This is exactly why I so often just sleep late and never, never touch a computer.This has, in one single day, managed to go from simple commentary about one single thing to an impossible mash of:
apples, APPLE, oranges, pickles, graphics cards, cherries, German abuse of authority, pregnancy and vintage computer parts.
Wait…… pregnancy ??Please explain the German law that makes selling items you own at a price you set illegal. It's a fascinating concept…
when somebody offers a graphics card for 800 bucks which is normally traded for 30, and somebody buys it because he is a bit stupid or thought it might be brandnew or extremely rare, then the seller commited a federal crime after §219 StGB (actually in all european countries)
Well, I Googled §219 StGB and got:
https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/stgb/__219.htmlwhich went to:
Criminal Code (StGB)
Section 219 Counseling for pregnant women in an emergency or conflict situationOOPS…… Anyway, besides the fact that this "Case of the Mysterious Studer" Has more to do with hurt feelings over Brexit than with pricing graphics cards I'll say only that clearly, the case is -
or at least should be - far from over. I suspect you'll see ebay get involved in appealing this clearly idiotic ruling on behalf of Mr. Godden because otherwise, the ruling of a single, obviously politically motivated German jurist will force them to completely alter their auction rules and procedures into oblivion since the ruling sets an untenable precedent for ALL auctions in the future. Mr. Godden may have had to give in for lack of legal funds but ebay is another animal entirely. We'll see…
Meanwhile, the "Case of the Overpriced Graphics Cards" is not, repeat
NOT an auction, despite everybody wanting to take the opportunity to bitch about auctions in general. So…
For those too lazy to go back and re-read my points, here they are again:
I've sold stuff on fleabay for years. What's going on now is these idiots fall across something "vintage" they think might be saleable for a higher than reasonable price but they don't know exactly what that price might be. Trouble is:
1) If they list it in an auction, well, it's an auction. It might just sell for peanuts and that would suck.
2) If they list it in an "offer" or "best offer" format, fleabay sees that as a way to just have a pseudo–auction with the seller having all the leverage, so all kinds of fleabay rules and time limits etc. come into play and everything gets complicated and that would also suck. So…
3) They just list it at an obscenely high price figuring someone who really wants it will contact them with a decent offer… OR
4) They might just get lucky and some fool will actually grab it for the obscene price.
If selling stuff at crazy high prices was illegal, Rolls-Royce and Mercedes-Benz would never have sold any cars.