posted on October 23, 2000 07:52:26 PM eBay blames upgrade for system troubles
By Troy Wolverton
Staff Writer, CNET News.com
October 23, 2000, 6:30 p.m. PT
"eBay apologized to customers Monday for a system upgrade that has led to intermittent outages and frustrating service problems during the past two weeks."
posted on October 23, 2000 08:03:58 PM
How about an apology with a refund of listing fees? We pay our listing fees and expect to get reasonable service for such fees. If my cable goes out for a week, does the cable company expect me to pay for the entire month? Of course not, they would pro-rate or give some type of reduced billing. The same should be done with ebay. By saying that the seller search is not critical is stupid. Why bother to have a seller search function on the site than? We all have regular customers who access our auctions this way. Without it funcioning properly, they are left out in the cold. Not to mention the havoc this plays with auction software. Just put 100 auctions on Yahoo and will do so each night this week. Sales are going well on Amazon with surprising spikes during ebay outages. Time to say enough is enough and move elsewhere.
posted on October 23, 2000 08:51:39 PM
There is no defending a so-called professional internet operation who can't operate. A year ago I said this was typical of internet companies founded by computer geeks with lots of comp tech. savy but little business sense. Their cyber~brains outpaced their ability to learn to operate a responsible enterprise.
Good thing eBay staffers didn't decide to make auto tires instead.
PS ~ eBah! did credit my posting fees from last Sunday's (Oct. 15) fiasco. I'm still waiting to hear from them regarding this past Sunday's (Oct. 22) fiasco.
posted on October 23, 2000 10:44:21 PM
Two things came immediately to mind with my first bare scanning of this article:
#1 "eBay said it should complete the upgrade the next "seven to 10 days." How many millions of dollars of commerce takes place during this time? and how much money is lost by sellers when the system doesn't perform?
#2 "Our site again performed above the 99 percent level this quarter." What level has it performed at during the past week?!!!!!! Two-and-a-half good months don't ease any of the pain of a consistently bad week.
posted on October 23, 2000 11:41:13 PM
Hey - RADH - you left the MOST important part of the article out!!!
ebay was UP 95% during the week of 11-17 Oct
93% if you include 4 hours scheduled maintenance in down time. Over longer periods they have been approaching 90%. 99% uptime is just one more lie...
-Rosalinda
TAGnotes - daily email synopsis about the Online Auction Industry http://www.topica.com/lists/tagnotes
No, Ros, I did NOT leave out the most important part.
WHY are you accusing me of doing so?
WHY are you actively trying to de-legitimize my opinion??
Do you realize how many of your posts at all messageboards make me wonder just WHO it is you might really work for?
Do YOU think that YOU represent MY views?
YOU do NOT represent me, and I do not approve of your so-called """advocacy""" efforts, when they are advanced as representing everyone at eBay.
Huh? Someone with 4 dogs living on an estate in upper state New York who believes in such unappealing tactics as this and then calls it ADVOCATING???
You are fully entitled to your opinions; however, YOU do NOT represent me.
REPEAT: You do NOT represent me.
I presume that you are fully aware that the AW TOS specifically does NOT permit anything more than the most cursory quote from any linked article.
THAT ARTICLE ==> Which I believe you know FULL WELL that I am not allowed to quote at length from is about eBay's third quarter.
NO WONDER that eBay is soooooo silent with us users, as EVERYTHING they do, you come out complaining like, IMO, a shrill harpy.
YOUR views and YOUR opinions and YOUR constant nasty negative complaints about eBay do NOT represent me, my views, my opinions - and I want to be TOTALLY CLEAR about that.
And incidentally...
Once you figure out when the 3rd QTR, is -- IN TIME, maybe you can get back to me.
posted on October 24, 2000 09:46:29 AM
Thanks, Linda, RB says sarcastically
I was just about to respond to RebelGuns post that said, in part: "eBah! did credit my posting fees from last Sunday's (Oct. 15) fiasco. I'm still waiting to hear from them regarding this past Sunday's (Oct. 22) fiasco."
posted on October 24, 2000 10:02:18 AM
"There are lies, damn lies, and statistics" (to quote someone, Mark Twain I thing).
Most "uptime" statistics, when applied to something as complex as ebay and the internet, are just plain useless, unless there is a clearly-understood and comprehensive definition (and measurement) behind them. Is ebay "up" when at least one person, somewhere in the universe, can place a bid, no matter how long it takes? Or should "up" be when anyone, anywhere, can place a bid in less than one second and use all of the other featues of ebay (My ebay, seller search, etc)?
"Uptime" makes some amount of sense for such entities as cable companies, where for many people the signal either is, or isn't, available, but for measuring ebay's performance, it probably can never be made meaningful.
posted on October 24, 2000 11:08:11 AM
The real truth is that they deceived all sellers and buyers. If they were "upgrading" and I have my doubts about that, then they should shut down the operation and be done with it. Instead of whining on and on about "sorry for the inconvenience".
Give me a break. Most other sites don't have these problems and if they do, as Yahoo or Amazon has done is say "we're closed, check back later". Ethical. Honesty. Integrity. Those words do not ring true for the almighty E-bad service!
Glad to see Mr Wolverton has found and reported the truth.
I don't appreciate having to see them go thru more growing pains at our expense. Grow up. This is what they have become and it is permenent.
posted on October 24, 2000 12:06:12 PM
I'll second millicent_roberts comments.
The deception is what makes this so grade schoolish and its done because of shareholders.
Who knows what the real truth is, was, and I really do not care, just take the site down fix it and extend the auctions. People, buyer and customers, will come back if they are given the truth and are not having their time wasted by half truth information.
posted on October 24, 2000 12:14:51 PM
i talked with some antique dealers in MN and they are gonna hop to Yahoo! At least they don't charge, and they seem to be up all the time.
On Thursday, October 19th, someone who had written to [email protected] about the intermittant availability on eBay, received an email reply in which the following paragraph was contained:
"It has recently become apparent that our present system in no longer able to fully support the number of members that are hitting the sight at times. This is why we have been updating to newer server systems the last week.We assure you that this instability will be over once the new system is up fully and
functioning."
