July 10, 2000 - The Power of E-Bay

This column is so dated and bizarre that I had to post it. For one thing, I refer to eBay as "E-Bay" throughout even though it's a column about eBay. I called Dave Matthews - a band that I now can't stand, and actually, can't ever remember liking - "great," which makes me think that I was smoking way too much pot in 2000. I made jokes about Harry Shearer's career earnings when he was getting rich from "The Simpsons." And just the context of the column makes it seem like it was written 35 years ago. By the way, I got revenge on "The Sopranos" ripoff seller by signing him up to something like thirty different magazines with those "Bill My Later" subscription cards. So that was fun. Also, the White Shadow game is in my attic buried under 10 pounds of stuff. EBay is great until you have a family and too much stuff. Then it's not so great.

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THE POWER OF E-BAY
Everything you ever wanted to know (but we're afraid to ask)

In the latest chapter of my new running book, "How E-Bay Turned My Life Around," I cruised down to Foxboro last night with some friends to catch the Dave Matthews concert, a superb show from a great band, even if I did feel like a child molester sitting in the stands with 50,000 scantily-clad girls between the ages of 16-19. But that's not the point. We finagled field tickets for the show on E-Bay and actually scored seats about 35 rows from the stage for a reasonable price, proving once again why E-Bay is the greatest modern invention since the sports bra.

I love E-Bay. I turn into a born-again Christian whenever somebody asks me about it; invariably, I attempt to convert them the same way my Uncle Chuck tries to convert everyone in the Simmons family around the holidays. Recently I swayed one of my buddies, who quickly transformed from an E-Bay novice into one of the losing bidders on a $245 game-worn Chris Washburn Warriors jersey within six hours. Now he scours E-Bay every week searching for a game-worn Lloyd Daniels jersey. And he'll probably find it, too.

That's the power of E-Bay: everything you ever wanted in life is probably for sale at the giant online candy store of life. Once you get sucked in, it's all over. The only thing missing from E-Bay is some sort of cultish Jim Jones/L. Ron Hubbard figure (Edward Bay?) who could preside over everything, belt out random proverbs, write self-help books and eventually make bad science fiction movies with John Travolta.

The best thing about E-Bay? It's easy to use. My Mom hits E-Bay twice a week searching for a wine press and she's the online Forrest Gump. It took her three weeks to figure out how to read e-mails, for God's sake. Now you're saying to yourself, "A wine press? What the hell is that?" According to Mom, these are antique machines that they used in the late-1800's and early-1900's to press grapes; she wants to stick one in her recently-refurbished wine tasting room in the basement (they cost between $100 and $500, depending on age and condition). I just enjoy the fact that she has a recently-refurbished wine tasting room; just what my mother needs, another reason to drink wine.

Then again, I shouldn't make fun of her because I'm ten times worse on E-Bay. Most of the fun for me comes in searching for things; in case you never really explored E-Bay, you can basically type in any name or term -- eg: ANTOINE WALKER -- and the search will turn up every E-Bay item related to Antoine Walker (cards, jerseys, autographs, magazines, etc.). Pretty neat, especially if you're an Antoine junkie or if you're Michael Holley.

(Confession time: I type in the name "Fred Lynn" at least twice a week hoping to find a game-worn Sox uniform from the mid-70's. No luck so far. Last week somebody listed a bid for a game-used Lynn bat that I was eyeing like Roger Clemens ogling a plate of Hamburger Helper. Still, it's not like you can wear a Fred Lynn bat and you probably couldn't carry it around in public unless you're walking around in Revere. But a Lynn jersey... a Freddie Lynn #19 Sox jersey? Now THAT would be cool. If I ever found one, I'd go into the Store 24 in Charlestown and wait for somebody to knock a soda over so I could come running in and make a diving catch. And yet I digress.)

Game-used jerseys are my favorite things to search for on E-Bay because they're unique, one-of-a-kind items. You can buy baseball cards anywhere at any time, but when will you ever stumble across a game-worn Washburn Warriors jersey again? Can you even place a comedy value on something like that? I sure can't. Or what if Bernard King decided to sell his Cadwallader State jersey from "Fast Break"? Or if Burt Reynolds needed help paying his mortgage and decided to hawk his #22 Mean Machine jersey from the "Longest Yard"?

That's the power of E-Bay... you never know when something like that might turn up. Just this week, Harry Shearer decided to sell the bass guitar he played as Derek Smalls in "This is Spinal Tap" (one of the all-time classics) and the bidding skyrocketed to $38,000, probably more than Harry made over the past ten years combined.

