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A spokesman for CORE said;  He [Bill Cobb] repeated the same company justificationthat has been offered since July which, in many peoples view, is lookingincreasingly out of touch with reality. He failed to adequately acknowledge thedepth of international user opposition to recent policy changes and this, in manycommentators opinion, is a mistake. In our view he came across as insincere andinsulting to the smaller community members that claim they can no longer afford totrade on eBay. He referred to their plight as simply  unfortunateÂ'. His Q&A sessionwas basically of little interest to the fee paying user he was addressing.Â
CORE is calling for an international four day  Clean Up EbayÂ' protest (CUE) from21.00 GMT on Thursday 14th September until the same time Monday 18th September 2006
They say this is intended to be more than a listing strike and are asking alleBayers to get involved. They want buyers and sellers to stop trading on eBay duringthis four day period and donate some of the time saved to report many of theobvious, so called,  scam listingsÂ'. This campaign has quickly been reported aroundthe globe and CORE claim the volume of emails, phone calls, press inquiries andmessages of support theyÂ've received is  amazing . They say the issues they areraising are important and eBay should not be ignoring them.
The many complaints received by CORE from eBay users have widened from the originalfee issue which seems to have been the catalyst for this latest wave of protest.Failings to police the site adequately for bad listings, removing some sellerslistings from search results, frustratingly inadequate customer services, increasedhandling fees charged to buyers, the opening up of the site free of charge to fareastern sellers, the convoluted list of alternative brand activities and continualchanges to the eBay site are all raised with alarming regularity.
Their spokesman summed up;  As you can imagine, none of us involved with thecampaign on any continent are getting much sleep right now! We are working hard tobring all eBay users together, regardless of their location. We believe in the oldfashioned adage that  Customer is KingÂ'. Users throughout Europe, Australia andCanada are all affected along with the US. We aim to highlight the need for eBay toclean itself up and get the site back on track. We are increasingly concerned thatcurrent direction within eBay threatens both the user and shareholder investmentalike and it needs to be checked. ENDNotes for Editors:1. CORE spokespeople can be contacted via: ebayprotestgroup@googlemail.co m2. The idea for CUE was inspired by the Clean Up The World Weekend (CUW). Now in its13th year, CUW, held in conjunction with the United Nations Environment Programme(UNEP), mobilises over 35 million volunteers from more than 100 countries annually,making it one of the largest community-based environmental campaigns in the world. More info on CUW: http://www.cleanuptheworld.org /Main.asp?Requesttype
