eBay Fraud Scams exposed

“We expect that our business will continue to grow; however, our growth rate has declined over time and we expect that to continue in 2008, primarily as a result of the following:

• we face challenges in the U.S., U.K. and Germany, which are our three largest markets, as growth of listings, active users and GMV on the eBay.com platform in those countries has slowed. In January 2008, we announced our plan to implement changes to our fee structure, seller incentives and standards and feedback system, all of which may impact our Marketplaces revenue growth;

• consumer spending in our major markets, including the U.S., Germany and the U.K., is expected to be weaker in 2008; and

• we anticipate that ecommerce growth as a whole will decelerate in 2008. “

Perhaps the most interesting is the first excerpt… it appears that eBay management is making deliberate decisions to push it’s own sales down for the core markets:

“In January 2008, we announced our plan to implement changes to our fee structure, seller incentives and standards and feedback system, all of which may impact our Marketplaces revenue growth; “

reference : AP Article
I thought the management is driven to increase revenues / shareholder’s value. From this statement it appears as a direct admission that eBay management is aware that their decision to increase eBay fees plus other changes anounced on January 29th will directly contribute to decline in revenue growth.