posted on September 13, 2000 02:26:08 PM
I recently opened a second account with ebay to sell a specific type of item. Sales have gone well in this first week. Today, I received a email from ebay indicating that a person has pulled my contact information. Of course when a person does this, the other party receives their contact information also, including their user name. I didn't recoginize the name as a person that I dealt with on my priamry account, so I looked this person up through an ebay search. I found that this dealer sells the same type of thing that I do on my second account.
A quick examination of our different auctions show that they are laid out very differently. We both use different templates and colors, I use a longer and detailed description of my item. Our images are different. My opening bid is $1.00 less than theirs. My shipping is posted, thiers is not. Although, they have a larger inventory to choose from than I do. Also, they have very high feed back, with a very small percentage of negatives.
My question is, It was my belief that you could pull contact info for the purpose of trying to sort out ony problems that a buyer and seller may have. I seem to be competing with this seller who has pulled my contact infomation, and haven't has a transaction with them. Is this legal under ebay rules? Would you report this to safeharbor? Thanks for your input!
posted on September 13, 2000 06:47:41 PM
Hi Victoria,
I have written to safeharbor and Im waiting for their response. Would you email the person who pulled your contact information and ask them why. I'm concerned about their motivation in doing this.
In my primary account, which I've used since about May 1998, I've had about 300 transactions and nobody ever pulled my contact information. Hmmmmmmmm?
posted on September 13, 2000 08:54:24 PM
As a seller, I never question a PROSPECTIVE BIDDER about this, but I do wonder. If a WINNING BIDDER does it, I try to see if there is a problem. If another SELLER does it, I think that would sound an alarm. However, something tells me that perhaps this dealer thought you were someone else and wanted to pull your contact info to make sure? Perhaps he thought you were a competitor or an acquaintance elsewhere? It is customary for people in business to want to put a "face" to their competitor. This happens all the time, and I don't see anything wrong with it unless he misuses the information in an unethical way.
"A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity, an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty" -Winston Churchill
