posted on January 23, 2001 10:15:20 AM newRadh: no, I doubt that half.com would paythe licensing fees to utilize the Books inPrint databases. keziak
KEZIAK............ DO YOU MEAN TO BE INFORMING ME THAT HALF.COM IS USING OUR EARN-MONEY-ON-THE-FLOAT TO RE-INVENT THE *WHEEL* AND THAT THEY HAVE NOT ALREADY LONNNNNNNNNNNG AGO PAID THE LICENSING FEES TO BOWKER?
IS THIS WHAT YOU ARE ACTUALLY ATTEMPING TO COMMUNICATE TO ME??????
Radh: no, I doubt that half.com would paythe licensing fees to utilize the Books inPrint databases. keziak
posted on January 23, 2001 10:22:35 AM new
radh: thanks, glad I could help. As a survivor of the dot-com meltdown/burnout (my company went belly up way back in early 2000)I am very very aware that there is absolutely NO stability in the dot-com sector...not even in the very largest companies. (See my posts on abacaxi's thread about free services not being viable). They can, and do, disappear with no warning to those on the outside of the company. Understandably, the workers involved are going to deny with their last breath that they are going down, because 1) they may have been kept in the dark by management or 2) all of them are hoping for a last-minute bailout. So you have to be aware.
I think what's important is to let people know that any "investment" even if it's only 20.00 you're waiting for from Amazon, or Half.com, is a risk. The risk varies. Yes, I would agree the risk is higher with Amazon than with Half, but the return for me particularly is greater, so I am prepared to assume the risk. If you ignore the risk or don't know about it, it won't protect you. I'm more concerned with making everyone aware of the risk rather than arguing over the risk rate of individual "investments".
abacaxi: How many boxes of books do you have which *do* have ISBNs, but which you cannot list for sale at Half, due to the fact that the ISBNs are not yet in the database?
I haven't even begun to touch my major inventory, but simply out of the excess "slop" that I'd intended to send to the paper pulp, (as opposed to even a donation) -- just out of that slew of items, plenty of which have already sold via Half, I have four boxes.
I simply figured that the longer I put off really listing, that the better the database would be, and it all simply seemed so moot, anyway, as all I read on messageboards was that books "don't sell" at Half, which indeed, for me was INACCURATE to the max.
And since I was going by the conventional "wisdom" that books "don't sell" at Half, it NEVER occured to me to treat it as a viable money-making activity, much less as an actual working small business, so I never once looked at any ideas like CASH FLOW. I simply through up a bunch of junk, and consequently got sick & tired of visiting the local post offices.
HOW can we get NEEDED ISBNs into the database at Half.com???
I mean, really --- you and I are NOT a major book-remainder warehouse; we might have three copies of any given ISBN, not 3,000.
And Half has to concentrate on the Giant Book Warehouse corporate conglomerates where 98% of their bread & butter actually stems from.
posted on January 23, 2001 10:40:00 AM new
brighid868: At Half, in order to ship two books, one must have $3 CASH. If the customer wants priority mail, one must have $8 CASH.
If those two books sell on the first of the month, and you do not sell a minimum $50 in books, then you will not receive that postage CASH back for SIX WEEKS when Half.com issues checks the following month on the 15th.
Such is NOT a concern of any major book remainder warehouse corporation, all said corporations, I am sure have special contracts with Half, and get reimbursed substantially quicker, who knows, maybe even instantaneously -- simply because they list their inventories there.
But see, since I was under the disinformation that "books don't sell at Half" ---- it NEVER occured to me that I would need to put some real thought into things like cash flow analysis, and omigawd, I ran out of envelopes, and stuff like that - basic quantities of running at eBiz where the BIG eBiz earns big-phat interest buckz money on YOUR money, and because it never occured to me that I'd *dump* more than a couple books a week........ because "books don't sell at Half", I was totally unprepared to find myself in the predicament of having to shut down my account FREQUENTLY because I didn't have enuff spare cash to ship anything sold to anyone.
LOL!!!!!!
In the future I might only sell anything there from the 1st through the 15th -- and then shut off my account until I receive the reimbursement check at the end of the month.
I do NOT *like* the idea of them GUZZYING up the site with bells & whistles, and NOT spending money on the creme de la creme WHEEL from Bowker's Books in Print.
