[Milsurplus] Ebay short story.

[Hubert Miller]

I really don't want to stir a furor of Ebay gripes and horror stories, but....i thought I'd recount 
my experience with the flag which I mentioned here about a full year ago. At that time, my
listing for a 'WWII German Balkenkreuz vehicle recognition flag' was removed as "inappropriate",
i.e. Nazi glorification. This while a search on "Balkenkreuz" found 400+ other listings with this 
name, including Balkenkreuz T-shirts for the least intelligent among us. I spoke to 2 Ebay reps
about this. The first told me "Ebay was getting to this but as there were so many listings, it would
take some time".  I waited "some time", a few months, saw no action was being taken, and again
spoke with Ebay. The young fellow told me he also saw the historical aspect and found the item
interesting, but basically, "That's just the way it is". So anyway after seeing absolutely no change
in over a year, I decided to put the flag, really a 'covering', on again. I got one personal message
of mild complaint, but this person didn't complain to Ebay. I think what happened the first time 
out, was that I refused to ship the covering to Brazil, and a person there then for revenge 
"reported" the item to Ebay as "inappropriate". This at the same time I had some Panzer radios
on Ebay, and these all bore small Armaments Ministry actual swastika stamps
Well, this time out, the flag / cover did  close successfully, and brought about $400+, which I sort 
of expected, or better said, hoped for, as I don't have a good feel for which areas of collectibles 
are down now. 

BTW, I spoke today with an Ebay rep about a different problem, and altho the rep was  fully conversant
in English, and they do really emphasize the "caring and concerned" affect, I could tell the rep is
overseas. I dutifully completed their post session feedback questionnaire, but I added this comment:
"I wish you could hire American citizens to do phone center work. 
I'm sure many ( or at least some ) Americans are smart enough to do this, are presently suffering 
underemployment, and would be happy to work from home, so a moderate wage paid would still be
worthwhile to them."

( The local seafood plant has around 40 workers here from Serbia, on 6-month contracts. They work a 
lot, 5 x 12 days, for about ( I was told ) $1450 / week, and AFAIK they get their hotel accommodations 
provided. If they work 7 x 12 ( which would kill me ), they can net $14,400 / month. When I learned about 
the foreign workers here, I thought, "Really, no Americans would work that hard? None? Or you cannot 
even get Mexican or Honduran or such guest workers, or even Venezuelans? That kind of money would go
a long long way to decreasing misery in those countries. I continue to wonder. ) 

Honestly, it seems unpatriotic for large companies doing business in the USA to have their call centers
all overseas. I suppose a lot of Americans who would work for those going wages aren't maybe the 
brightest, but this work mostly requires just looking down their script page, with referral to someone
higher up if there's more complication. Anyway, we all know who ( what ) these companies owe their
ultimate loyalty to. 
-Hue Miller