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TAGnotes Fri 3 Nov 2000 Vol 2 Number 159 Issue 241

The Auction Guild Notes for Fri 3 Nov 2000
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Despite vociferous protest and repeated postings and emails on
TAG's part, it appears that Topica, the list server that hosts TAGnotes,
has decided that they are going to take direct access of our subscriber
list, so they can send informational messages about Topica features and
services to our subscribers. From what we understand the message will
look as if it came from TAG, but it wont, it will come from Topica. We
have not authorized this usage of our subscriber list, and though they
solemnly promise the information will not be shared with any third
parties, and they feel they have to do this to maintain their service,
we continue to fight this action on their part. Several other list
owners are also fighting this action. We along with other list owners
have offered suggestions for alternative ways to get the information
Topica feels it must, out to our subscribers, but so far the suggestions
have fallen on deaf ears. Topica promises these messages will be
infrequent
and that subscribers will be able to opt out of receiving them. We are
still horrified by the fact that Topica feels because we host our list
on their server, that our subscriber lists are theirs to use. When we
signed up with Topica there was no agreement that they would have or use
access to our subscribers. We will continue to fight this action and
are investigating alternatives to Topica just in case there is no
satisfactory resolution to this problem. If you want to contact Topica
about this you can email sugges-@get.topica.com or
supp-@get.topica.com We apologize for this problem, and will act in
the best interests of our subscribers. This was one problem we were not
able to predict.

Support TAGnotes - get two of your friends or associates to subscribe.
If you have any comments, questions, information, ideas or
suggestions please email us at tagn-@theauctionguild.com
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3 Nov was another full day of problems and rolling outages. The
Non Paying Bidder pages were still down from yesterday, as was
revise an item on cgi 5, and confused search results. At
04:56:28 PT title and description search was down. 05:39:01 PT
the sign in cookie stopped working. At 06:53:48 PT a user posted
that changes ebaY made on 2 Nov had disable the ePoster program but
Auctiva was working on it. At 07:49:35 PT problems with view a listing
were reported with a nearly blank screen coming up between the list
screen and the details, that forced a "click here to see detail". At
08:08:56 PT cgi 3 went down and came back up at 08:56:03 PT, it went
down again at 09:06:27 PT. ebaY posted at 09:06:33 PT that the Chat
boards, bidder search and Request Email Address, were down. According
to ebaY the problems were fixed at 11:02:08. Sell Your Item was also
fixed at 11:02:08. At 11:13:39 PT users reported error messages while
trying to access various ebaY cgis. At 11:53:56 PT the feedback forum
was working again. At 11:58:59 PT the end an
auction early function was down. At 12:02:17 PT Seller Search
went down. 13:20:03 PT the Non Paying Bidder section was again
operational. At 14:36:31 PT problems with search were again
reported. Search results show confusing returns, pages are out
of sequence, items that show up on one list disappear never to be
found, search once and get 3500 items, search for same item again
and get 15 or zero. At 15:18:35 the Sport section went down,
At 17:02:02 PT Network Error messages started showing up all over the
site. This persisted intermittently throughout the evening. There was
also a glitch in leaving a follow-up feedback comment, and the
continuing problem of seller lists arbitrarily needing an ebaY customer
rep to reset the list so all the sellers auctions show up.
For the rest of the day the site was running fairly well with occasional
Input Error messages necessitating one or two refresh reloads to get the
page to load, and the "normal" list of reoccurring and unsolved
problems.

TAG strongly recommends that anyone who feels their auctions were
negatively impacted by these outages apply for credit. Request listing,
special feature and Final Value Fees. Go to the form at
http://cgi3.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?
SendSupportEmailShow&subject=Credit%20--%20How%20can
%20I%20receive%20credit%20for%20insertion%20fees%3F%20
Send -
* The item number(s) of the ended auction(s)
* The specific fee(s) charged for them
* Your seller's email address or User ID
* The phrase, GIVE CREDIT in the Subject line
This can also be accessed from
http://pages.ebay.com/help/basics/select-support.html
PLEASE - IF YOU ARE DENIED REFUNDS LET US KNOW
TAG can't emphasize enough that sellers should not take NO for an
answer. If you get a refund denial, keep requesting and
re-requesting refunds until you get them. Some sellers are also
challenging ebaY charges to their credit card, based on services
not rendered. TAG recommends you use that as a last resort, if at all.

ebaY has completely blocked buyers from Germany from the Stamps
and Coins sections of ebaY US. ebaY says that the rule is due to German
law against the sale of Nazi items, but it appears that ebaY has
interpreted the law wrong and gone to extremes.

