hutcheson - 4:01 pm on Jun 8, 2007 (gmt 0)

There may be some differences here, but I'm not sure they are the ones you mention. It is possible, for instance, that we have different definitions of "knowledgeable". And we may differ on identifying the real "internal business issue"-- did the actual dropshipper outsource customer support, or did the travelling-salesman outsource manufacturing (there is a continuum here, as the original poster pointed out -- but for that matter, that's because there's a continuum in the real world, from pyramid schemers on one end, all the way to market-making retailers like Sears or Walmart on the other.)

But I don't see a fundamental difference between "something one does with one's own hands" (as I described it) and "people picking up phones and answering questions" (as you described "customer service." The question is merely: does the website authoritatively describe the unique service that the business does with its own (hired) hands?

Generally ODP editors are website reviewers, not commercial fraud investigators. If the website describes an actual company, the USUAL presumption (unless some evidence suggests otherwise) is that the company exists and the description is accurate: our description of the website is that it describes the company's goods and services -- we don't warrant that the goods are useful, or even that the goods and services are as described.