posted on October 28, 2000 10:22:11 PM
Glenda said:
Ya'll continue to go ahead and bottomfeed for now, because eventually eBay will implement something to stop it.
Yup, and that's a fact. An inside source told me several months back that eBay is looking at implementing something along the lines of what Yahoo uses. No more email addys, and no more bottom feeding.
posted on October 28, 2000 10:42:26 PM
<<If by bottom feeding you mean contacting an underbidder from a closed auction and offering a personal transaction, eBay does not punish that.
About the only thing they will punish is advertising an auction. I turned in another one today.>>
Very interesting. I still don't think I want to chance it!
So has anyone answered the question as to what eBay thinks about buyers contacting sellers to purchase an item utside" of eBay? Is it OK to do that? I have emailed many sellers because I missed the end of their auction and it had no bids. Am I risking getting in trouble?
You may have cheated yourself AND underestimated your abilities as a seller.
Me, I would never dream of doing what you did. I have faith that I can sell a collectible that is desirable. I have a certain confidence when selling an item I know is rare. (or even just really cool) It seems you lack that confidence. BUMMER
I feel for ya some, having to rely on another sellers ability to draw.
Who is ever to know what you COULD have made on it with a well written ad and good pics.
posted on October 28, 2000 10:48:27 PM
BTW - I think the only definition of Spam that sellers on eBay have to be concerned about, is this one:
Miscellaneous offenses
See other offenses
Check to see if you've experienced any of these miscellaneous misuses. Report offenses to the Investigations link below. eBay will consider the circumstances of an alleged offense and the user's trading records before taking action. Disciplinary action may range from a formal warning, up to indefinite suspension of a user's account.
Sending spam - Sending unsolicited, commercial email, including unwanted email to past bidders.
posted on October 28, 2000 11:04:51 PMsg52: If by bottom feeding you mean contacting an underbidder from a closed auction and offering a personal transaction, eBay does not punish that.
Yes, they do. The first person I bought from ["I have that same item"] ended up being NARU'd from eBay. Apparently she was making a career out of using other sellers' auctions and underbidders. They send a warning to the offerer for the first time, suspend if they get more.
(wayward smiley)
[ edited by Glenda on Oct 28, 2000 11:06 PM ]
posted on October 28, 2000 11:05:59 PMI have emailed many sellers because I missed the end of their auction and it had no bids
This happens all the time, and it's one of the reasons why when the email is personal and related to this auction rather than some other auction, there is no clean line between spam and valid email.
It might be worth describing the context. There didn't used to be any spam, although internet users mailed each other all the time with offers to buy or sell something. No one was bothered, mostly because to it went away within a week or so after you expressed whatever interest you expressed. It was the mail-to-a-list crowd which generated all the hostility.
sg52
posted on October 28, 2000 11:12:15 PMThey send a warning to the offerer for the first time, suspend if they get more.
I'll bet your seller was NARU'd for contacting bidders on active auctions. There is some validity to the bottom feeder metaphor, anyone who does that on a regular basis is demonstrating some kind of friction with life.
In any case, it would be very easy to just send the offer from an email address not registered on eBay.
posted on October 28, 2000 11:12:45 PMsg52: One time on the Live Support Board, a fellow posted that he'd gotten a warning from eBay for spamming. Seems several people had complained. He kept saying he hadn't spammed anybody, the CSR kept patiently explaining that he had. Finally, he said something like, "I did NOT send spam. I personally typed in the email addresses for all 200 of those people! I didn't use one of those horrid companies that send spam!"
(By the way, he'd sent that "personal" email to 200 underbidders of other sellers' auctions.)
posted on October 28, 2000 11:14:37 PM
Glenda ... I remember that one. He also received a page of negs for it from sellers of those items the next day.
Those were the days .....
posted on October 28, 2000 11:20:11 PMI'll bet your seller was NARU'd for contacting bidders on active auctions
sg52 .... I'm not sure where you're coming up with these facts, but they're incorrect.
I know people that have been NARU'd for contacting underbidders on closed auctions & attempting to sell them the same item.
