I'm told "seller assumes all responsibility for this listing". So when I list a book, then check the listing, and discover a flagrantly misleading Sales Item Condition description, it concerns me. Presumably eBay's automatic systems wrote it? Without telling me? This surely is concerning.
This is what they say:
Good: A book that has been read, but is in good condition. Minimal damage to the book cover eg. scuff marks, but no holes or tears. If this is a hard cover, the dust jacket may be missing. Binding has minimal wear. The majority of pages are undamaged with some creasing or tearing, and pencil underlining of text, but this is minimal. No highlighting of text, no writing in the margins, and no missing pages. See the seller’s listing for full details and description of any imperfections.
This description, which I assume is eBay's expansion of what is generally meant by "Good", contains several inaccuracies.
1. The dust jacket is not missing, why suggest that it is?
2. There is no pencil underlining of text, but someone has stamped SEXIST in a couple of places.
3. However, I would suggest that the damage to the book cover is in fact more than minimal.
4. I wouldn't myself describe the book as being in good condition, but "Good", the term I used, is a book sales term which is conventionally used for books which actually are not really in good condition, so it is highly misleading to expand the conventional term "Good" as eBay have done, calling it "A book that has been read, but is in good condition." If it was really in good condition, it would be normal to use the term "Very Good" - which (to me) means an unbroken spine, clear pages, no coffee stains or similar, and certainly no scribbles, comments, or remarks - a book with a generally fresh and pleasing feel to it. I used the term "Good", because it is a notch above "Acceptable" which (as everyone surely knows), means "totally unacceptable". This book that I am selling is certainly not in totally unacceptable condition, the spine is OK, the pictures are in good condition, there are no underlinings or scribbles, but on the other hand , because of its generally rather tired appearance, neither is it in Very Good condition. What term lies between "very Good" and "Acceptable"? - "Good", a term which, as I've explained, I've used in its conventional book sales meaning, but which should be treated with more caution.
