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The internet is a place where people try to sell you things. It has other functions or purported functions but commerce and the pursuit of money is the driving factor. Just as the Bible drove the development of printing so making money drives its successor the internet. But much of that money comes from you and me. Ordinary people who range from sensible to gullible. The gullible can’t be helped but the sensible are a little wary of who they give their credit card details to. As someone who has had their card number stolen and abused in the past I know how important it is to be careful. The dickless, faeces chewing, future inhabitants of Hades who took two grand from me and spent it on shit could’ve been stopped had a simple system of PIN numbering been introduced. I’ve long thought that PINs for credit cards is a good idea. But not the system they’ve introduced now. Instead of entering the same 4 digit number each time, we should be issued with an 8 digit number and be required to enter two or three specified numbers each time. That way you never ever ever give out all your details at any one time. It would never be introduced though as people are too lazy to remember an eight digit number and too stupid to understand what is expected of them. Or that’s how the card companies think at any rate. But that’s not what I wanted to talk about. You’ve diverted me from my main point.

How you decide whether a website is trustworthy is up to you. SplashDVD went under owing customers many thousands of pounds. It had a bad reputation but low prices so they hung on to their solvency a few months longer than they had any right to. I knew of their reputation from comments posted on various message boards I frequent. Places like OG may be home to numerous rude, ignorant and highly inadequate people but the many reasonable and decent posters the board has make it a source of some useful knowledge. Splash was a place I was warned off and warned off I stayed. I pretty much limit myself to the big names – Amazon, Play, Blackstar (now Sendit.com) and my bookclub. And eBay of course.

Finally I reach my point. Buying from other ordinary people via eBay, Amazon and so on. The eBay and Amazon names are strong – perhaps the two strongest brand names in all of e-commerce – but they have no control over the ordinary peeps who sell through them. That is where feedback comes in. Feedback is where buyers and sellers can rate each other. Bad customers can be flagged, reliable people can be spotlighted. Purchases on eBay carry a responsibility to give feedback. It’s not the law but it is expected of you. Emails come from your business interlocutor saying "I’ll give you feedback if you give me feedback". In a sense no one wants to go first. They want to give feedback based on what you said about them. If you said they were great, they will say you were great. If you point out some small defect then they will be equally picky in return. Of course, you can’t both go second so a game of chicken commences. That is if you take it seriously. If you are an eBay addict who has rules about bidding at the last possible second. Someone who runs their lives around end of auction times and who has probably memorised their ratings by heart. They are reluctant to answer to their own name as they spent most of their lives being known by their login. They know all the tricks that are supposed to make their auctions stand out from the others. They describe everything as "RARE!!!" or preface every description with "LOOK!!!". When they have spare minutes between end-of-auctions they discuss eBay tips and tactics with others like themselves on the eBay forums. Such places exist.

At Amazon’s Marketplace the system is slightly less serious. I’d say about a third of all the people I’ve sold to have left marks out of five. Only one gave me less than five stars and that was because I was fine but he didn’t like the thing I’d sold him as much as he’d hoped. Blame the writer, the stars or the producers but don’t blame me. When I first started selling things I worried about getting bad feedback. I still do but at least now I’ve got a cushion of good ratings to make any blip look like the abortion it is.

It can be interesting to read peoples feedback when you’re considering buying from them. Naturally you ignore the good scores and have a look for the bad ones. People can be so unreasonable. I’ve seen 1/5 ratings given because videos weren’t delivered within two days during a national postal strike. And I thought my guy who didn’t like what he’d bought was bad.

All of the above, written as I usually do off the top of my head with no prep, is to get to this point. I mentioned some months ago the book "Greatest of All Time" – a huge book about Muhammad Ali. It costs a staggering two thousand pounds for the standard version (though that entitles you to free Super Saver shipping so you’ve saved yourself three quid). I thought nothing could be more absurd than that (except of course the deluxe version which was selling for ten thousand dollars) until I returned to look at it today and saw that copies were available via Amazon Marketplace. Would they, I wondered, have "unwanted gift" copies for sale? Were there really people who would chance two grand on a book and decide they didn’t like it? How much discount would be available? Then I found what I was looking for.

Seller : wluk14

Price : £1,500

Feedback rating : 2/5

Item description : absolutely brand new - i know i have had bad feedback before but i will quarantee you will get this limited special edition book within a week at a fraction of the amazon price!

Feedback comments : 1 out of 5: "still haven't received item and hasn't replied to any e-mails", 1 out of 5: "DO NOT BUY FROM THIS SELLER!!!!!!! has not contacted me and no product recieved", 1 out of 5: "Took 2 weeks to arrive, poorly packaged & not in "as new" condition advertised", 5 out of 5: "Video was dispatched promptly, was of good quality, and included a helpful note."

Would you, or any sane person, give this man fifteen hundred pounds? I thought not. Even for something that could possibly be worth that much.

But who is more foolish – the dubious character offering a suspicious discount as annoyed customers bang on his door demanding satisfaction or those who are selling "used" copies of the book for a hundred pounds or more ABOVE the Amazon price?

And they don’t even qualify for free super saver shipping.

Alex Parks (and those inferior performers who went before her) was right when she sang that it is a "Mad World".