(Derek Smalls' guitar is only the tip of the iceberg. If you searched around Ebay right now, you'd find such wildly eclectic things as a $600,000 Honus Wagner card; Kareem's game-used jersey and shorts, a game-worn Earl Campbell jersey; the domain name www.redsoxfanclub.com; a poster from The Godfather signed by everyone in the cast; the final :90210" script autographed by the whole cast; a game-worn 1956 Red Sox jersey; Jamie Foxx's game-used jersey from "Any Given Sunday"; and even Blue Edwards' game-worn warmup jacket for the '96 Celts season. I'm telling you, it's ALL out there.)

The other key E-Bay items, at least for me, are tickets. Not only did I purchase DMB tickets through EBay, but I found Pearl Jam tix, Red Hot Chili Peppers tix, Red Sox tix and even Natalie Merchant tix (for the Sports Gal) through E-Bay. Red Sox tickets are especially interesting because E-Bay prevents sellers from getting more than $2 plus the face value of tickets, and since the bidding usually spirals out of control for good seats, EBay usually ends up pulling the auction. Still, there are those rare occassions when somebody just wants to dump their tickets for face value as quickly as possible, so they'll put a "First bid wins" restriction on the item (a fantastic stroke of luck for the buyer if you see the item first).

One key thing with tickets: Always check to make sure where the tickets are EXACTLY through the Foxboro seating chart, the Fenway seating chart, etc. Some of these scumbags on EBay will try to "spruce up" their tickets with phrases that aren't exactly true. Two of my Boston-related favorite scams:

1. Anyone who sells end zone seats for Pats games and claims "Great seats - 5 rows from the field!" Sometimes they might be five rows from the field, but usually they're in the freaking end zone. Section 22-25 = end zone in Foxboro, and the second section of the end zone at that. Beware.

2. Anyone who sells upper box seats in Row AA for Red Sox games and claims, "Box seats, first row!" Sorry, if you're sitting in Row AA, you're really sitting in the second section at Fenway. The lower box seats are closest to the field... then there's a walkway where everyone walks around carrying food and/or looking for their seat; behind the walkway, THAT'S the Upper Boxes. So if you're in Row AA, you have an up-close look at hundred of spectators per inning walking right in front of you. That's a good time, huh?

The lesson: If you come to play on E-Bay, come prepared. Don't pull a Jimy Williams and start playing hunches and throwing caution to the wind.

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Of course, there's a cloud of doubt hanging over every word in this column from the non-believers, so let's get it out in the open right now: Accountability.

How do you know you won't get ripped off? How do you know you're getting what you paid for? And how does the system police itself?

All E-Bay purchases are fully insured by Lloyd's Of London, with a catch: you need to save your proof of purchase. I like sending money orders because you can write the seller's name on the order and keep the receipt -- as well as the link to the bid you "won" on EBay -- and nobody would be able to deny that you 1) won the bid, 2) mailed out a money order for the amount of the bid, and 3) mailed that money order to the seller who posted the bid. Even if the seller ends up screwing you, E-Bay will eventually refund your money as long as you have the proof of purchase.

How do I know this? Well, I got screwed this spring by someone who claimed to have collector's edition tapes of the first two seasons of the Sopranos (I bid on them as a Father's Day present for my stepdad, a big Sopranos fan). The "collector's tapes" turned out to be three homemade tapes that were actually tapes of a tape; you could tell because the sound and tracking were all screwed up. I went through the E-Bay channels and they tried to force him to give me a refund, but he wouldn't respond to their e-mails. I unfortunately hadn't saved my money order receipt, so I wasn't eligible for insurance. Basically, I got screwed. And I will have my vengeance... whether in this life or the next, I will have my vengeance. But that's another story for another time.

Just keep in mind these rules:

A. Always save your proof of purchases.

Remember my experience with the Sopranos fraud.

B. Never deal with anyone with a bad feedback rating

E-Bay allows you to post "Feedback" on your transactions and give somebody either a positive, negative or neutral grade, along with a one-line comment. Remember that Sopranos guy? I gave him a negative grade AND a scathing comment... now he's stuck with it for life, like online VD (along with the two other negatives he received over the past few months).

Each Feedback grade counts as a point; in my case, I have made eight transactions and received eight positive grades, which means I'm 8-for-8. In other words, I'm reliable.

