posted on November 3, 2000 03:10:41 PM
I don't know whether or not it is illegal for ebay to charge someone for downtime. My guess is, probably not.
I do know that it is unethical to charge for services incompletely or improperly rendered.
One of the iniquities of dealing on the internet that some of us seem to be willing to let slide.
I wonder though, if it was an ebay seller, selling time online to his customers, and delivering substandard service, and less than he promised, would this board support him?
posted on November 3, 2000 03:59:17 PM
When the seller stated up front that he couldn't and wasn't guanteeing the service would be available 24/7 and stated that by placing a bid the buyer was accepting those terms...then yes I would support the seller.
Ebay states in their TOS that they can't guarantee uninterupted service. If that isn't acceptable to the user then the user should go somewhere else.
posted on November 3, 2000 04:25:57 PM. I still say its illegal for ebay to charge sellers for downtimes....If I was a lawyer I could tell you [which law makes this illegal], but common sense tells me you dont pay for services not received.
IOW, you made a statement of "fact" without having anything to back it up.
I would've accepted "ridiculous," "wrong" or even "unconscionable." But - at least the last time I checked - just because something is unreasonable or just plain wrong doesn't automatically make it "illegal".
posted on November 3, 2000 05:32:36 PM
HartCottageQuilts: I could probally find some law about it, but I dont have the time to dig for it. Instead of whining like many others do, I did something about it. I made up the money I lost on eBay outages long ago, by doing excellent last week on Yahoo. Like I said pay me for doing nothing, and you will be my best friend.
sg52: yes you are right. They are very clever about. Same way with waiting 10 days for NPB refund. They collect intrest on the money.
posted on November 3, 2000 09:36:06 PM
hi, just received note from Yahoo,i got a
$200.00+ credit =to my EBAY FEEDBACK,to spend on featured auctions at yahoo for filling out a form (link on Yahoo main auction page)Great timing!!NOW THEY WILL ALL BE FEATURED FREE.that was a great "business oriented" idea of Yahoo,wow.
Have sold some stuff there but not many hits without featuring(.10 & up per day) But they are stable,& no list or end fees so i am trying.I have found the people there to be very nice too.
when i am featured at yahoo i get more hits than ebay is letting get through now.
just thought any of you trying Yahoo would like to know.it just took 2 days for them to verify.
have decided have to keep listing"some" things at ebay too cause i have worked so hard building up my bidders for christmas.Hope it doesn't blow & they can't bid to get the items shipped in time for
Christmas.
good luck,Pam
posted on November 4, 2000 12:22:36 AM
I don't particularly believe this woman's story. I have not found sales to be much different than they
ever were. Not a gold rush anymore, but who really was dumb enough to expectthat to last? The
biggest problem is getting people to look at harder to describe items, simply due to the vast number of
auctions. It isn't real hard to list stuff on Ebay so everybody should have known that this would
happen. Besides, PEOPLE CAN'T KEEP THEIR MOUTHS SHUT and they run around telling
everybody how well so-and-so is doing. Next thing you know, every no-class with some junk is an
Ebay seller, with a bad auction ad that gets no bids because of serious omissions. Clogs the search
engines, though! I have noticed that in most businesses I was ever involved with they don't try and
make it too appealing, so as to keep out too much competition! Many licenses and such in various
businesses are really for that purpose, not public safety or standards as they might have you to
believe. ie real-world auctioneers
