> Anyway, it's worth a rethink along the lines of "can you redefine the problem?"
What if you built an Ebay from scratch around a secure financial escrow service?
Perhaps you could place a hold upon a credit card at the time a bid was placed, release that hold as soon as they lose the auction, and charge the credit card as soon as they win the auction. Don't charge a transaction fee (or charge as small a fee as possible) -- just hold the cash in escrow until the buyer verifies that he has received the product as agreed. If the buyer tells you he has not received the item or that it is not as agreed, you perform some kind of resolution. If no feedback at all is received from the buyer in X days, you pay the seller anyway.
I don't know whether buyers and sellers would love these terms, but they should be securable, and if Ebay is becoming inoperable, maybe they would work.
Ebay does a form of resolution, but I don't know if it's really good enough. On the extreme end you could offer formal arbitration. I'm not sure what's in between.
True. Saying as eBay owns PayPal, they could probably turn it into one though, if only for use on eBay itself. And you've probably already given PayPal your credit card number too.
What if you built an Ebay from scratch around a secure financial escrow service?
Perhaps you could place a hold upon a credit card at the time a bid was placed, release that hold as soon as they lose the auction, and charge the credit card as soon as they win the auction. Don't charge a transaction fee (or charge as small a fee as possible) -- just hold the cash in escrow until the buyer verifies that he has received the product as agreed. If the buyer tells you he has not received the item or that it is not as agreed, you perform some kind of resolution. If no feedback at all is received from the buyer in X days, you pay the seller anyway.
I don't know whether buyers and sellers would love these terms, but they should be securable, and if Ebay is becoming inoperable, maybe they would work.