I also know people who have been NARU'd for contacting the high bidder on closed auctions, to warn them that the item was a repo. eBay considers that "Auction Interference"
posted on October 28, 2000 11:26:45 PMReddeer: Indeed, those were the days. People could REALLY mess up an account with negs. Remember the guy who put his puppies up for auction? Somebody on one of the Boards (probably Q&A) pointed it out, and a group of them pelted his feedback with negs. He went from being a 0 when he listed the auction, to something like -30 in about 15 minutes.
posted on October 28, 2000 11:30:00 PMreddeer, any chance any of those people might drop by? It's so much more convincing to hear the story from the first person.
posted on October 28, 2000 11:37:14 PM
Sg52 ...... LOL, that's truly amusing.
And what's so convincing about the tale you're telling? I could have 10 people post here & back up the comments I just made, what the hell would that prove?
My point is simply this, I would hate for some poor sap to get NARU'd because they read some comment you made here on AW about it being OK with eBay to contact underbidders on a closed auction. The reality is, it is not OK, 100% of the time.
Just 'cause 1 person got away with it, doesn't mean that the next person won't go straight to NARU city.
posted on October 28, 2000 11:49:20 PM
Right, well in that case, why don't you email SH yourself, and then print the response from them as to this statement made by you earlier in this thread.
If by bottom feeding you mean contacting an underbidder from a closed auction and offering a personal transaction, eBay does not punish that.
Myself, I think this info off of the eBay SH investigation page is clear as a bell to me.
Check to see if you've experienced any of these miscellaneous misuses. Report offenses to the Investigations link below. eBay will consider the circumstances of an alleged offense and the user's trading records before taking action. Disciplinary action may range from a formal warning, up to indefinite suspension of a user's account.
Sending spam - Sending unsolicited, commercial email, including unwanted email to past bidders.
posted on October 29, 2000 05:09:39 AM
Sg52, where do you get your ideas? Selling multiple items to underbidders in your auctions is fee avoidance and is not allowed by eBay. Bottom feeding is certainly not allowed.
Bottom feeding takes fees from eBay, forces other sellers to pay your advertising, and takes away customers from sellers who do pay their share.
posted on October 29, 2000 07:04:25 AM
Comment from a poster yesterday: A buyer contacting a seller is not spam because they're not trying to sell anything.
I have a question. Is it fee avoidance ONLY if the seller contacts the bidder? What if the underbidder contacts the seller and asks if the seller has another? Is the seller allowed to sell to the underbidder in this instance? Does the seller have to sell the item for the same price he sold to the winning bidder? Suppose the underbidder offers him $5.00 less than the winning bid?
posted on October 29, 2000 07:49:33 AM
I have a question also. Once upon a time there was a polymer clay book for sale on eBay. The bidding got too high for my liking, so I searched other online stores to see if I could find one for less. I found a place that had several copies for $15 less than the winning bid in the auction. So I bought one for me, and I emailed 2 of the losing bidders in the auction and told them where they could get the book also. I chose those 2 bidders because I recognized their email addresses from some of the online polymer clay clubs I belong too - they were people I considered to be friends in the industry, if you will. I am sure you will all jump on me and tell me what I did was wrong, but to me it's wrong to let a friend pay too much for something when you know a place where she can get it cheaper. So what's your take on this?
posted on October 29, 2000 07:53:43 AM
London ..... The reality is that Safe Harbor acts on complaints only. What's the chances of a seller, complaining about a buyer, wanting to buy something?
posted on October 29, 2000 07:57:36 AM
If they start using Yahoo's method of no showing email addy's, I hope they also start Yahoo's method of asking questions. Right up front for all to see.
Ain't Life Grand...
posted on October 29, 2000 08:23:06 AM
I just received an email from a seller - one of the automated emails that comes from eBay - you know "I saw this item for sale at eBay, the world's largest personal trading community, and thought that you might be interested." This seller got my email address because yesterday I had asked a question about some boots he was selling. The item he just emailed me about is a jacket, and is not something I would want. So do I report him to Safe Harbor???? Or do I email him back and ask him not to email me anymore? It would be different if he was telling me about another auction for boots, which is something I am actually in the market for right now, but what makes him assume I want his overpriced ugly jacket?!