IF(?) this is how they intend to use the Float~Interest, well.... NO WONDER WE DON'T HAVE ALL THE ISBNs WE DESPERATELY NEED.
abacaxi: on occasion other posters here have referred to ME as the Honorary President of the Meg Whitman Fanclub.
AND, I have decided to scrounge together enuff postage $$$$$$$$$ to send Margaret a liddle "Valentine's Day Present."
That poooooooR woman, if she actually has read any of the less-than-a-dozen emails I have addressed directly to her, I assure you that that pooooooooR women considers me the shriLLest S-H-R-E-W to ever incarnate at any time on this planet.
However, I have faith in her innate genius, and what I detect to be a perfectionist slant to her.
I am going to send her one of those liddle widdle out of print paperbacks that the eBayOWNED Half.com states retails at over seventy bucks.
LOL!!!!!!
The item *might* be worth all of 89-cents during inflationary periods. But people listing books at Half -- they do NOT know this, and there is NO reason they should, as they are members of the general public ----- BUT THE THIRD MOST POPULAR HOLIDAY SHOPPING DESTINATION should know, hey?
Do you think that the eBaysian employees would let my package get past, and at least into the hands of one of her administrative assistants?
posted on January 23, 2001 10:50:50 AM new
HI radh - Well, since I don't work for half.com, I don't know. Obviously they have some place they get their bibliographic data. Given the amount of pre-pub stuff they have, I guess it could be from BIP. But then why aren't the listings updated? Why all the crappy entries? And from all I've ever heard in library-land, BIP licensing costs a bundle.
posted on January 23, 2001 11:00:00 AM new
i agree that that's an extremely long time to wait for the $ to come in....it would be more convenient if they allowed you to transfer it at any time, but they don't do the bank thing, just paper checks as far as I know. I think that's a great disadvantage, although some will probably say that it's an ADvantage since they don't need your bank account info. There is no one correct answer to the problems of being a merchant in 2001. It's great that you've been so successful at Half. My books were mainly history and other niche non-fiction, and although they were usually the only copy of their title at Half, they still didn't sell (and I never used the over-half option). But at Amazon, I've been selling about two per day, as opposed to about one book every two weeks on Half. There's nothing like the satisfaction of seeing a book about, say, historic-preservation politics in the city of Monterey go to someone who really wants it. Aside from the poor sales, I felt Half.com was set up badly in about a dozen different ways and this lack of organization along with an inadequate way of responding to complaints and problems was what finally drove me away.
brighid868: I understand completely, a I absolutely LUV discovering little old books with outre titles or scholarly monographs such as you have depicted, and helping to find them a "proper home" where they will be an appreciated addition to a personal library.
I realize now that I should have realized that something was wrong with all the info I read, on the day that over a dozen books sold at Half, but I was busy with packing the stuff that sold the day before, and had to get help to complete the orders that arrived the following day.
I am essentially an IGNORANT individual, and it is very cumbersome, very time-consuming to replace ONE THOUGHT with another concept in my cranium. Even the greying of my once dumbe-blonde locks has not helped the perspacity, or rather lack there of, of my as yet, still functioning SOLE NEURON.
In a sense, this is rather humorous. In the same degree that I c-a-n-n-o-t imagine establishing a book database without listing the PUBLISHER and the InPrint/OUT-OF-PRINT status of any title in the book description, I am certain that Josh Kopelmann would be I-N-C-R-E-D-U-L-O-U-S that I never sat down and worked out some type of cash flow system, as obviously such is near & dear to his heart, as his genius is responsible for the creation of the MoneyMachine we call Half.com.
However, from all that I've read in so many posts online, it never once occured to me that I'd *dump* more than 2 or MAYBE 3 books a week.
And although I remain INCREDULOUS about the publisher identification, which to me is SOOOOooooooooo obvious, that I'd NEVER have written a suggestion about it, in the end result I refuse to think about it any longer.
Let them go forward and continue building non-complete, non-meticulous databases for EVERYTHING.
For you see, if amazon.NOTcom doesn't implode this Spring, then my actual priority is having a legitimate competitor to the man who would like to be the SOLE seller of every material object on our planet.
The demise of that abomination cannot come a minute too soon, in my opinion; and thus, who cares if books are inproperly and/or incompletely identified and described?
One *must* keep one's True Priorities in proper sequence, hey?
keziak: as you so well point out, neither of us work for Half, so have no idea what resources they rely upon.
