Auction site eBay won a big victory in federal court yesterday. Tiffany & Co. sued eBay in 2004 after asking the company to remove listings with the Tiffany name in them. Tiffany claimed that eBay knew many counterfeit goods were being auctioned on the site, and that eBay had a responsibility to stop them.

The court ruled in eBay's favor, saying that it is Tiffany's responsibility to protect its own trademarks, not the auction company. The judge said that general knowledge of trademark infringement didn't make eBay responsible for the infringement.

Last week, eBay lost a similar suit in France, brought by LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton SA. The maker of luxury goods won a judgment of over $61 million against eBay because of the sale of counterfeit purses, perfume, and accessories.

Like my fellow writer, Gary Sattler, I'm a pretty big fan of eBay. Over the years, I've watched the site grow. I've used it to raise money, get rid of junk, buy presents for my wife, and generally just drool. In the best of times, eBay has represented a sort of capitalist utopia, where buyers and sellers work together to find the best price for an item, exchange stuff, and generally keep the US Postal Service in business.

Of course, like Gary, I've also watched as my capitalist utopia has grown to represent the dangers of any unregulated market. Predatory sellers offering substandard crap to unwitting sellers, predatory sellers withholding money or threatening ratings, counterfeit items, incomplete descriptions, and a devil's roll-call of other tricks that undermine trade and pit users against each other have all conspired to transform my eBay from the best store in the world to a substandard back alley where getting cheated is not just a possibility but a probability.

I've had to become very cautious; nowadays, before I put down a bid, I read every description like it's a legal document, searching for the loophole that my opponent -- excuse me, seller -- is going to use to cheat me. In the process, eBaying has lost a lot of its fun.

Word on the street is that eBay is trying to be nicer to its customers in order to win some of them back. Ticked off buyers and sellers around the world have made it no secret that things at eBay haven't been good for a while.

One example: eBay has gone "PayPal only" in Australia, and people think that's a sign of things to come in the United States. By allowing only PayPal to pay for auctions, eBay has suggested things will be safer. Customers know better. All that will happen is eBay will make more money.

The latest eBay idea is to offer "more" buyer protection. (I put more in quotes, because that sentence suggests that buyers are currently protected, and there are plenty of unhappy eBayers who might say differently.)

The next time you see a good deal on Craigslist, you might want to give this a little thought...

According to New York City police, a gang in Brooklyn has been offering discounted iPhones on Craigslist to lure mugging victims. In at least one instance, the four suspects put up a posting in which they offered ten iPhones for the attractive price of $2000. They then negotiated with the potential buyers to meet in deserted areas in Brooklyn, where they proceeded to rob the hapless bargain hunters. On April 10, one would-be buyer scared them off by honking his car's horn, but on June 4, the men managed to steal $2000, a cellphone, and a handheld navigation device from one would-be buyer. Not long afterward, a police officer, posing as a customer, arranged a meeting, at which several officers converged upon the robbers. Since the arrest, the four men have been tied to four robberies and are being investigated in connection with eight more.

The first key element in this scam was the fact that, while the iPhones were selling for a discounted rate, their price was still somewhat reasonable. Moreover, the fact that Craigslist, like eBay, is largely unpoliced, makes it very easy for robbers to take advantage of the unwary. The next time you meet with someone you found on Craigslist, you might want to follow a few precautions.

• First off, don't agree to any situation that will have you carrying large sums of money. If the sale involves a lot of cash, both you and your fellow Craigslister will be better off if you use traveler's checks, counter checks, or money orders.
• Second, be sure to travel with a friend when meeting for a sale, as many would-be robbers will be discouraged when they discover that you're not alone.
• Third, when you agree to meet with someone you've never met, be sure that the meeting place is somewhere that you know, or at least in a public area where there are a lot of witnesses. A legitimate buyer or seller should be perfectly happy to meet in a well-traveled area.
• Finally, use your common sense: if a deal sounds too good to be true, it probably is!
  
  Bruce Watson is a freelance writer, blogger, and all-around cheapskate. He doesn't like iPhones, anyway!

More scams to watch for:

The ATM scam that could cost you dearly

Save $300 this year on bank fees

When my mother died, my father gave me her engagement ring, largely in the hopes that I might one day pass it on to another woman. Sure enough, a few years later, when I proposed to my wife, the diamond that I gave her was the one that my father had given me.

This isn't to say that I just passed the ring on; in fact, I spent about a month working with a jeweler friend and a goldsmith. Ultimately, the three of us created a truly distinctive ring that said a great deal about my wife, myself, and the family that we eventually formed.

If I hadn't gotten my mother's ring, I don't think that I would have given my wife a diamond. To begin with, buying a new diamond would have more than doubled the cost of the ring. Beyond that, however, I'm not sure how I feel about diamonds; apart from the human misery that is attached to their mining and distribution, there is the fact that the damned things just aren't that beautiful. Given a choice, I'd pick a sapphire, tourmaline, ruby, garnet, or even a helenite over the more traditional chunk of carbon.

