Bought a phone from Gumtree, turned out to be fake

Shawn_Dark

soolin wrote: »

That is an argument that is often found on various ebay related boards- unfortunately it is nonsense as a monopoly suggests no other competitor is allowed or can entre the market. Someone does not have a monopoly just because they are the best known.

In fact for face to face sales I would suggest that the various facebook selling pages are bigger now that Gumtree. It was your choice to use Gumtree despite there being a lot of other places out there to buy a second hand phone. If you truly believe that an organisation of any sort has too much market share then boycott them and use some other smaller sites to encourage their growth instead.

I stand corrected.

It's just a shame (and somewhat strange) that no one is able to compete with them... at all!

ballisticbrian

It is true that some big corporations or massive web sites can seem to *corner* the market but... oh how big empires fall, and eventually, they ALL do.

GabbaGabbaHey

Abu_Yoosha wrote: »

Ebay have a Microsoft type monopoly that needs to stopped.

Given that Apple are bigger than Microsoft, how exactly do Microsoft have a monopoly?

If you feel that eBay have a monopoly, and this is something that you dislike, then there is nothing forcing you to use them. That doesn't mean that they need to be "stopped".

Shawn_Dark

GabbaGabbaHey wrote: »

Given that Apple are bigger than Microsoft, how exactly do Microsoft have a monopoly?

If you feel that eBay have a monopoly, and this is something that you dislike, then there is nothing forcing you to use them. That doesn't mean that they need to be "stopped".

I was referring to Microsoft's past when the US government forced them to break the company up.

Regardless, that particular point was retracted and therefore finished earlier today. Not that I mentioned that I "use" Ebay anyway.

antrobus

Abu_Yoosha wrote: »

I was referring to Microsoft's past when the US government forced them to break the company up.
...

But Microsoft was not forced to break up.

Shawn_Dark

antrobus wrote: »

But Microsoft was not forced to break up.

Well yes they were. But they were able to escape punishment via the appeal process.

In the end a settlement was reached with Microsoft having to take certain required actions. However not all states were happy with the outcome and referred to it as a 'slap on the wrist' for Microsoft.

The bottom line is that they were pretty much the definition of a monopoly.