The Internet has produced many stories of overnight success, but few match the extraordinary recent rise of eBay. If cyberspace is the new economic landscape then eBay is the Wild West frontier - an online trading system where opportunities to make money abound but where life can consist of a little rough and tumble.
When eBay came to the stock-market last year at $14 (€12.35) a share, it was described as an Internet auction business and was seen as a way to let people sell off second-hand junk.
Less than a year later eBay takes a cut of up to 5 per cent on every sale.
This formula has produced an explosion of activity. In the last three months of 1998 $307 million worth of goods were traded through eBay in 13.6 million separate auctions.
This was 60 per cent up on the previous three months. Everything from furniture and paintings to computers and software are on offer.
Jupiter Communications, the research group, estimates that in 2002 more than $3 billion worth of goods will be traded through eBay.
Success has been driven not by casual buyers and sellers but by a cohort of professional and semi-professional eBay traders who know their way around the system.
Mr Dave Simpson is one. After a career tracking down fugitives for bail bondsmen, Mr Simpson has found a new line of work selling home-made software through eBay.
His product is relatively simple and inexpensive - a guide to online information sources - but he sells enough to make up to $5,000 in a good month.
Mr Simpson describes himself as "six foot, 240 lbs, only 12 per cent body fat and no shortage of testosterone".
However, not everyone on eBay plays by the rules. It is quick to throw off anyone who can be shown to have infringed regulations but this is often hard to prove, Moreover, those expelled can quickly return under a different name. As a result traders are often left to themselves to sort out disputes.
Fake feedback is the most common complaint. The eBay system allows both buyer and seller in any transaction to post a notice of how satisfied they are.
Successful traders can have hundreds, even thousands of feedback comments after their name. However, there is little to stop the less scrupulous making up negative feedback about competitors.
The best response, says Mr Simpson, is to engage the enemy in a vigorous exchange of e-mail insults and then post the entire conversation on the net, where it helps to draw crowds.
Fraud is a more serious concern. One regular evenings-only eBay trader, Mr Robert Burrow, who says he can make a tidy profit buying computer parts from on-line wholesalers and then retailing them through eBay auctions, has encountered both simple fraud and more sophisticated scams.
On one occasion he was the victim of a group who used the eBay system to track down successful bidders on his auctions and then send them emails asking them to send their cheques to their bank account.
eBay's emergency message board is full of complaints from people who have sent off cheques and then heard nothing or who have received damaged goods.
It points out that these complaints represent a tiny fraction of the total amount of business that goes on. However, it offers a special system for those who are concerned.
The money paid can be put into an escrow account until the goods have been delivered and approved. In addition, eBay is now offering insurance on bids up to $200.
The clearest evidence that fraud is not seriously undermining the system is its continued success - both with individual traders and with small businesses.
