posted on June 15, 2002 11:59:54 AM new
Today's internet users are changing ISP and email accounts at an ever-increasing rate. Unfortunately this situation causes a very real real problem for internet users that sell items on online auctions because when users register at an online auction site they register with an email address that they may drop and totally forget to update. That failure to update their email address with the auction site results in bounced and returned letters from these accounts when these users win items on auctions. This problem is increasing at an alarming rate. The online auctions seem to care less about this growing problem and usually will not even post reminders on their site. eBay will never do anything about the problem because at least half of its 50 million accounts are dead accounts with dead email accounts.
One of the internets largest sites has 29 million registered users that has ALL accounts with current email addresses. That internet entity is www.classmates.com . EVERY month they send out an email to all 29 million registered users with news of newly registered classmates in their graduating class. If the email bounces they wait a few days and send the letter again. If the email bounces again they deactivate the account and remove the listings of that member. The once a month letter can hardly be called spam.
What a simple and effective method of weeding out dead accounts. Why in the world don't online auctions use a similar system? Of course eBay will never do it because it would lose a majority of its inflated membership count but the other auctions can surely use this system to cut down on lost sales and aggravation to sellers.
posted on June 15, 2002 01:08:28 PM new
Well someone thinks like I do: I just removed 3 this morning.
Register under your true name using a valid email address.
If you have a sale and the winner does not follow thru, Click on the E-mail link below and fill in all information - - item number and winner's email and a copy of e-mail's sent to them and we will try sending an email to the winner and if it fails they shall be blocked from use of our site
I just might add some where if your email bounces you don't get a second chance.
posted on June 15, 2002 01:30:48 PM new
What eBay does if a buyers email bounces on a seller and they report it to them is to send a letter to the buyer a couple of times and if the letter bounces they unregister the buyer. The buy can be re-instated with a valid email. The good thing is that the buyer with a bad email can not neg or neutral feedback the seller for not contacting him.
Sometimes I think that eBay does not care so much about this pressing problem for another reason beyond losing half or more of its inflated membership totals. That other reason would be to encourage sellers to use its fixed price venue where it makes much more profit on sales. That's a bad way to kill off your own auction section by not caring about the validity of the buyers email addresses.
