One day before eBayers converged on Capitol Hill, Thomas Woolston sent a letter warning lawmakers that "eBay and their lobbyists are not to be trusted." Woolston is founder of Merc Exchange, which sued eBay for patent infringement and won (http://www.auctionbytes.com/cab/abn/y03/m05/i28/s02).

eBay flew in 51 small-business representatives of the eBay community from each state and the District of Columbia and chaperoned them in meetings with members of Congress on Wednesday. The move was part of eBay's lobbying effort in opposition to the Streamlined Sales Tax Project (SSTP), a movement by states to advocate a streamlined tax structure for collecting remote sales tax. eBay opposes the legislation, even though it exempts businesses with less than $5 million in remote sales from collection responsibilities. eBay has had a professional lobbying group in Washington for a number of years led by Tod Cohen.

In his letter, Woolston cautioned lawmakers not to accept eBay's representations at face value. "eBay profits handsomely from the successful sellers they’ve brought to the Hill this week, as management raises prices to these small sellers with the impunity of a monopolist. By exercising its monopoly power over its sellers, eBay’s opposition to the streamline tax proposal is a ploy for the company to maintain its $50 billion capitalization and share price at the expense of the local tax base and on the backs of legitimate tax-paying business."

Interestingly, eBay's top sellers met in New York over the weekend in a brainstorming session to make their voices heard by the auction giant.