Have you ever purchased something on eBay, paid with PayPal, and felt good because you're got their "buyer protection" guarantee? Unfortunately, buyers aren't as protected as they might think they are. Sure, PayPal agrees to help resolve disputes between you and the seller, but that doesn't mean that you're going to win your dispute, even when all the evidence is in your favor.

Witness this story from a WalletPop reader who was scammed by an eBay seller, and then felt victimized a second time by the lack of results from PayPal:

My consumer scam involves PAYPAL which is a ruthless, money grubbing Ebay company. They get to operate like a bank, allow consumers to think they ARE a bank, pretend to offer "Paypal Protection," when it is all a scam to get and keep consumers' money as long as they can.

Let me start out by saying that I am a small time Ebay Powerseller, with 100% positive feedback. I have been selling small vintage and antique auction items fairly regularly since 2005. I have used Paypal to receive and send payments early on so had always been a great customer and independent agent for Ebay and of Paypal.

So when I was about 12 years old my brother and I listed a signed Vladimir Guerrero rookie card on eBay. It would have sold for at least $50 but, in my haste, I spelled his name "Valdimir." We got less than $20 for it and my brother was peeved.

So I was amused to learn that there are now a few free websites designed to help eBay shoppers capitalize on misspellings. Today's Wall Street Journal reports (subscription required) that Auction Bloopers, Missing-Auctions and Typo Buddy all provide free services that will search for various common misspellings.

These sites probably help sellers as much as buyers by increasing the audience so that that "Van Go" original doesn't sell for 93 cents.

Of course if your "Typo Buddy" search turns up a "Lewie Vitong" bag, it's probably not such a bargain.

A new site called Ztail that claims to answer the question: What's it worth? The site provides the answer in several forms: the list price at several stores, the average price on eBay, reviews and then finally readers' opinions. The last part makes it kind of fun. like an online The Price is Right. But if I'm not going to win a year's supply of Rice-A-Roni, what's my motivation to rate other people's junk or invite their analysis of my own?

The site is based on the premise that you've got a lot of junk around the house that's worth something. The company cites an eBay Nielsen survey that finds the average person has 52 unused household items worth more than $3,000 lying around. The first part of that equation has got to be true. Sure, who doesn't have too much stuff around? The second part, I'm not so sure about. The delusion that your "collectibles" or used electronics or National Geographic collection are actually worth something is what makes packrats of us all. It's why my mom has two eight track players and an unwieldy wall of clocks. Please, no one tell her about this statistic or she'll never get rid of her "collection" of obsolete kitchen utensils.

What I find weird about this site is that we already have a site that does this. It's called eBay. And everyone knows you don't go for the average current price (which can include unrealistic first bids or very preliminary low ball offers). You check completed auctions--what people were actually willing to pay. Even Amazon lets you see the same item from different sellers (including individuals) and reviews. All of which begs this next question: If I put Ztail in the Ztail search engine what would I get?

Once or twice a year, I try to purge my closet of all of the clothes that either don't fit, are hopelessly outdated, stained or otherwise just been hanging around for too long. The items I can't seem to part with are those that I paid a lot of money for or the clothes that I never wore -- and they still have the tags to prove it. Usually, I donate these clothes to Goodwill, even though it pains me to throw such smart, stylish clothes in a garbage bag and dump them in a parking lot.

Anyway, a new company called Revolve Couture may help me not only get rid of some of my lightly used or new clothes, and I could make a few bucks doing it. Revolve Couture is an online consignment boutique specializing in designer wares. Consignors mail clothing, shoes and accessories to the company, and they sell them on ebay, charging a flat 33% commission (they'll pick up the clothes if you live within 10 miles of Greenwich, CT, where the company is based). If items are not sold, they are either mailed back to the owner at the consignor's expense or donated to Shop for a Cure.

We should be used to this by now. Yet another money grubbing directive has surfaced from mother eBay Inc. (NASDAQ: EBAY), As covered in a story in The New York Times, eBay has decided to test market the strategy of allowing payment for transactions on its site solely through its wanton money portal, PayPal. The company intends to run this test on Australian eBayers. I wonder if our mates Down Under would be willing to tell us how they feel about this strategy?

eBay is claiming that this change in operating procedure will lower the incidences of fraud on the site. That's funny coming from them, when you consider that the worst eBay fraud nightmares generally run through its own PayPal system. I can believe that eBay's own fraud exposure might be cut by funneling everything through PayPal, but that's about eBay's bottom line. It's not about the bottom lines of its loyal patrons. The matter is further examined in this Associated Press article.

BloggingStocks reports that, as it stands right now, PayPal collects 2.9% from every sale which runs through its system in the U.S., plus another .30 cents for any sale under $3,000. The picture gets even gloomier for Australian eBayers, where PayPal charges 4.4% on sales, plus the additional .30 cents. What percentage of eBay Australia's sales currently run through alternate payment means? That's what I want to know.

If this change is enacted by eBay against the entirety of it's operations, it will be just one more step in the inevitable creation of "Wal-Bay", a site where large volumes of foreign made junk will be peddled by a thin crust of well protected sellers. In the meantime, alternate online selling strategies continue to take hold and grow as eBay's own growth has stalled. eBay can fake revenue growth for just so long. It's only a matter of time before things really start to get ugly over there.

