posted on February 19, 2001 09:44:46 AM
I recently saw a seller state in their description that:
"Due to recent Ebay system failures and the fact that many bids do come in the final minutes of an auction, I reserve the right to declare this auction null and void if there is an Ebay system outage during the final 10 minutes of this auction---particularly if the outage lasts through the end of the auction."
posted on February 19, 2001 09:58:56 AM
I see NOTHING wrong with this. How can Ebay tell you to TAKE A FINANCIAL HIT because their system failed --while they DO NOT provide for any outage that happens in the last hour of an auction (when MOST bids come)---unless the outage lasts a loooong time---at which point they fudge by decidng since the home pagwe comes up--everything's working!
posted on February 19, 2001 10:05:18 AM
The question isn't whether you or I see anything wrong with this, the question is does eBay see anything wrong with this, and they do.
If you want to end an auction early, you can, but you can't put a disclaimer like the one above in your auctions.
posted on February 19, 2001 10:06:15 AM
From what I understand if an outage occurs during the close of an auction ebay will extend that auction by 24 hours. But even saying that, I'm sure its ok to relist if an outage occurs.
posted on February 19, 2001 10:12:29 AM
Of course a seller CAN do this, the question is what are the consequences.
If the seller does this it would appear to be against ebay rules, and the seller would stand to suffer potential negative feedback (since ebay still considers it a completed auction) and presumably safeharbor might warn the seller if reported. Its ebay's auction, they get to do what they want vis-a-vis their rules and consequences.
On the other hand, it may theoretically offer the seller LEGAL protection against the incredibly unlikely event that this happens and the winning bidder wants to sue them to force them to sell the item at the final bid price.
Either way, its bad news to do this. It scares off buyers. If ebay does NOT go down, you've cost yourself some bids from scared-off buyers, and if they do, you might as well just decide not to sell and take the same hit you would have anyway.
posted on February 19, 2001 10:20:49 AM
We all know Ebay doesn't give a rats a%$ about outages under 1 hour, and if your auction closes during that outage----tough!
Anybody who has been around Ebay for even a little while knows that many bids often come in during the closing seconds, so an outage at that time simply creates lost revenue PERIOD.
Ebay does nothing to compensate for this. NOTHING. It's BS and I support any seller who goes to the trouble of proteting himself.
And NO, as a bidder, it would not make me turn away. I would recognize that the seller is just including a provision to keep the playing field level.
posted on February 19, 2001 10:25:08 AM
You are certainly an enlightened and sympathetic bidder.
Most bidders will demand that the seller follow through if ebay sends out an EOA notice that says that they won the auction. They don't want to hear "weasel words" from the seller about ebay outages, etc. The EOA notice says they won the item, they will expect the seller to follow through.
The problem with this seller's approach is that it is subjective. Nothing stops a dealer like this from merely declaring that "ebay was down during the final 10 minutes, so the deal is off" for any reason whatsoever, including the final bid was too low.
After all, what does "ebay is down" mean? Does that mean that NO ONE could get to ebay to bid? or more than half? or what? and how long is it down to be "down"...10 minutes? 5 minutes? 30 seconds? heck, as far as I can see, the intenet is often "down" for 2 seconds at a time...
[ edited by captainkirk on Feb 19, 2001 10:25 AM ]
posted on February 19, 2001 12:08:58 PMWell, at least this seller isn't a little lost lamb, who comes and cries here when his auctions lose money due to Ebay outages.
I give the guy credit for taking the bull by the horns.
posted on February 19, 2001 12:21:43 PM
A seller can obviously do that, but as others have pointed out, there may be some consequences, all of them legitimate in their own way, too.
Ebay might pull the auction, or require the TOS to be removed.
The seller might get numerous negative feedback from disgruntled bidders who felt they should be getting the item in the auction they feel they won.
Etc. etc.
I'm not preaching or criticizing the initial poster here, but as a seller, I would not do this.
