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TAGnotes Sun 6 Aug 2000 Vol 2 Number 115 Issue 197

From: The Auction Guild <tagn-@theauctionguild.com>
Date: Mon Aug 7, 2000 2:09am
Subject: TAGnotes Sun 6 Aug 2000 Vol 2 Number 115 Issue 197

The Auction Guild Notes for Sunday 6 Aug 2000
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OAI Sellers AND Buyers - Add diversity to the Online Auction
Industry - VOTE. For more information go to
http://www.millionauctionmarch.com
If you have any information, ideas or suggestions please
email us at tagn-@t...
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eBay's site was down on 3 Aug. First reports of site slowness were
posted on the eBay boards at 17:21:35PT and at 17:33 was noted by
Claire@ebay saying she would report it. Major problems started at
19:17PT and were again acknowledged by Claire@ebay at 19:35:01
saying the problems with slowness and error messages were being
worked on. eBay, on the announcement board at 19:57 posted
QUOTE 19:06 PDT to approximately 19:20 PDT some functions of
the site experienced higher than normal latency. This latency caused
roughly 1 in 5 connections across these functions to time out. With
the exception of My eBay the issues were addressed quickly and site
response time is currently back to normal. ENDQUOTE
The discrepancies here are obvious and as reported in TAGnotes on
3 Aug, site problems were reported on the boards until 20:07 with
My eBay back at approx 20:15PT.

eBay was down once again on 4 Aug. eBay reported at 13:33PT that
there was an outage from 12:59PT to 13:19PT.   This is in direct
contrast to emails from TAGnotes subscribers and from postings
on the OAI chat boards. Intermittent outages were reported starting
at approx 07:00PT, with the major outage starting at approx 13:02PT
and ending at 13:36.

At 06:40:29 PT on 5 Aug My eBay, Seller Search, and Bidder Search
were unavailable. eBay posted at 10:06:52 that they had restored,
all functions and My eBay, Seller Search, and Bid Histories were
again working.

On 6 Aug at 18:12:53 PT My eBay went down again.
eBay posted at 19:05:06 PT that members were getting slow access to
some eBay features: My eBay, Watch, Seller Search, and Bidding
History of items, and if first attempts didn't work to try again. the
reports on the OAI boards reflected that My eBay was completely
down and access to other features were slow. All those who have
bought into using My eBay extensively, particularly to WATCH
auctions, have been negatively impacted by the continued My eBay
outages. This hurts sellers whose auctions will definitely not get
bids from buyers using My ebay and WATCH, now making My eBay a
major eBay feature. eBay reported all was working again at 21:17PT.

TAG has some grave concerns about this ongoing situation. We
have had reports from sellers and seen posts on the OAI boards on
eBay and off, where eBay is denying refunds to sellers for auctions
ending during these outages. eBay is claiming the auctions that did
not end during their officially posted outage times are not eligible
for refunds no matter how negative the impact of the site problems.
And they are not counting outages of My eBay as being of sufficient
damage to justify a refund. Unfortunately, as is demonstrated here
(and we have the 3 Aug DNF board archived as evidence, and
similar information is available on off eBay sites) the times eBay
has posted are NOT correct. In addition, the change in eBays
policy regarding the direct refund request is also of concern.
Until now all one needed to do was email bill-@e...
for a refund, give them a valid reason, and the refund was issued
without argument. This was one of the last places where the eBay
philosophy that people are basically good and honest was still
practiced and not just preached. With this change, unless eBay
itself acknowledges the outage and posts it on the announcement
board, they will not issue the refunds. They have also eliminated
the easy refund, by making sellers send the refund request
through customer support, adding roadblocks and much frustration to
getting the problem dealt with.   

To request a refund, TAG recommends you use the form on this page
to request your refund for ALL fees to cover the aforementioned
problems and for ALL fees on auctions negatively impacted by an
eBay outage. Subject - billing
http://cgi3.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?MfcISAPICommand
=SendQueryEmailShow

To use the automated canned answer roundabout go to
http://pages.ebay.com/help/basics/select-support.html

Approx 4.7 million current listing
http://www2.ebay.com/aw/announce.shtml
* * * * *
Yahoo Auctions Basic site information http://www.auctionguild.com
Go to OAI Site Basic Details from left side toolbar.
Current extrapolated listing count 2.11 mil
http://auctions.yahoo.com/
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Amazon Auctions Basic site information
http://www.auctionguild.com
Go to OAI Site Basic Details from left side toolbar.

Listings total 850254 (probably inflated by approx 2% due to listings
appearing in multiple category totals) 6 categories Extrapolated,
13 Actual, 11972 with bids    http://www.amazon.com
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AuctionVillage the auction site that was closed down by Tennessee
for not being licensed as a brick and mortar auction house, has
re-opened for business. They are now duly licensed, and the site
is all new. As a welcome back, each person to register over the
next few weeks will receive a $50 credit to their account for signing
up. They are also waiving all listing fees and final value fees, so
the site is free to use.   They currently have 91 listings with 3
with at least one bid.   http://www.auctionvillage.com
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OAUA's latest newsletter is out and can be found at
http://www.auctionusers.org/newsletter/
This issue has nominations for the board of directors, info on the
one year anniversary celebration, various articles to inform and
entertain. Keep current on issues important to OAI users. Be part
of setting the industry standard for excellence.
JOIN the OAUA today. http://www.oaua.com
* * * * *
If you would like an Auction House or Service Provider added to
this list, please email us at tagn-@t...
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