posted on May 18, 2001 01:10:33 PM
I recently lost an auction by only 50 cents, when I checked my e mail I had a message :
Hi,
You are the contending bidder on the *******. If you are interested I would sell one at you bid price of $**.**. Please send the address where you would like this shipped and I will get you an exact shipping cost. I do have several of these if you are interested in more than one. My address is:
*******
***********
*****************
Thanks and let me know,
*****
first is this e mail agianst e bays rules and/or if it is not would it be against e bays rules to buy one from the seller?
posted on May 18, 2001 01:21:48 PM
Yes, it is against Ebay rules. It is called fee avoidance.
It is up to you. It is not against Ebay rules for you to ACCEPT the offer, but nor will you be able to leave feedback, or register a complaint with Ebay if it goes bad.
If you want the widget, and feel comfortable, trade away. If you don't feel comfortable, but you REALLY want one of the widgets, tell him that you do not want to enter into an off Ebay transaction. Ask him to re-list with a BIN that you agreed upon.
Are you sure the mail came from the seller?
Some people will contact underbidders in competitor's auctions......it is called bottom feeding.
posted on May 18, 2001 01:26:18 PM
It is against ebay rules. If you buy one be sure to send ebay some money. Also report the b*stard for fee avoidance. Do not do anything without ebay's permission. Read, understand and follow their rules. Every time you purchase anything from anywhere, send ebay 10%. ebay will protect you. They are your community. No one loves you like ebay does. Help them help you.
posted on May 18, 2001 01:29:11 PM
Yes it is against Ebay rules. This is one of the reasons that Ebay is getting so strict with Sellers and Buyers. They fear that there is a lot of fee avoidence and that they are losing a lot of money. I agree with kidsfeet and ask them to relist the item on a BIN then go ahead from there. I have done that and it works well. Use your conscious.
posted on May 18, 2001 04:39:21 PM
This IS NOT FEE Avoidance since the you dont owe ebay no fees on Items that were not listed.....
one thing that is fee avoidance is when you send a winning bidder a EOA after the auction ends and in that EOA you add a handleing chage to cover Ebay FVF.
you only owe ebay fees on Items you list and sell on there site not items that were not listed.
I have bidders buy aditional items from me all the time I also have buyers who had my items on watch and missed the close of the auction write and offer to buy the item from me this is not fee avoidance.
Using member contact information obtained from eBay or using any eBay feature to
offer to sell any listed item outside of eBay
Canceling a listing to sell the item to anyone who contacted the seller through eBay,
or became aware of the item through eBay
Ending a listing early to sell the item at a higher price to the winning bidder
Using member contact information obtained from eBay or using any eBay feature to
offer to sell an item outside of eBay to any of your bidders in a Reserve Not Met listing.
Using member contact information obtained from eBay or using any eBay feature to
sell duplicate or additional merchandise outside of eBay to underbidders
Listing items in a manner that allows circumvention of eBay fees (click here for more information)
posted on May 18, 2001 10:51:16 PM
Just for the record, I don't think it's fee avoidance if you (the buyer) had contacted the seller and asked if he had any more. It's only fee avoidance if the SELLER makes the first move.
I believe it WOULD be fee avoidance if you asked a seller to close a current auction early to sell to you off eBay. If, however, you inquire about an auction that closed with no bids, IMO that would NOT be fee avoidance since it's not a current listing.
Just bear in mind that you wouldn't be able to use feedback or work with Safe Harbor if the transaction turned sour.
That's also against the rules, and would fall under Spam as well. Not that I can imagine any seller in his/her right mind would report a potential customer.
posted on May 18, 2001 11:31:13 PM
I'm with capotasto on this one, heaven forbid that you should buy anything that doesn't fall under the watchful eye of ebay. I guess if you were dealing with Sun Microsystems(they do list on ebay now) and wanted to buy a server that they have on their web site you should email them and have them list it on ebay with the buy it now feature, so of course you can leave them feedback, and be able to get the ebay police(safeharbor) on them if the deal goes south.
Give me a break, use your credit card with PayPal or a USPS money order and you will have more protection than ebay could, or ever would care to give you. Feedback who cares, bottom line is if you want it buy it.
