Hydra-like creature! I had forgotten that completely even though I
brought that costume idea up. Duh!

_TONE_