Bloomberg reported that Meg Whitman, chief executive
of ebaY Inc., filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission
to sell 600,000 of ebaY stock. Whitman listed the value of the
shares at $33.4 million and the date of sale as Oct. 24. Shares of
ebaY, based in San Jose, California, have fallen almost 14%
so far this year. http://www.cnetinvestor.com/newsitem-
fd-bloomberg.asp?symbol=107086957

ebaY has made Honesty auction counters available in four more
categories, Dolls, Doll Houses, Jewelry, Gemstones, Photo &
Electronics, and Pottery & Glass. Third party software developers
should check to make sure their program works with these changes.
ebaY also changed the name of the 'Edit your Honesty Counters' link
to 'Manage/Edit your Honesty Counters'. For more info go to
http://pages.ebay.com/help/sellerguide/counters.html
Approx 5.9 mil Auctions
MedVed 5.69 mil Auctions
http://www.medved.net/cgi-bin/cal.exe?EIND
http://www2.ebay.com/aw/announce.shtml
* * * * *
Yahoo Auctions has an extrapolated calculated listing number of
3.9 million auctions. Yahoo is allowing sellers to turn their feedback
ratings on other sites into credits to pay for special features on
Yahoo. They give $1.00 in credit for every positive feedback point.
http://auctions.yahoo.com/phtml/auc/us/promo/ratings_featured.html
TAG has been seeing many posts by sellers who are moving at least
a percentage of their auctions to Yahoo.
Yahoo site map.
http://auctions.yahoo.com/phtml/auc/us/promo/sitemap.html
http://auctions.yahoo.com/
* * * * *
Amazon Auction Amazon Marketplace is now working. The
Amazon payment system remains down for Sellers, and this has
not been working for a week.

Basic site information http://www.auctionguild.com
Go to OAI Site Basic Details from left side toolbar.
Amazon listing numbers for 26 Sep, 12 of 19 categories actual
counts, 7 of 19 extrapolated counts. Total listings 1,094,439
http://www.amazon.com
* * * * *
SmoothSale now has a customer info and chat board on
AuctionDiner.Com. The board is staffed by SmoothSale support
folks who can answer questions and concerns for new users. The
SmoothDealer tool can be used on ebaY and other auction sites,
on web pages, in emails, and on chat boards. This tool gives
buyers and sellers a method through which they can talk in live
chat, and/or negotiate and close a deal instantly. $10.00 sign up
bonuses are available by using one of the advertising links on
AuctionWatch, Honesty and ProsperPoint.
http://www.smoothsale.com
http://www.auctiondiner.com
* * * * *
AuctionWatch is changing their image hosting service on 14 Nov.
An image hosted by AW that has not been accessed on the internet
for 90 days, will be deleted from their servers. If you have an
image that has not been accessed for over 90 days, and that you
would like AW to continue to host,
1) Log into your AuctionWatch.com account
2) Go to the Auction Manager tab
3) Click on image hosting
4) Click on the thumbnail view of images you want to keep.
This will reset the 90 day flag so the image won't be deleted.
http://www.auctionwatch.com
* * * * *
Collector Online is running a booth special through 31 Dec 00. Sign-up
for a COL Booth, or renew your current booth and get 6 months for the
price of 5. The 3.0 version of the Inventory Management System is set to
launch in Nov. http://www.collectoronline.com
* * * * *
AuctionInsights a web based auction management site has features
for both new and experienced users. The new users can get HTML
and picture tutorials to help learn how to produce professional
looking auction ads. There are bidder and seller tips pages, news, a
meta search engine, chat room and message boards. They also offer
free web based e-mail and a free URL redirection service
at http://AuctionLink.to for auction users who want to replace the
long internet address of their eBay "about me" page, Yahoo! booth
or other web presence with a short, fast, and easy to remember one
such as www.AuctionLink.to/you.
http://AuctionInsights.com
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*******VOTE******* VOTE******* VOTE********
The Million Auction March wants to move you to VOTE.
List your items on V enues O ther T han E bay
For more information go to http://www.millionauctionmarch.com
New Auction Houses, Sales Venues and Service Providers are
joining daily. All are offering incentives and specials to the OAI.
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If you would like an Auction House or Service Provider added to
this list, please email us at tag@theauctionguild.com
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THE AUCTION GUILD
and eTRADERS GUILD
www.auctionguild.com
Not just a venue
877-SAFETAG
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