That's all I have, anybody else?

SneakyDave
 

First, let me say that I can see from your post that you've been bouncing around AU. Many of your points are quite good and some are current points of discussion within the company.

In regard to Bid$afe. The key element of the program -- the $3,000 all risk insurance coverage -- is now in place for all who participate. I've read the binding for my policy and find that it is truely a remarkable level of coverage for collectible goods ... and indeed personal property of all kinds (noted exclusions such as automobiles, heavy equipment, perishables, etc that have mailing restrictions.)

The balance of the Bid$afe program is not quite ready for prime time. It is in a very late stage of testing (we thought it would be ready by now) but it should be up and running in a matter of days -- When, exactly, I don't know (not being on the programming end). Even under the worst of circumstances I can't imagine it taking another three or four more weeks.

Your other points are also well taken, although I can't agree with all of them.

First, on bid$afe being for sellers only. The whole idea and reality of online people-to-people auctions is that today's seller is tomorrow's buyer and visa-vera. Virtually everyone is a seller. The other problem with excluding buyers is that one of the real problems with online auctions comes when a buyer refuses to honor their bid which happens all too often.

Bottomline, Sneaky... Bid$afe is designed to be a better system than feedback! You wouldn't restrict feedback to sellers only!

On the tech board. I will say that we are in the process of taking many of our technical questions and post them in a formal QandA format. I'm fond of pointing out our newspaper background and, when you think about it, this is just a super-moderated totally edited form of bulletin board. No crap, for certain, gets through.

I should point out that we do sponsor this and other boards dedicated to the discussion of online auctions out in cyberspace. In many ways, this is a better solution for us for several reasons.

First, we don't have to worry about the off-hand posts, the violation of traders privacy by errant members, etc.

Those posting here are posting on an independent bulletin board ... It is sort of like it is your turf -- not ours -- and you are by definition more free to say what you feel.

You want to say AU's the greatest... we'll I'll agree with you...but if you're one of those folks who think the world starts and ends with eBay... we'll I argue with you but I won't have the temptation (because the board is not on our site) of banning you from our system for your opinion.

At least for the short term (and maybe longer) this is where we'll be communicating. (That and via our service staff on an personalized, one on one basis.)

You also suggest software to help folks determine who has and hasn't been left feedback. The only location I ever saw doing that was www.honesty.com which used to do that for eBay feedback. Maybe a third party will do this for us... or better yet, exhibit a little patience:-)

See, I've been to the mountain top (I visited our HQ last week) and the promised land will be nice:-) I can't say any more about that... other than you'll have to increase your (earlier) list of 17 reasons and expand it to something like 25 :-)

G. Patton Hughes

BTW: I didn't see or hear anything like a "user id system"
 

Personally, I have my hands full and barely have time to buy on the auctions (I really don't have time to go out shop:-(.

Do me a favor and, by private post, send me either the sellers email id, the auction number or numbers or some other key identifying criteria. The better the info, the quicker I can respond.

Typically, if the auction is grotesquely incorrect, we will cancel it. If it is something we feel is benign in nature and based on a misunderstanding of the rules, we may request the seller to edit the auction.

Finally -- and remember I am talking in the dark -- we aren't eBay and we don't interpret every rule in the book the same way. For instance, if the items are five boxes of home-made soap in plastic bags and some of the plastic bags are pink and some are clear (small production run variation) that might not be ruled a violation of the "identical" item rule in Dutch auctions. The plastic bag is intended to be disposed of anyway and the value of each item is is no way compromised by that particular variation. That may not pass muster on eBay but we are not the prisoner of our own rules.

neomax
 

[This message has been edited by deb (edited 10-26-98).]
 

Thanks for sending me the info on the auction. After a thorough review it was summarily axed.

I really don't have much else to say about it except the seller was trying to call a single item auction a Dutch auction and sell 80 items for the commission of one.

My attitude is that anyone who would try to cheat the auction will try and cheat you.

Thanks, Deb, for the tip.

neomax

As they said on the Beverly Hillbillys.

"Take your shoes off, stay a while."

neomax
 

I'm totally baffled by your problem. I use NS 3.04 Gold and MSIE 4 and I've never seen the problem you state.

I'm sure that our service folks could find the problem and resolve it but they would need the version number of your NS browser.

Actually, I'm pretty proud of our service folks and I would have every confidence they can solve it ... quickly. My only problem is that I can't get them involved without some contact info and that seems to be missing on your registration here.

Let me ask you to simply post [email protected] as I'll be in and out during the day.

neomax

neomax

[This message has been edited by neomax (edited 10-27-98).]
 

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Poor layout. Gonna fix it??

I don't quite follow you on this complaint. I haven't noticed it being a problem at 1024X768 even with minimized windows. Let me check out an auction or two and see if I can understand exactly what you're complain is.

Thanks for comment though, we sure won't get better without good constructive criticism.

neomax
 

I appreciate you coming by to check out AU.

One of the things that does tend to confuse folks is that AU lets sellers list the same auction in two categories.

I also understand your confusion on the number of categories. There is method in our madness but I admit it is not particularly apparent at this point.

One thing that does work is that when you're in this situation:
1. you think you are where you want to be

2. you then see a lot more categories

You should hit the big blue button at the top left and it will list all the items in all the remaining categories as if you were looking directly at the auctions "uncategorized."

The catchall [email protected] is the email. Typically, you'll find it at the bottom of most pages behind the phrase "customer service."

Give us a report on how you think customer service works for you.

BTW: If you run into problems with slowness, etc. post me and I'll see if I can expedite the process.

neomax