posted on October 31, 2000 11:05:40 PM new
Ebay customer support is falling down on the job at doing anything to protect sellers from getting bogus last minute bids from a new breed of snipers. These people tie up auctions intentionally. Sellers are unable to obtain payment from a bonifide buyer. We pay Ebay fees for the 'high bid' that is never going anywhere. AND we loose hope of both the seller and actual serious bidder from receiving feedback on the transaction. Safe harbor says, oh well...or its your loss but we will not remove the bid. Even though the bidders personal info is fabricated.
GIVEN ALL THE ABOVE FACTS....
How do we know that it is not Ebay escalating their own revenue?
ANSWER. WE DO NOT.
This may seem absurd to you...but then again...so does their answer regarding this.
[ edited by zeenza on Oct 31, 2000 11:07 PM ]
posted on October 31, 2000 11:26:39 PM new
There's a problem with your conspiracy theory. Ebay refunds the final value fee if the high bidder doesn't pay. So, Ebay wouldn't profit by injecting phony high bidders into the auctions.
Just file for credit and sell to the underbidder without paying a fee. If Ebay actually is conspiring against you, that'll show 'em.
posted on October 31, 2000 11:38:49 PM new
Zeenza:
It appears you are losing confidence in the market.
I personally don't think that ebaY would hire folks to do this but their desire to externalize the cost of policing demonstrates why responsibility of policing the site needs to be removed from ebaY.
ebaY is no longer a company, it is a city being run like a company town.
decpage:
I would wager that considering the loops and hoops that ebaY has sellers jump through when a bogus buyer doesn't pay, they end up refunding fewer than 50 percent of all auctions where the buyer bailed.
Given that understanding, you would have to admit that ebaY does has an incentive to handle this issue this way.
While I reject the idea that ebaY is doing this intentionally, that they would handle these complaints in this way makes perfect sense.
posted on October 31, 2000 11:44:11 PM new
I think that what else is missing is the fact that a suspicious bid can be removed prior to the end of the auction.
Of course, once the auction is over, the Seller has to go through a lot of hassles to get part of their money back.
Of course, eBay expects us to give negative feedback to "warn others".
Deadbeats and trouble makers are just part and parcel with doing business online at eBay.
posted on November 1, 2000 05:36:13 AM new
I certainly DO know it is madness to suggest such a thing.
As to cancelling the bids....
These are savvy sabatuers....they bid within the last 3 minutes. Allowing hardly enough time to see it is a hoax, let alone cancel the bid.
posted on November 1, 2000 09:53:38 AM new
Even if eBay requires verified identity and credit card info for new bidders, people will find ways to get around this and continue to be twits. For example, someone could sign up using a credit card that is about to expire.
Dealing with the public will always involve a certain amount of risk.
posted on November 1, 2000 11:24:52 AM new
I've always believed that a significant portion of all bogus bidders ... especially those with fake ID's ... are shill bidders in disguise. These bogus/shill bidders know that, to escape quick detection, they must bid on merchandise offered by many other sellers.
That way, even if they are discovered, it will be quite difficult, if not impossible to determine if the shill/bogus bidder was shilling auctions for seller A, B, C ... or if especially active, seller Z.
This pattern is obvious enough that ebaY should be aware of it. Indeed, I would bet that if you looked at a dozen deadbeat bidders, you would find begin to find that some significant percentage -- 5-20% -- show suspicious bidding activity.
Of course the conspiring (shill)seller, in this scenario, will come across as a 'victim' in those auctions when the bogus bidder wins their auctions (as they most likely will do, sometimes.)
That these bogus bidders will snipe bid is also obvious, particularly when they are shill bidding to establish a "reserve". If the legit bidder has bid above the shill's "cover me" price, then the legit bidder was just shilled. If the legit bid is below that amount, the seller avoids a loss. And because the bogus ID is ID'd as a "joy bidder", the shill-protected seller doesn't even have to pay for the listing.
As cheeses said, "People know they can 'joy' bid with impunity."
Again, the only question I have is what percentage of 'joy bids' are placed by shills, either to disguise their relationship with their conspirator/seller or direct shill bids on their account?
I can only suspect that ebaY knows this info, what with their fancy software, but what are they doing about it?
This thread suggests zeenza knows... they are ignoring it and externalizing the issue because it helps them maintain that 85% profit margin on fees collected.
There is an answer. The first step is realize that ebaY is no longer a company, but a city being run like a company town.
The next step is to think how the users can take legitimate control over the justice system for online auctions.
neomax ebaY is no longer a company; it is a city being run like a company town