As for the unreliables... if you consider purchasing something from someone with a few negatives on their resume, you should have your head examined. Obviously they're incompetent and represent everything evil about E-Bay.

(Heathens! Heathens!)

C. Beware of someone who hasn't had an E-Bay transaction before

You just never know; it's like playing Russian Roulette with Chris Walken. Odds are that the seller is simply making their first transaction on EBay, but there's always a chance that he/she could be someone who messed up on EBay in the past (like my Sopranos guy) and re-entered the E-Bay world under a new identity, almost like a Mafia member in the witness protection program. So you never know. One more reason you should always save your links and your proof of purchase.

D. Beware of autographed stuff

Especially if it doesn't have a COA (certificate of authenticity). I would never buy something autographed from someone who says, "I got these autographs over the last few years at various shows and ballgames!"

E. If you have a good E-Bay experience, always give that person good feedback

The system polices itself this way. For instance, my feedback section has eight positives and a variety of comments like "He's an asset to E-Bay! Two thumbs up!" and "Smooth transaction, honest customer!" and even "Hung like a bear, can go all night!" I'm actually quite proud of them; recently I showed my girlfriend all my feedback comments and read them like movie reviews in a movie ad:

"He's an asset to E-Bay! Two thumbs up!"
-- Roger Ebert, Ebert and the Movies

"Smooth transaction, honest customer!"
-- Leonard Maltin, Entertainment Tonight

"Hung like a bear, can go all night!"
-- Al Goldstein, Screw Magazine.

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Wrapping things up, here are my five favorite things about E-Bay:

--1. If you love procrastinating, EBay fills the bill. Whenever I have 20 minutes to kill online -- if I'm waiting for an important e-mail, or for the DC Boston publishing tool to get fixed after it crashes for the 97th time -- I inevitably journey over to E-Bay and kill some time. And there's always SOMETHING interesting happening on E-Bay. When I saw the Derek Smalls guitar last week, my eyes literally popped out of my head. You couldn't even make something like that up.

--2. Bidding is just plain fun. Being a competitive only child, I take the bidding quite seriously and I hate losing, especially to some other schmoe online. One bidding trick: if you REALLY want something, you should mark down when the auction ends and swoop in during the final minute to top everyone else's bid. This way you aren't driving up the price on yourself all week (I'm convinced that most E-Bay sellers get their friends to bid on items to help drive the prices up, the heathens).

--3. It's nice to know that you could sell your junk if you ever wanted to sell it. When the time comes and I decide to dump my baseball card collection or my complete collection of "White Shadow" episodes, I know I'll have an outlet... just like Harry Shearer had an outlet when he realized he needed to pay his mortgage this month.

--4. There's something inherently American about E-Bay. In the old days, if you had four Sox tickets and two of your friends decided to cancel, you were stuck selling them for half-price to scalpers before the game. Now you can actually get your money back with a little luck. Same thing if you want to hawk your baseball cards. Or your computer. Or your diamond ring. Or your stereo. Or even your old porn videos (seems kinda gross, but even used porn videos show up on E-Bay... yuk). Whatever you're selling, at least you're not at the whim of some pawn shop clerk or baseball card dealer.

--5. Hope always spring eternal on E-Bay. I hope I find a Freddie Lynn jersey. I hope I find Coolidge's game-worn Carver High jersey. I hope my Mom finds a good wine press. I hope this will be the day I stumble across someone selling his Red Sox season tickets for $200 bucks. I hope the Pacific will be as blue as it is in my dreams. I hope.

One final E-Bay story: I visited the Basketball Hall of Fame two months ago with my buddy Stoner and we spent at least 20 minutes perusing those basketball board games on Level One. Everyone over the age of 25 remembers those games; back in the pre-video/pre-computer era, we played electric football and "pop-shot" basketball because we just didn't know any better. The hoop games all had the same features -- a cardboard arena, a ping pong ball, two baskets with scoreboards on top of them, holes on 12 different areas of the court and little metal things on the sides to "shoot" the ball once it fell into a hole. Back in the 70's, it passed for a good time.

Anyway, the Hall of Fame had a variety of different board games from over the years, including a "White Shadow" basketball game. The White Shadow! My favorite show! So I spent at least ten minutes staring through the glass case at Ken Reeves' face and wondering how I could break into the case and carry the game out in my pants before Stoner finally dragged me away.

Two months later, the same board game turned up on E-Bay... and now it's sitting in my living room. Best $21 dollars I ever spent.

E-Bay. Feel the power.

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Copyright by Bill Simmons, 2000