While we do our best to steer clear of politics on ECommerce-Guide.com, we couldn't resist injecting some political humor in this week's eBay Watch column.

It's no secret that a fairly divisive electorate has marked President Bush's five years in office. His poll numbers have been high and now they're quite low. There are "blue" states and plenty of "red" states. One of those true blue states is Washington — the Evergreen State. Senator John Kerry won the state in 2004 by a 7 percent margin. In fact, Kerry swept the three West Coast states. So, it should be no surprise that Washington is also home to one of the most sought-after license plates in the country this week.

Seller "dnskr," a Washington resident (and apparently not a registered Republican) is auctioning off his presidential protest "F DUBYA" license plate. While the vanity plate somehow made it by the motor vehicle censors, the state later sent him a letter revoking his use of the plate. (For those of you who aren't clued in, "Dubya" is President Bush's nickname based on his middle initial "W.")

Someone in Washington doesn't like Dubya very much.

"I had this plate on my car for 4 months before receiving a letter from the DOL informing me that they determined my plate to be 'Offensive to good taste and decency,'" he said. "This plate has changed my life. I receive comments all day long while driving around town. Usually it's either a middle finger or a thumbs up. (My own personal "up or down" vote)."

While some are calling the seller a traitor, the license plate has already surpassed the reserve price. It's now commanding a bid of $1,526. Not a bad investment for only $50.

What's Behind Curtain #2?
We discovered a new rage popping up on eBay the past couple of weeks: mystery auctions. Based on some of the listings we found, there appear to be plenty of people willing to take a chance at winning valuable cash prizes or other items. One auction we found by "bnjjohns" has a set of Play Doh containers he purchased at an estate sale. Apparently, the items contained in the containers are worth a decent sum of money. Unlike an earlier auction, this one so far has a top bid of $1.

One mystery auction that's seeing much more success is the Mega Mystery Envelope auction currently being run by Power Seller "bathtea." With 2,000 envelopes available at $5 apiece, you can purchase a chance at winning $5, $10, $20, $50, $100 or even $500. As of Friday, June 10, several lucky buyers had already won prizes upwards of $500, with most so far winning $5 or $10.

This isn't to say that all mystery auctions are a good deal. One unlucky bidder was taken for a "ride" last week when bidding on a mystery item in a garage described as "2005 (model year), red & shiny, 4 tires (and) On a warm summer afternoon, feel the wind blow through your hair" The seller said he'd even throw in a 5-disc CD changer to go along with it.

It turns out the mystery item was not a convertible car, but a lawn mower. Not so bad, you say? You wouldn't say that if you were the winning bidder who paid $821 for it! Needless to say, the buyer isn't happy and is threatening legal action. She did, however, receive the item as described...

Gotcha
The BBC reported Tuesday that a brazen, young eBay con artist was arrested this week in Wales, UK after failing to deliver auction goods while pocketing the cash from unsuspecting victims.

Phillip Shortman, 18, was sent to the pen for a year after admitting to defrauding more than 100 eBay users out of approximately £100,000 over a 13-month period.

According to the report, Shortman didn't seem very remorseful for his crimes.

Are you willing to take a chance that your ticket to financial freedom lies inside a Play Doh container?

"I was going to all the theme parks in the UK. I was going abroad, travelled quite a bit of the world then... so it was really just all greed and it's just having the money there," he said. "I used to sell CDs — £17, £20 a disc, and one time I just couldn't be bothered to send the disc off."

"I waited a few weeks and nothing came of it. And it just sort of went on from there — selling discs and not sending the items... I had no e-mails, or phone calls or letter, so I just took it to a higher level," he added.

"I thought they were stupid, to actually put that much trust in somebody that they don't even know," he said.

Ouch! Now, that's not exactly "the eBay way" now, is it? However, eBay UK's security guru, Garreth Griffith, said, "It's my role to prevent this. We learn a lot, we move on and we improve our systems. We are fundamentally, fundamentally committed to making it a safe place to trade."

Cheaper Shipping is Almost Here
eBay North America President bill Cobb announced today that beginning Friday, June 17, the 20 cent fee previously applied to all USPS First Class, Media Mail, and Parcel Post labels will be gone. This is good news for sellers, claims Cobb.

"One of my priorities for eBay.com is to make shipping less of a hassle for you. Put simply, we want to do for shipping what we did for online payments when we acquired PayPal and integrated it into the transaction flow on eBay," he said in an announcement posted on the site this morning.

"Last year, we introduced the ability to save time by printing shipping labels with pre-filled address information, billed directly to your PayPal account. You've told us you love this - in fact, you've printed millions of labels so far," added Cobb.

This announcement was originally slated for the upcoming eBay Live! Conference beginning June 22 (which we will be covering from San Jose), but Cobb couldn't' contain his excitement any longer.

Post It the Steve Jobs Way
In case you missed it, ECG posted its first Mac OS X-based auction listing tool review today: GarageSale. Whether you're a long-time seller or a newbie with a Mac Mini sitting on your desk, this program is a handy one to have.

Devin Comiskey is the Managing Editor for ECommerce-Guide.