eBay is facing a few legal challenges in France, where the French Council of Sales are claiming that eBay has failed to comply with French consumer protection laws.
Christian Giacomotto, the council’s chairman, told The Times that the e-commerce giant was flouting regulations governing auction houses in France, including a requirement to take out insurance against fraud.
The French Council of Sales regulate the French auction market and claim that eBay purchasers who receive fake or faulty goods stand very little chance of getting their money back, and say this is unfair competition as other auction houses have to make sure that they are “transparent and provide guarantees.”
eBay not surprisingly is dismissing the challenge saying:
That it acted only as a broker, “facilitating meetings between buyers and sellers”, and not as a public auction house. Auction regulations were, therefore, not applicable and “eBay’s activities and those of the auctioneers are totally separate,” it said.
The French may have a point though! As they say, eBay charges a commission to the seller and the buyer, which is pretty much what an auction house does.
Via [Times Online]
So if you are french and still want to use ebay, all you do is get some proxies up, get some virtual phone numbers, virtual addresses in another country that does accept ebay and start using that. problem solved.
What exactly do the French think.. like there's no "Internet Purchasing" in France, that doesn't comply with their FCoS regulations?
Please…
Bill Burke