(This month's) ebay rant

[Michael Graves]

How the hell did you ever get registered at Rangefinder, Frank? I tried for an entire afternoon once....99% of the images they provided for "verification" were unreadable, and then when I could read one, it was never "correct". I sent the moderators a message telling them to hire real web designers and to $%$%# off and die.

[Frank Petronio]

Most of my writing is like Captchas anyway.... and I haven't gotten banned from RFF yet either!

[Pete Roody]

I would agree with eBay regarding your complaint. Many times there is no "foul play" involved with second chance offers. For instance, there is no way to stop someone from bidding. The seller may have said he was only willing to ship to States or that a bidder has to have some feedback to bid. Many times bidders do not read or understand that the auction has restrictions. You cannot stop a someone from bidding when done at the last second. People use bidding software so many auctions are decided in the last few seconds. All the seller can do is re-list the auction or offer a second chance bid. However, I do think you were owed an explanation with the second chance bid.

That said, I think ebay did a great disservice to buyers when they began hiding buyers identities. This makes it much more difficult to uncover "schilling."

I tried to buy a 4 blade 16x20 saunders easle on eBay, and was the only one bidding. I led the auction (and was the lone bidder) up to the final 5 seconds, at which point the bid exceeded my maximum. The problem was that within 5 minutes of the auction close, I received a second chance offer from the seller. I contact the seller, who confirmed it to be legit.

Obviously, someone the seller knew or the seller himself shell bid the auction beyond my maximum bid, and then the seller offered me the item at the maximum price I was willing to pay. When I pointed this obvious fraud out to eBay, they simply said there was no evidence of shell bidding or seller misconduct. I responded, "Really? So you think that the seller contacted the buyer, received notice that the buyer would not pay, and made a second chance offer to me within all within 5 minutes? And even if that was possible, doesn't it demonstrate misconduct on the part of the deadbeat bidder?" eBay's response was that they had no evidence of either of my allegations, and that I should either accept or reject the second chance offer.

-Dave

[ViewCameraNut]

In response to the first reply I completely agree. At lease half of my buyers have not contacted me for several days after auctions end since this new feedback rule. They also take their sweet time paying even though my policy states payment due within 7 days. I never had payment problems until now. The new rule is ridiculous. How can negative feedback be left for one party only, are you telling me that buyers are all perfect? The buyers can say whatever they want, be it true or not. There are plenty of scammers, liars and cheats who are now using this feedback rule to full advantage! You cannot get a hold of Ebay and state your case if wrongfully accused of something. I also buy my fair share of items on Ebay and I was more than happy with the old method of feedback. I have been a member of Ebay for 9 years with 100% feedback and will be cancelling my account at years end. Bad move Ebay!

[DJGainer]

I would agree with eBay regarding your complaint. Many times there is no "foul play" involved with second chance offers. For instance, there is no way to stop someone from bidding. The seller may have said he was only willing to ship to States or that a bidder has to have some feedback to bid. Many times bidders do not read or understand that the auction has restrictions. You cannot stop a someone from bidding when done at the last second. People use bidding software so many auctions are decided in the last few seconds. All the seller can do is re-list the auction or offer a second chance bid. However, I do think you were owed an explanation with the second chance bid.

That said, I think ebay did a great disservice to buyers when they began hiding buyers identities. This makes it much more difficult to uncover "schilling."

My point was twofold. Either this was the seller or his agent trying to bid up the price, or it was just some jerk who wasn't actually interested in the item (or not qualified to bid). Either way it was evident that the bid was a sham or contrary to the sellers policy, thus I was arguing that it should be disregarded.

[BradS]

eBay has changed considerably over the past ten year. It used to be fun and friendly...now it kinda draws a vacuum.

[icefan13]

I think they have to strike a balance. I haven't sold anything on eBay yet, but I've bought some things, and not been too happy with the experience.

I had one seller who never sent me the merchandise, then after she did refund me, started harrassing me and gave me bad feedback, claiming that I never returned the merchandise she never sent me. She was like a stalker.

I had another seller describe collectible pottery I was bidding on as 'mint; absolutely perfect', which I confirmed via email. But when I got the item and it wasn't anywhere near the absolutley perfect that she described, she responded by saying, 'we are all imperfect people living in an imperfect world.'

I'm guessing that experiences like that made eBay's business drop off (I know I stopped bidding), so they obviously had to do something.

It's a business built on trust really, and unfortunately, like every where else, the dishonest people ruin things for the rest of us.

[QT Luong]

As a seller, I am not too happy about ebay. I listed my Canon 1Ds2 no less than three times. Each time the winner had a different excuse not to pay. Eventually sold it on fredmiranda.com

[Wallace_Billingham]

There's also the second-chance system which picks up some of the slack here. It's worked for me both as a seller and as a buyer on several occasions.

The 2nd chance thing is bogus also. Case in point last week I was bidding on an older camera. The bidding was for $25 I placed a bid to go higher with a max bid of $40. I was then the lead bidder at $28 where I stayed until about 2 minutes before the aution ended when I was out bid. No problem not a big deal. The winning bid was $41. Then a week later I get a 2nd Chance notice that I could buy the item for $40. Why should it be $40 and not my bid of $28 which was the last legit bid on the item? This system just makes it easier to have schills, and get buyers to pay the max.

If they would cancel out the bad buyers bids and revert the price back down to the last legit bid that would get rid of the schills entirely

[BarryS]

So if buyers and sellers are equally unhappy, it must be a fair system?

Wallace--Absolutely right. If a high bid is invalidated for any reason, the price should revert to the second highest bid--not the maximum amount of the second highest bidder.