If you've ever bought an item off eBay, then you probably know about the misery of snipers. Just when you think that you're about to get the cell phone you wanted at an incredibly cheap price, some scumbucket sweeps in and outbids you by a lousy fifty cents. You find yourself staring at the screen, empty handed, as you beat your breast, tear out your hair, and cry to the heavens, wondering how the universe could be so cruel.

Having been both a buyer and a seller, I have learned that the misery of eBay cuts both ways. No matter how much research you do, how carefully you craft your posting, the ultimate price of your item depends upon the whims of the markets. Sometimes, last-minute bidding will drive your item's price through the roof. Other times, it just lies there like a slug, not doing much at all.

What makes this even worse is the fact that most items have a reasonable range values, a truth that seems to elude many eBay patrons. As a buyer, you often find yourself getting outbid on items because some maroon in Outer Bumpkinville hasn't done his research and is willing to massively overpay on a cell phone. On the other hand, as a seller, you sometimes find yourself getting rid of items for far less than they're worth because your listing isn't as slick as one put up by a professional salesman.

Ideally, eBay would pair buyers and sellers in an exchange-style market, where they would be able to determine the best price for an item at any given time. They wouldn't be undermined by the pressures of uninformed buyers or boring webpages. In the absence of these distractions, the ultimate sale would lack some of the drama of eBay, but would be a little more satisfying for all concerned.

This post is part of a series about real-life signs we're in a recession.

The good news about the recession is that there are bargains to be had for the adventurous shopper. The bad news is that many people are not able to afford them.

Times are tough and the economy is slowing. The National Bureau of Economic Research has not officially pronounced that the U.S. is in a recession -- technically two consecutive quarters of negative Gross Domestic Product Growth. GDP rose 1.9 percent last year and is expected to decline in the first quarter by 0.1%, according to Morgan Stanley.

Yet some economists, including David Wyss of Standard & Poor's, argue that a recession is already in progress. He believes that the economy is half-way through the slowdown, which he expects to be mild as recessions go. "It's still going to hurt," he said in an interview. "Recessions always do."

Indeed, signs of a recession are all around us. People are doing without a full tank of gas. They are watching their pennies at the grocery store. They are learning to do without things that they thought, until recently, they could not do without -- including $10,000 summer camps. Many are watching their homes decrease in value at an alarming rate and foreclosures have hit records.

In WalletPop's Recession Watch series, bloggers documented some of the new trends brought about by the economic slowdown. For example, some young adults are moving in with their grandparents. Businesses of all sizes are merging to save money. Others, such as a karate dojo, are adding quirky new side businesses, such as selling balloons.

Here are some other additional signs of looming recession:

It seems the IRS wants a piece of any type of income you had last year... So it's not uncommon for taxpayers to ask about what they're supposed to do with the money they made from a garage sale. The answer to this question is pretty simple. If you sold a handful of personal items at a garage sale (or via eBay or another online auction site) you don't have to report this income on your taxes. So long as this is something you're not doing on a regular basis, you're in the clear.

The issue gets a little more complicated if you sold any "appreciated assets," which are things like art, antiques and collectibles. If you sold them for more than you paid for them, you'll have a gain that should be reported on your income taxes. The same goes for property that you used in a business and claimed on your business tax returns. The sale of that type of property is likely reportable on your income taxes.

If you've started an online auction business or if you have recurring garage sales (that essentially become a business), you probably have to report this income on your income taxes. It's usually pretty clear when you're intending to make a profit at these activities, and that's when your eBay selling or your repeated garage sales actually become a business.

Tracy L. Coenen, CPA, MBA, CFE performs fraud examinations and financial investigations for her company Sequence Inc. Forensic Accounting, and is the author of Essentials of Corporate Fraud.

Last year, in an effort to clear out my house, I put a bunch of stuff up on eBay. As I considered the piles of junk I was listing, I was impressed with the strangeness of my various collections and the disordered personality that they reflected. From a life mask of Vincent Price to a bunch of signed first editions to a collection of stuffed dolls in the shape of horror movie villains, my eBay listings bore silent witness to a twisted, eclectic personality with a poor attention span and a tendency toward oddball purchases. While I didn't want any of this stuff any more, I was strangely proud of what it said about me.

Recently, however, an eBay listing made me realize just how normal I actually am. Faced with a lack of space and an inability to use her Sauna, Nancy Fiddler recently decided to get rid of the mastodon skeleton that's been crowding her garage for the past six years.

Doing some research on eBay scams tonight, I came across one of the best YouTube videos of all time -- Kelli Filkins appeared on Judge Judy to defend plaintiffs' claim that she had defrauded them on eBay by sending them a picture of a cell phone they paid $240 for. She claimed that the ad said it was for a picture only.

What ensued is possibly the greatest smackdown in the history of Judge Judy -- who tells Ms. Filkins that she is an "outrageous person" and tells her that "If you live to 120, you're not gonna be as smart as I am in one figure. You may weigh more, but you're not gonna be smarter than I am in one figure." Burn sauce!

Always nice to see the long arm of the law sticking it to a crook. I love Judge Judy.