[ edited by lizardsally on Oct 29, 2000 08:26 AM ]
The item in question was a boxed example of those stretchable figures made in the mid '70's. They go for more than a few hundreds.
kitsch1:
I'm a purple-star seller, and believe me, I gave it a lot of thought before doing it. I consider myself to do great layouts on my auctions, with all the necessary pics to represent the item clearly, so that is not the point.
The point was, since I collect those toys myself, that I actually "know" the other collectors looking for these pieces, and , like I said, after careful reasearch, came to conclude that I would definitely not get that good price if I posted it anytime soon, that's why I went for it.
posted on October 29, 2000 08:38:15 AM
Here here minnow I agree with you 100%! BTW, I really appreciate that you were being brave enough to admit what you did and start this thread!!!! (I see nothing wrong with it - like you said, it's not something you undertook lightly!)
[ edited by lizardsally on Oct 29, 2000 08:39 AM ]
posted on October 29, 2000 08:42:38 AM
What I really resent are emails like the one I just got where the subject reads "DEAR EBAY MEMBER" and then when I look at the email, they are just trying to sell me a new mortgage on my home. If having private email addresses would cut down on that crap then I can't wait until eBay does it.
What are the disadvantages of having private email addresses?
posted on October 29, 2000 09:03:33 AM
OK, how about if we take a vote:
..
Would Ebay be a better place if e-mails were private?
..
Would Ebay be a better place if there was no bottomfeeding?
.
My vote, as a seller
posted on October 29, 2000 09:12:51 AMlondon4: Is it fee avoidance ONLY if the seller contacts the bidder?
I'm pretty sure that, while eBay wouldn't be happy about any off-eBay transactions that were essentially enabled because of an auction on eBay, they would not consider it fee avoidance in this case because the seller did not initiate the contact.
Suppose the underbidder offers him $5.00 less than the winning bid?
That would either irritate the seller, who would either choose to ignore it or come over here to complain about bidders always trying to get a bargain; or they'd reply back and accept it or not. But the price offered in the query is basically irrelevant to whether an offer from a potential buyer to a seller is spam.
Lizardsally: they were people I considered to be friends
If the auction was active when you emailed them, it would be considered auction interference. ["Auction interference - Emailing bidders in an open auction to warn them away from a seller or item."] If it was closed, and you were not a competing seller, it probably would not be. The key is that you were not selling the items yourself, and they were people you considered friends who were interested in the item.
... So do I report him to Safe Harbor???? Or do I email him back and ask him not to email me anymore?
It's your choice: Do nothing, write back to him, or report him to SafeHarbor for misuse of the form and spam.
...where the subject reads "DEAR EBAY MEMBER"
This is, by the way, the reason that eBay implemented the userids in the first place - so people wouldn't be able to suck off the email addresses so easily.
minnow: And why does eBay's "email this auction to a friend" feature is NOT considered Spam?
I don't see anybody here saying it isn't spam. Here's the text on the Email this Auction to a Friend page:
"eBay has taken a strong public stance against the practice of sending unsolicited commercial e-mails, also known as "spam." Please send these e-mails only to people you know who would be interested in the item. If someone asks you not to send these e-mails to them, please comply."
"Sellers: If you use this service to advertise an item that you are selling, and a recipient complains to eBay, your registration may be suspended. "Spamming" by our sellers is a suspendible offense (See our Guidelines)."
It is acceptable, by the way, for a seller to compile a list of former bidders and to then email them about their items the former bidders may be interested in - but the people have to give their permission first before they are added. It is not acceptable to compile a list of/email bidders who have not ever bid on your own auctions.
utside" of eBay? Is it OK to do that? I have emailed many sellers because I missed the end of their auction and it had no bids. Am I risking getting in trouble?
!!