I guess because so much BASIC info has seemed to elude them, basic info as to the sale of USED BOOKS, it seriously occurs to me that perhaps they are being advised by individuals withholding some BASIC information. Or individuals who have once worked a single minute in any USED BOOK store, or if they did, they simply didn't have access to thousands upon thousands of books, and so never really learned some BASICS.
Who cares?
As brighid868 so sagely points out, cyberspace is filled with circuses masquerading as eBiz.
y - a - w - n
I did not want to grow up to be a Cost Flow Analyst as a child, and I do not see myself adapting that as a goal any sooner than I would ever wish to be TheSoleSellerOfAllMaterialOBJECTS on Planet Earth.
posted on January 23, 2001 02:06:40 PM new
Radh -
"I am going to send her one of those liddle widdle out of print paperbacks that the eBayOWNED Half.com states retails at over seventy bucks. "
what do you mean by this ... are these obsolete systems manuals, or the overpriced crap that professors force their students to buy?
There are a LARGE number of OOP books which contain information of a high enuff calibre that they have been microfisched.
BIP shows an ""In Print"" price according to the $60 or $70 or $80 or even $110 price tag attached to the microfische version by the HUGE place in Michigan, an outfit which has done this for decades - whose name escapes me.
Any used book seller who has to PRICE books for sale is aware of these people, say after ten days of having a retail shop open, because one cannot help but be curious when one holds in one's hands some miserable little massmarket paperback, and finds it priced at $88.00.
With FEW exceptions, there are literally HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of these books in used bookstores in college towns throughout America.
The people who list books for sale at Half.com have NO reason whatsoever to know any of this.
However, that Half.com, an eBay owned company, that Half.com which has the financial wherewithall of the uncrushable eBay behind it, has NO idea that they shouldn't be stating that any of this stuff has a retail value of $40, much less $90.
I do NOT consider the above information to be ARCANE for RL people who have NOT ever worked in 3-D bookshops, and although I don't expect Mr. Jeff Bezos to ever give any attention to a detail such as this, the fact remains that my expectations upon EBAY remain of an infinitely higher standard and high calibre.
Anyway, people who have priced a $1.95 READILY-AVAILABLE-USED-ANYWHERE paperback book for sale at a price of $48.50, because the s-t-0-0-p-i-d database identifies it as retailing at $97 -- they will justifiably come to public messageboards and woe & bemoan no sales at Half.com
This is the kind of basic knowledge about selling secondhand books that one expects a major corporation to have ferreted out.
posted on January 23, 2001 02:43:37 PM new
Radh -
OH, those books! Can you give me a title and author of one? I'll suggest to half.com that microfiche prices do not apply to ratty paperbacks even if the ISBN is the same.
There are TENS, if not 100s of THOUSANDS of such titles.
SOME, repeat *some* of those titles actually do represent SCARCE books.
However, the VAST MAJORITY exist as USED books sitting readily available for sale in used bookstores EVERYWHERE.
MOST readers do NOT want a MICROFILMED version of a book. But the place in Ann Arbor has been microfilming scholarly & technical OOP works for DECADES and DECADES.
There are actually PLENTY of titles in their catalogue which represent used books which are readily available EVERYWHERE for $1.95, $2.95, $3.95 etc. etc. etc.
On the other hand, there are *some*, repeat: SOME OOP books on microfische that can fetch a pretty penny, --- I do NOT mean that they are "popular"; rather, that there exists a perennial market among scholars and their graduate students who will want a copy - so such a title can be sold for $25, instead of $2.95 -- as there simply were not dozens of printings of same.
I do not even know if a reference work exists which would identity these -- the only glimmer I have is from firsthand G-R-U-N-T experience --- if I have not seen the book 5 m-i-l-l-i-o-n times in my life, then I feel I can safely presume it is more valuable than $2.95 --- but certainly NEVER *half* of $96.
Let me go decide on Margaret's Valentine book, and I'll give you the title.
posted on January 23, 2001 03:19:46 PM newYes ... I forsee a brilliant future in selling leftover groceries based on the UPC code, used panties based on the manufacturer's garment industry code, etc.
List Price: $73.90
Reprint, 259 pages
ISBN 0-68544-0672
````````````````````````````
I have a Norton 2nd prtg pbk from 1967, and estimate the original retail to have been *maybe* $2.95.
