Normally I wouldn’t bother with this, but I got a mail from them this morning, and I can’t help but be blown away by sheer corporate greed and stupidity. They sent a mail heralding their drop in pricing. Sure, if you’re not looking far into the matter, that’s great. It looks good on the surface. Many of the fees in the low-end brackets are going down between .05 and .35 — between the reduction in tier for placing an ad, and the removal of charge for Gallery. Great. Fine. $ .40 isn’t a bad savings when you’re doing 20-30 auctions. While meager, I can get behind that.

That is, they look good until you look at the final auction value fees — which are going up as opposed to going down. Witness this, directly from their own website, and note that it wasn’t linked to in the mail, save as connected to the insertion fee notices…

Um, excuse me, but what? You’re giving us at the lowest tier a whopping .40 in exchange for a 3.5% hike in what you’re charging us for the final value? Somehow I don’t see an additional 3.5% on top of your already fairly exorbitant 5.25% as being an equitable trade-off for forty cents. At $25 closing, that works out to .875 (88 cents, as they generally round up) on top of the normal 1.3125 (or $1.32) So, let’s see… your “savings” actually works out to me owing you $ .44 more than I would have paid you under the previous tier structure pricing?

Uh, no.

Internet, it’s time to shoot this horse and put it out of its misery. Hey, eBay — just so you know, the Fonz just broke out his swimming trunks in your honor.

I replied to the email in question with the following:

Dear eBay,

Fuck you very much.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got some Craigslisting to do.