I have written 3 previous guides, all in honest good faith, and was pleased when I became ' A Top 1000 Reviewer'. However, I have become increasingly disillusioned by this apparent endorsement by Ebay of some of their clients. For example, take a look at 'Tom's Tool Chest' currently ranked 16 in the Review listings. This chap has four guides, all promoting tools which he sells. His 'usefulness' scores on these four guides are 5/26, 4/24, 2/25 and 0/18, giving a total of 11 positives out of 93 responses. This is hardly a glowing endorsement is it?!!

Similar doubts have arisen about some 'Power Sellers'. These are people who are supposed to embody all that is best about Ebay. I'm sure that is true for many, but there are some major exceptions. For example, I recently had to go through the Paypal dispute and claim process to retrieve money I'd sent to a CD 'Power Seller' (Record Village) who had failed to send me a CD I'd bought five weeks previously. This seller made no response to my email queries, nor did he respond to Paypal's email request. He sells hundreds of CDs every week, but careful perusal of his feedback shows a very significant minority of highly dissatisfied customers who have been treated in the way I was.

I'm sure we all want Ebay to be a fair, decent and honest place to buy and sell. I have been amazed at the kindness, generosity and support of some of the traders and individuals with whom I have dealt. It restores your faith in human nature! The point of this guide is to say be wary of apparently good reputations - it seems these are relatively easy to obtain, and very difficult to lose! I do think there are some very important issues here for Ebay's management team to address.

I  don't expect anyone to give me a positive vote for this guide, and there's certainly nothing ground-breaking here in terms of advice! I do feel better for writing it! Thank you for reading my points, and I wish you safe trading in 2009.