I'd say a FINE, non-underlined copy MIGHT justify a $5 pricetag, so many booksellers might mark it for around $6.95, (m-a-y-b-e).
As long as the book is in one piece, not tooooooooo dirty, and not overly underlined, there's plenty of students who'll purchase it for a buck or two, and certainly they are not real interested in the $77 version on microfische.
abacaxi: can you imagine, that here we are in the 21st Century, and ya know what I actually had to spend money on?
Here in the digital 21st, I actually had to go buy 3X5 cards, as there is NO way to keep any semblence of order with the Half.com inventory list --- they don't even paginate it backwards, so that as you add items, earlier items remain on the same page so you can find them.
THERE IS NO SELLING TOOL WHATSOEVER.
I've read over emails from them, and with the exception on one highly qualified Customer Service rep, I have a large collection of arrogant dot-commie correspondence exemplifying the ""olde"" (ha,ha) adage that the New Economy doesn't give a ____ who their END USERs are.
posted on January 23, 2001 04:29:51 PM new
Hi radh, I hope you have been well.
I have a query, if you may know.
This is a quote from an announcement that I found from a link on another thread about Half.
"Half.com is the largest fixed price person-to-person marketplace on the Internet, where people can easily buy and sell new and previously owned products, combining the bargains of an auction with the ease of a retailer. The company's expanding marketplace currently includes books, CDs, movies and video games.
What struck me is that it doesn't say Half is the largest fixed price person to person marketplace for BOOKS.
Is Half going to become ebay's fixed price marketplace for everything?
This is a link to the complete announcement. ebay bought a service for Half.
posted on January 23, 2001 04:42:44 PM new
RADH -
I have noticed that there is no link between the account history (like a title) and the sales. Does make it hard, but I seel VERY LITTLE on half.com and am thinking of dumping most of them onto the local charity booksale.
posted on January 23, 2001 05:56:53 PM new
a-b-a-c-a-x-i: omigawd, you always have the ability to calm me down when I am totally perplexed about something which to me, is totally illogical.
However, I am very flustered, as I do not understand your last post.
May I have permission to send an email to you at your eBay addie, which I believe I can find via your userid?
eBay purchased Half.com, in order to establish a HUGE database where they could catalogue all manner of things, I mean really, there are innumerable categories that could be catalogued -- and just imagine the savings in bandwidth plus the ease in listing.
SO many things have UPC codes, right?
I have not yet looked at the link in the other thread, but I visit deja.com frequently -- NOT for product reviews, but for Usenet.
The fact of the matter is that BOOKS are simply a little sideline for Half -- really! They make MOST of their sales on DVDs and CDs, always have.
It does not concern me that someone might list a two dollar book for fifty dollars -- what concerns me is that someone may PURCHASE the fifty dollar item, and later realize they got SCREWED, simply due to a mediocre database.
I have a collection of emails and a form-email I received last night, and I am very p-e-r-t-u-r-b-e-d, as I have detected that I have been LIED to, and that someone has just won the "Jeff Bezos L@@K-Alike Contest of 2001", and so help me, I didn't even know that such a contest existed.
If my posts are making even less sense than they typically do, it is because, I actually feel absolutely s=p=e=e=c=h=l=e=s=s and consequently am virtually babbbbbbbbling.
[ edited by radh on Jan 24, 2001 07:37 AM ]
posted on January 23, 2001 06:26:41 PM new
abacaxi: I have read many posts by many people that their sales at Half are very meagre, and on the day we had to take three bags overflowing with packages to the USPS, I simply turned off my Half account, for a while, as I presumed that maybe the same people who sabotaged my eBay and my Amazon auctions had traced my accounts on Half and were gonna pull some real nasty number on me. But I have not received any "0" feedbacks, no books (as yet) have been returned, and Half has not (yet) subtracted anything due to people (fraudulently) stating they never received anything.
posted on January 23, 2001 08:38:39 PM new
abacaxi: I don't know what day your charity booksale is, but I advise you to wait as long as possible to remove any titles from Half, as I just learned from an opt-in-pleeeeZ-spam-ME e-lert that I subscribe that Half has just issued a coupon code good for RETURNING customers. I don't know how many places the coupon was issued to, but Half RARELY issues any coupons that can be used by already registered users, so it is bound to be *popular* - bound to be used by many people, so sales should be brisk for a while, heY?
posted on January 24, 2001 05:18:46 AM new
RADH -
my hotmail account is EQUALLY obvious from my AW username, and easier for me to get to.