Sometimes I have not been able to access eBay due to my LOCAL SERVER being down -- at the time I thought it was eBay, only to find hours later that my items were successfully sniped to very nice results by last-minute bidders somewhere else.
In 3 years (and maybe I've been lucky), I think my closing auctions have only ever been not available about 3 or 4 times, it was very disappointing when that happened as I did feel I had lost some nice potential end-of-auction bidding, but the overwhelmingly vast majority of times things end just fine, so I try not to worry about the ones that don't & be pleased with the greater amount that were fine.
Yes I know I'm rambling, just feel like chatting a bit today.
posted on February 19, 2001 12:26:49 PM
Personally I give the guy credit too..for trying to have his cake and eat it too.
Sellers love the (relatively) low overhead of online auctions, the ability to reach worldwide, etc., all of which would be difficult to impossible with traditional sales outlets (at least for small to medium sellers, who make up the bulk of ebay's sellers).
However, this advantage doesn't come "free", there is an unavoidable disadvantage - the internet is not now, nor will it ever be in the foreseeable future, 100% reliable. Sometimes something goes wrong somewhere in the chain that links the seller to the buyer - ebay, the net itself, phone lines, etc.
This seller wants to be able to take advantage of the internet, while giving to himself sole discretion on when to recognize and live with the downside of the net. Even though ebay has clear rules about this (we can argue if the rules are "right", but that's a different story), he wants to set up his own rules since this down side of the net hurts him.
Its sort of like the person who buys a big, powerful car because they like the ability to go fast, but then they feel it also gives them the right to ignore things like stop signs and traffic signals since they aren't happy with the fuel economy of that large engine.
Either live with the nature of the net (low costs, but occasional downtime) or don't, but this "I decide when to honor my auctions based on my own whim" is somewhere between logically inconsistent to arrogant...
posted on February 19, 2001 01:04:52 PM
As a buyer only, who snipes 95%+ of the auctions I bid on, I tend to miss items when ebay is down. Oh Well, that's the breaks.
That said, for the rare items that I bid on early, I would ask the seller to honor the bid. It was not my fault that eBay was down, so why should the seller penalize a good faith bidder. I may have won it anyway, depending on my proxy.
posted on February 19, 2001 01:58:45 PM
Does anyone have a direct link to a page on ebay that says a seller cannot do that? The reason I ask is because soon after I began using ebay a couple of years ago, either I or someone I knew, had a seller refuse to sell to us after we won the auction, and a query to ebay elicited the reply that they were sorry that we were disappointed, but that a seller had the right to refuse to sell. (The situation was that the seller had sold it, previous to the auction's closing, to someone else.) I know that most of the terms have been rewritten since then... but I thought I read something to that same effect (that the seller cannot be required to sell) in a bidders page just recently, but I can't find it. (I can't find anything, nowadays, it seems!) Thanks in advance -- I appreciate it!
Violetta
(Not known by this nickname anywhere but here.)
If a seller cancels all the bids, and then ends their auction, no problem. If the seller refuses to sell to the high bidder on non reserve or reserve met auctions,then big problem.
You'll also find mention of this under Safe Harbors rules & regs.
Non-Selling Seller - Refusing payment and failing to deliver an item at the end of a successful listing.
posted on February 19, 2001 08:41:39 PM
There is no way that putting this in one's TOS can help seller at all. It scares good bidders in the 99% of the time when eBay does not go down, and it makes zero difference when eBay does go down.
That said, as a seller, if eBay did go down and cost me a substantial sum, I would simply refuse to complete the transaction, and ask "buyer" to accept my decision. If buyer fought, I'd suffer whatever consequences eBay trotted out. While there is plenty of grounds for eBay to act, there is no basis for legal action, any more than there is grounds for legal action against deadbeat buyers.
sg52, who feels no moral obligation to give anything away as the result of on eBay unreliability.
