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TAGnotes Wed 8 Nov 2000 Vol 2 Number 160 Issue 242

The Auction Guild Notes for Wed 8 Nov 2000
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We apologize for the delay in getting this issue out. This
is partially due to delay on our part, and partially due to temporary
glitches in the Topica delivery system.
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ebaY has functioned fairly well from 4-8 November barring the
problems detailed below, and several unresolved ongoing problems.
The ongoing unfixed problems are, Mister Lister - intermittently not
working, often shows a message in German. Revise Auctions- does
not work or works intermittently, a particular problems for WebTV
users. Relist Auctions - either does not work at all or loses all the
payment information when the auction is posted. You then have to
revise the auction to show payment options IF revise is working at
all. Search - shows mixed and varied results for the same search
made as little as a few seconds earlier. Missing auctions - these are
auctions either newly listed or running, that either never show up, or
disappear during the course of an auction, from the sellers listings
page and from a sellers My ebaY page. The only solution to this
appears to be to email timesen-@ebay.com and request your
seller list be reset.

4 Nov 11:09:09 PT Users on the OAI boards reported that some
listings appeared with a double bidding bar on them, preventing a
buyer from bidding on the item. Katy@ebay posted that she would
check into it, and no further complaints surfaced. The site ran well
during the day barring the above mentioned re-occurring problems.

On 5 Nov users reported cgi 5 was down intermittently preventing
listing. At 11:29:49 PT the Sport section went down, and messages
showed up in My ebaY and on sellers lists saying the auctions were
ended. The auctions were not ended and would reappear as still
running and also were searchable and shown as still running. This
was due to ongoing problems with the system server split. At
13:10:53 PT Katy@ebaY acknowledged that ebaY made a mistake
by blocking the German Stamps and Coins sections. She said "this
was not intended to be a complete block of any category and they are
currently working to rectify the code that caused this." At 14:16:31 PT
the Sports section was again reported as intermittently down. At
16:41:26 PT East Coast users reported outages and slowness with the
site. At 20:06:02 PT problems with browse were noted by users. Site
slowness was reported across the site through 22:12:30.   

On 6 Nov at 05:31:12 PT users reported cgi3 errors when posting to
the boards. At 10:35:14 PT Input errors started to show up
intermittently and at 10:52:36 PT the Sport section went down. At
17:40:02 ebaY reported the Feedback Forum was down as of about 17:22 PT.
At 18:38:59 ebaY reported that feedback was unavailable from 17:22 PT
until 17:50 PT. At 20:20:01 ebaY reported they were disabling The
Feedback Forum, the Account Tab in My eBay, and Account
from 00:00 PST to 01:00 PST so they could do maintenance on the
system.

On 7 Nov 09:22:08 PT revise auctions was down. At 09:27:37 PT
Mister Lister was not working and speaking German. The site appears
to have run well for the rest of the day as the focus of the nation was
on the election.

On 8 Nov at 6:20:49 ebaY announced that from 04:45 PT, users who
use the Netscape browser couldn't view items. They posted the
problem as being fixed by 06:58:35, but at 08:12:54 users were still
reporting problems. At 12:29:47 PT Sports went down again. At
15:25:25 ebaY posted that the Sports category was intermittently
unavailable from 14:00 PT to 14:45 PT. The site ran well for the
remainder of the day.

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 posted that due to the severe weather and flooding in the United
Kingdom users may expect delays in the delivery of or payment for items
being sent to both overseas and in country. They advised patience and
understanding with the trading partners who might be in these areas.

In a thread on the ebaY boards at
http://remarq.ebay.com/ebay/transcript.asp?g=discuss%2Eebay%2
Etrust%2Eand%2Esafety&tn=35822&sh=fce820369e877ad3&idx=-1
ebaY is looking for input on enforcing rules they feel will encourage
safer trading practices. One plan provides higher insurance coverage
for the seller who must (1) have their identities verified at a cost of
$5. per year, (2) have a certain level of feedback, (3) accept credit
card payments or escrow, and (4) participate in mediation. The items
of these sellers will have an icon that will indicate these sellers are
safer trading partners. The insurance program will work in the same way
as the current one and cover fraud protection for buyers for non-receipt
of item or item misrepresentation and have a standard deductible of $25.
TAG feels that since a seller must use ebaY's for fee services to
qualify, no other icon should appear to falsely make the sellers who pay
the fees appear more reliable than those who do not pay the fees. Sites
such as Amazon offer the higher
rate of insurance tied to their payment system and ebaY should do
the same, without trying to make sellers who do not want to pay for
their added features look untrustworthy.

ebaY is currently conducting a survey about changes to the My ebaY
pages. This survey is open to all users via a link on the threaded chat
boards, or can be found at http://www.insightexpress.com/ix/show
Survey.asp?id=18713&accessCode=9367425312

ebaY has implemented the previously reported changes to the real
estate category. They have changed search, so you can search by the
number of bedrooms and bathrooms. Listings, now has a thumbnail
picture of the property. http://pages.ebay.com/realestate/index.html

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 Auctions is once again paying their sellers, and
the payment system appears to be working again, though
with some intermittent delays. The Amazon Marketplace
is also getting positive reviews as sellers are seeing immediate
sales as a result of this new way to list and sell items.
http://www.amazon.com
* * * * *
PayPal users have reported intermittent crashes of the system.
X.Com is closing down all their services as of 1 December. If you
have any funds on deposit, withdraw them and close your accounts.
Effective 20 Nov, 2000, X.Com will not accept deposits to your
account, including wire transfers. Cancel any direct deposits or
automatic electronic funds withdrawals you may have attached
to your account prior to that date. After 1 Dec 2000, no items
presented for payment will be accepted, including checks,
electronic funds transfer requests and debit card transactions.
Any Certificates of Deposit (CDs) will be redeemed and credited
to your account on or before 1 Dec, with full interest through maturity.
PayPal http://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr
X.Com https://secure.finance.x.com/notice.asp

TAG as always and even more strongly now, advises PayPal and
ALL third party payment system users, to not leave any more
money in your PayPal (or other third party) account than you can
afford to lose. There appear to be no laws that protect your money
in these third party accounts. Unless you use an FDIC insured
account your money is not safe in the long term, and should be
left exposed for the shortest period of time possible. For an article
on Online banking we found interesting go to
http://www.bankrate.com/brm/news/cc/20001103a.asp
* * * * *
Posts on the OAI/OTI boards are warning AOL users that they might
want to use great caution and do some research BEFORE they
download and upgrade to the new version 6.0. For more information
http://www.internetnews.com/isp-news/article/0,,8_501941,00.html

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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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and eTRADERS GUILD
www.auctionguild.com
Not just a venue
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