I agree that some seller of buyer is going to get SCREWED because of the crappy database: buyer getting OLD edition instead of new, or seller having more valuable book than they think they have and losing money.
posted on January 24, 2001 09:07:00 AM new
brighid868 explained, "Aside from the poor sales, I felt Half.com was set up badly in about a dozen different ways and this lack of organization along with an inadequate way of responding to complaints and problems was what finally drove me away."
~ ~ ~
Ya know, I'm starting to feel like they are having a contest at Half.com to determine how many times I will send in a request that they correct a misspelled title -- it has been FOUR MONTHS since I first asked them to correct a misspelled title, and I have sent at least FIVE email requests about same.
In the last email response from them, some CS rep actually advised me to list the book on eBay.
CAN YOU IMAGINE?
These contemptible LIARS now have decided to ADVISE ME WHERE TO SELL MY BOOKS??????????
I am absolutely f-u-r-i-o-u-s with Meg Whitman and Uncle Griff this morning, as you see it is THEIR FAULT that I have been over-exposed to an exceptional customer service department, to wit: eBay's, where I always get SUPERB replies and authentic assistance.
So I have a basis of comparison to these t-e-r-r-i-b-l-e emails from Half.
This is a problem of cyberspace.
The Weboliths will REMAIN.
Half.com can do ANYTHING, doesn't matter how stoooopid, how condescending, how r-u-d-e, how dishonest.
Doesn't matter.
They can do anything, and they will always turn a profit, because they are a Webolith which has the financial wherewithall & expertise of the uncrushable eBay behind them.
posted on January 24, 2001 09:32:29 AM new
I asked half.com support why there was no way to report missing ISBN numbers so books could be properly listed. They responded with the "Just look for the title and author and use that ISBN number to list your book" method.
THEY ARE CONFUSING APPLES WITH HAMSTERS! (not even close!) And they are asking me to COMMIT FRAUD. It is illegal to misrepresent merchandise!
But they say I'm supposed to list a Paperback as a HARDBACK because that's the only ISBN they have in there. List the ORIGINAL publisher's book as if it were the REPRINT from a crappy reprint house with fewer plates and shoddy binding )or vice versa). Just because they are too damned lazy to get a proper database together, they expect me to sell books for less than they deserve, AND deliberately nmisrepresent the merchandise?
And RADH pointed out to me that there is are ISBN numbers that pull up a $50-100 "reprint" ... (not really a reprint, it's microfiche copy) and the sellers are being fooled when they try to sell their $1-5 used book for 1/2 the "list price" of the microfilm. That's really helping the sellers, NOT!
AND IT IS MISREPRESENTING THE BOOK TO THE BUYER!
Would a buyer who entered the ISBN of a hardbound be justifiably p*ssed off if they got a paperback instead ot the hardbound they thought they had ordered? Annoyed when what they thought was going to be a quality interior design book is a crappy ripoff from a HongKong reprint company?
I certainly think so, but will half.com delete the buyers negative feedback, send the book back to me, and refund me the money it took to ship the book and refund the buyer their money too? ..... I doubt it. they'd be more likely to reprimand me for misrepresenting the book, even if I was following their advice to do so.
Excellent points, abacaxi, and exquisitely stated!
Every once in a while I come across entries at Half.com, where the *only* ISBN available for a title is the ORIGINAL printing, and there is actually NO PLACE where one can list, say, A BARNES & NOBLE REPRINT of the same title.
Now, anyone who has an entered a B&N 3-D store over the past five years must be aware of the EXTRAORDINARILY *huge* number of B&N reprints of books, which if/when available in their first edition first printings fetch HIGH prices.
I have familiarity with this, and serious book collectors have TRUE expertise on this, which I do NOT.
However............... when I do happen to have to list a (invariably SHODDY) reprint under the original ISBN -- I look at other listings and occasionally ponder -- have those sellers listing on the same page -- have they really listed the ORIGINAL book, or is there's actually a cheap, inexpensive REPRINT, but because they are members of the general public, they simply do not realize that the book they found for a quarter is simply a "five-buck" REPRINT??