Soliciting a seller to sell a listed item outside of eBay
[i]Canceling a listing to sell the item to anyone who contacted the seller through eBay,
or became aware of the item through eBay[/i]
Are these two statements supposed to mean the same thing? I don't know if both are eBay statements or if one is your paraphrase. The second one is definitely fee avoidance because it clearly states you can't cancel a "listing" (current auction).
The first statement seems to be more ambiguous. Is an auction still "listed" if it's closed? IMO it's not. EBay got their listing fee, so the contract between the seller and eBay is complete. EBay cannot control your entire inventory, and I feel like an unsuccessful auction reverts back to being your property with no restrictions on where or to whom to sell it.
If eBay really wanted to keep a lid on things like that, they wouldn't show 3 weeks of closed auctions (so people could browse and see what they missed) or they would only allow sellers and buyers to view their own closed auctions. OR they would change the wording in their prohibition section to indicate the words "open AND/OR closed auctions" when referring to things you can't play around with.
The folks at Safe Harbor tend to shoot & ask questions later, do whatever you feel is best.
Also, from what I've seen of the "Online Contact Forms", in the near future eBay is going to have an online Spam complaint form that can be generated directly to eBay for those folks that feel their contact info [email addy] has been abused.
Thanks for your links, but in reading the first one (about eBay offenses), I still interpret it to mean that a buyer CAN contact a seller about an auction that closed without being sold.
I also saw this in the Seller Offenses section:
Using member contact information obtained from eBay or using any eBay feature to offer to sell an item outside of eBay to any of your bidders in a Reserve Not Met listing.
It's interesting that while this is a SELLING offense (fee avoidance), there's nothing in the BIDDER section saying that you can't contact a seller in a reserve not met auction and offer to buy it. I think that helps to solidify my interpretation that BIDDER-ORIGINATED requests on closed auctions do not go against eBay rules. I'll continue to contact sellers on closed auctions if I need to, and ask if they'll either sell it to me outright or if they plan to relist it.
JMO.
(and thanks for your many informative posts, reddeer, I enjoy lurking here!)
Soliciting a seller to sell a listed item outside of eBay.
.......................................
When eBay implemented the new "ask a seller a question" online form, they made note of this on the Announcement Board, and mentioned the fact that buyers doing this [contacting sellers to make off site transactions] would be breaking the rules & could now be reported.
Myself, I'll sell anything to anyone for the right amount of $$$.
posted on May 20, 2001 08:00:39 AM
These people are like the sellers that hang out on street corners nears busy shopping malls, getting a free ride on the shopping center's reputation and advertising.
They are basically being parasites on the person who did the listing, and paid (via listing fees) to attract customers, then these parasites attempt to siphon off some of those customers.
I report them to eBay every time! If they wuols just LIST the fricking item, eBay would make more money and maybe the seller's fees would go down.
posted on May 20, 2001 05:02:21 PM
abacaxi - hahahaha........ebay fees go down..........that is funny........
[ edited by revvassago on May 20, 2001 06:26 PM ]
posted on May 21, 2001 06:03:19 PM
OK reddeer, I bow to your superior knowledge. I just got a response back from ePay that states "'listed' means an item that is listed or was listed previously."
I guess I'll just have to make sure that when I inquire about a closed auction that I ONLY ask if a seller is planning to relist the item. Sigh.
Without eBay, I might have a real life...
[ edited by mcbrunnhilde on May 21, 2001 06:04 PM ]
posted on May 21, 2001 06:27:19 PM
>'listed' means an item that is listed or was listed previously."
When ebay started "cracking down", we sent them an email asking about this, and where told that if a buyer made an offer like this they where breaking the rules, BUT we where free to sell to them if we didn't mind the lack of ebay "support" on the sale. I think whoever makes the first contact is the one breaking ebays rules. (and I would never "snitch" on someone buying from me )
Everytime I have a batch of autions close, within 10 minutes someone will email with an offer to buy something that just closed, normaly with a insultingly lowball offer, but sometimes they offer full price, which I don't understand (why didn't they just bid...).
Sometimes I tell them I'm glad it didn't sell for the $49.99 opening bid, and if they want it, it's $100. Surprisingly, sometimes they want it.
Since the buyer doesn't pay fees, I don't understand why I get offers like this (except the lowball offers, that I understand )
