Seriously, if the seller wasn't a respected member of the forum I imagine a lot of you guys wouldn't be jumping all over Burke; you'd be agreeing with him dontcha think? I don't think Burke acted inappropriately at all...seems to me like he's telling the truth.
Maybe the title of this thread should be, "Hey new guys...stay away from our forum if you have anything remotely negative to say about anything that can be traced back to one of our old-timers." Wait, that's too long to fit in the title bar, isn't it? 
I think you are missing the point. If everybody complained about the bad deals they got on ebay we would have no regular posts. And it isn't that he has something negative to say, it is rather that he didn't say them to the right person first. If there is a complaint, take it up with the seller FIRST before you go telling the world. Reguardless of your intention, posting in a public forum has consequences to both the buyer and the seller and should not be taken lightly - it is obviously that burke understood this because he disclaimed his posts with:
"I do not want to dirty someones name, especially on this forum. This place has been a big, big, help. But We all buy and sell parts and I will tell in the description if there is anything that I would notice if I was looking for this item."
This sounds a little self righteous and intentional to me. From this persepctive it looks like he is trying to take a subtle jab at a seller because he feels cheated. Well if he felt cheated he should have taken it up with dg first. If he had asked what should I do, that would also be a different story (at which point most of us would have said take it up with the seller) because that shows a genuine interest in resolution and not a subtle dig because he has hurt feelings.
I would be equally critical of anybody who aired probelms like this without FIRST TRYING THE PROPER PROCEDURES AND CHANNELS FOR ADDRESSING THIS ISSUE. It doesn't matter if the member is well respected or a stranger here there is a right way and a wrong wat to do things. Plus it doesn't help the buyer, because one of the few bits of leverage a buyer has agains a seller is his reputation and if you sully that right off the bat it is going to make getting a resoution harder.
i dont see where burke jumped on anybody,all he did was ask about the tank and what our opinions were of the selling description.
actually he didn't ask about anybody's opinion on the condition of the tank right away. He stated that he was unhappy in the first line of his post, and then when prodded for an explination he gave us his opinion of how it was unfarily described. Even when asking about a simple part he was sure to make clear that it was "not as described".
I freely admit that he didn't jump on anybody outright but what he did do was be careless with someone elses reputation (whether that was intentional or not). I am not saying he is not entitled to his opinion but if he is going to do that here he is definatly going to get my opinion in return.
most of us here are buyers and sellers on ebay, and since we all like the same bikes we are going to buy and sell form each other from time to time. Isn't it better to have a precedent of handiling it privatley FIRST before stepping on anybody's toes?
I must commend dg on his handeling of this. If it were me (and it has been in the past on other boards) I would not be so civil about. He has not engaged in any arguments or shouting matches and has offered a refund publicly if the item is returned. That shows real professionalism.