Now, since as brighid868 so *sagely* pointed out - that it is *obvious* that Half.com knows as much about books as Mr. Bezos does --- i.e., absolutely NOTHING, and similarly does NOT even care, as books are simply COMMODOTIES - then when they read emails from sellers who do point out the glaring inaccuracies in the database, they think we are a bunch obsessive-compulsive lunatics and they delete these emails after writing a condescending reply.
Now............. the ONE major problem for the Webolith Half/eBay is that, although A HUGE AMOUNT OF MONEY is mandatory -- the fact is, that someone elsecan set up an ACCURATE DATA BASE.
If one had 6 librarians and 6 former bookstore clerks who actually did the G-R-U-N-G-E labor of shelving & alphabetizing the books AND also had interfaced with customers ALL THE TIME, so that they actually did know what books truthfully have a perennial stable market......
Those 12 individuals could together form a PROFESSIONAL database.
AND, since any G@@D, *accurate* database --- say covering titles: A, B & C ... would be SO much better than its counterpart at Half, who does NOT care nor have the knowledge to understand why accuracy is MANDATORY .......
abacaxi, a dozen people working over a half year could develop such a superior system that it could actually be presented to MAJOR reputable venture capitalists, that it could be FUNDED.
I am serious.
Half.com considers books to be COMMODITIES whereas there are potentially THOUSANDS of librarians, bookstore owners, book scouts, ex-bookclerks, serious book collectors, scholars, school teachers, EVEN authors etc/etc/etc who might be able to be organized in a large VOLUNTEER EFFORT to do the initial organization.
Let Half.com sell Tupperware and UsedPanties via UPC codes, and let BOOK LUVERS *unite* for the common good!
posted on January 24, 2001 11:02:59 AM new
I agree---book lovers need a book selling venue of their own, that's properly databased and run by people who regard books as friends first, commodities second.
Places like bookfinder.com, alibris.com (do I have the spelling of these places right? I only use them occasionally) seem to be more research tools than selling venues. I have bought occasional books through them but have looked up far more for pricing guides, etc.
Places like readersville.com and other book-community sites are more about content and group interaction---but have huge potential for sellers of books in terms of finding out what book readers/book buyers really desire (survey anyone?)
Places such as the Elliot Bay Bookstore site, run out of the Seattle store of the same name, that have very active sites dedicated to publicizing their books and giving people info about authors, are hybrids that do a great job but aren't open to multiple listers of merchandise.
Some combination of these three would be awesome. Hey, I need a job.
Books lend themselves well to catalogization via modern technology, but it is obvious to me, in retrospect, that it will take BOOK LUVERS to do the task.
I mean, really - it is the 21st Century, books were the first thing ever marketed on the Web, and look at the condition of the bookselling websites and the abject paucity of the book databases, much less their inaccuracy.
I do not *touch* alibris.com, as they attach a huge surcharge to all their listings, and whose booksellers also list at other sites where the surcharge is absent.
bookfinder.com """"upgraded"""" itself so that it now takes three steps+++++++++++++ to locate a book.
There database is hystically funny if you ask me, as when you research any title, you're given a list of the SAME title input by sellers in dozens of ways.
Each of the dozens, when clicked on, have listings for the SAME book which the seller chose to list the title that way.
Talk about a misuse of technology and a waste of bandwidth, LOL!!
posted on January 24, 2001 11:25:21 AM new
abacaxi: do you by any chance have the inside story of what REALLY actually happened to yourbooks.com?
they were around for YEARS, started early as a place for INDIVIDUALS to sell & trade books to oneanother, never charged a fee, yada/yada.
all i saw was a letter from the founder saying s/he had to close the site overnite -- due to LEGAL REASONS, but there was NO explanation of what that actually meant.
posted on January 24, 2001 11:43:06 AM new
Please pardon my appalling ignorance, but does anyone here happen to know if the book database established by the Library of Congress happens to be ... ah, part of the public domain, and IF so, would it possibly be of assistance in such a compilation?
As a survivor of the dot-com meltdown/burnout (my company went belly up way back in early 2000)I am very very aware that there is absolutely NO stability in the dot-com sector...not even in the very largest companies. (See my posts on abacaxi's thread about free services not being viable). They can, and do, disappear with no warning to those on the outside of the company. Understandably, the workers involved are going to deny with their last breath that they are going down, because 1) they may have been kept in the dark by management or 2) all of them are hoping for a last-minute bailout. So you have to be aware.
