Free EBay for Dummies by Marsha Collier

Just think about it. He was the first human to step onto another celestial body. This feat may never happen again, and certainly not in our lifetimes. When I updated this book for the third edition, this same portrait was selling for $650. When I checked this out for the 4th edition in 2004, the picture sold for $1,925. A quick scan in 2005 showed that such a signed picture just closed at $2,025.
    The economy being what it is, Armstrong original signed photos aren’t selling, but you’ll not find one up for sale for less than $3,500. He did sign an Apollo 11 capsule model, and that sold for $1,412. Why didn’t I follow my own advice and buy one in 1999?
    At the bottom of left side section, under the Shortcuts heading, are important links to activities and information.
    Don’t confuse the My eBay page with the About Me page. The About Me page is a personal Web page that you can create to let the world know about you and your eBay dealings. (You don’t have to have an About Me page if you don’t want to — but they are free for the taking and are fun to share.) I tell you how to get your own About Me page in Chapter 14.
    Keeping Track of Your Personal Business
    Your My eBay page has three tabs: Activity, Messages, and Account. They’re on the top side of the page below the My eBay heading. If you mouse over the Account tab, you see a drop-down menu like the one in Figure 4-3. Clicking Account brings you to a summary page that has snippets of each topic in the My Account section. It’s really better to click the individual menu options so that you can go directly to the place you want to explore.
    Figure 4-3: Access individual areas of your account in this menu.

    Checking your account information
    The Account drop-down menu has options to take you to two very important areas of My eBay: Personal Information and Addresses. This is where you update your contact information. Initially, all this data comes from your registration. But it’s policy on eBay that every user files his or her current contact information — so if you move or change phone numbers, e-mail addresses, or banks, you need to input that information here.
    It’s also where you can change your user ID (if you ever decide that Charlie18907 doesn’t properly reflect your personality). Also, your instant messenger name can be inserted here so that you can get IM alerts at Yahoo! Messenger, AIM, or whatever messenger program you use; add wireless numbers for auctions about which you want to be notified. You can also change your password and all your other registered information here.
    On eBay you can change your user ID at any time (every 30 days), and your feedback rating will follow.
    What’s that thingy?
    For the first 30 days after you register or change your user ID (which you can do anytime, as Chapter 2 explains) — eBay gives you an icon that stays next to your user ID every time it appears on eBay (when you bid, run an auction, or post a message on any of the chat boards).
    So why the icon? eBay calls the graphic of a beaming robot-like critter the “new ID” icon. It’s sort of a friendly heads-up to others that you are a new user. (If you’ve changed your user ID, the icon consists of two of the little guys with an arrow connecting them.) You still have all the privileges that everybody else has on eBay while you’re breaking in your new identity. The icons are nothing personal, just business as usual.
    Choosing your notification preferences
    Because we live in a world where everyone has his or her own way of doing things, eBay allows you to set all kinds of preferences for your eBay account. One of the links leads to the Preferences page. The Preferences settings are all important to your eBay tasks. You have to decide which activities you want activated for your eBay account (you can always change these later). The most convenient thing is to select all the options that make sense to you. You can set many Notification