| Back |
TAGnotes Mon 11Jun 2001 Vol 3 Number 69 Issue 330 |
|
The
Auction Guild Notes for Mon 11 Jun 2001
************************************************************
SUPPORT THE SUBSCRIBERS WHO SUPPORT TAGNOTES
Visit their auctions and websites and make a bid or purchase.
********************
http://www.katahdinme.com -
Check our website ~ Moose n' More!
Wildlife & Outdoor Products ~ Premium Cedar Adirondack Chairs.
************************************************************
Support TAGnotes - Subscribers Ads $5.00 email
ta-@theauctionguild.com for details. Commercial rates available. Want
the answer to "WHAT CAN WE DO" to make your voice
heard in the online auction and trading industry? Recruit subscribers
for TAGnotes!! There is power in numbers and we thank our
subscribers who spread the word.
************************************************************
View the TAGnotes archives in a searchable format at
http://www.escribe.com/business/TAGnotes/
************************************************************
On 10 Jun at 14:27:58 PT Users reported auctions ending soon search
was down, there were network errors, cgi 6 view sellers auctions was
not working, listing was not working, My ebaY, view auctions, and
bidding and listing were all not working. The site was back up at
15:00:50 PT. ebaY reported at 15:01:33 PT that from 14:25 PT
until 14:45 PT, Books, Movies, Music, View Item, Sell Item and
My ebay were unavailable. They claimed that all features were
working. At 15:21:55 PT Users reported internal error messages,
and that open actions were showing as closed. At 20:00:31 PT
completed auction search was down, and at 20:21:44 PT view items
and My ebaY were down. The chat boards were intermittently
unavailable, both listing and relist were down, as was search. At
20:34:06 PT My ebaY and view items was back, and at 20:35:56
PT seller lists were back. Users reported search still intermittent
as of 20:42:39 PT. At 20:47:20 PT Mister Lister went down.
The chat boards went down at 22:30 and were back at 22:35:46 PT.
At 22:43:05 PT My ebaY and seller search were down again. WebTV
users were getting "This item contains a type of information WebTV
can't use". At 22:44:35 PT My ebaY and the seller lists were back up.
At 22:46:00 PT My ebaY and seller lists were down again. At
23:18:57 PT ebaY had a complete crash until 00:13:10 PT then
intermittent outages until 01:45:51 PT when the site was working
again. On 11 Jun Users reported that auctions listed during
the
outages on the evening of 10 June have not indexed in Title search,
this appears particularly true of auctions listed after the 19:12PT
indexing. TAG feels all sellers should check any auctions listed
last night and make sure they are showing in Title Search. If the
auctions are not showing, end the auctions early and request refunds
for ALL fees. To end auctions early go to
http://cgi3.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?EndingMyAuction
At 08:02:56 PT users reported site problems, My ebaY, search and
access to pages were down. At 12:33:27 PT ebaY reported that
while Title Search was current as of 11:15 PT, some items from
19:15 PT on 10 Jun to 11:15 PT on 11 June were missed during
the index cycle. ebaY was trying to get them indexed to Title
Search in four to five hours. At 11:06:34 PT users reported
Billpoint not working. At 15:12:41 PT AOL hosted images were
not showing on auction listing pages.
TO REQUEST REFUNDS from ebaY go to
http://www.auctionguild.com/generic.html?pid=33
Don't take no for an answer, keep requesting until you get them.
Pink Quote of the Day - When asked about the new link on sellers
closed auction pages leading buyers to other sellers auctions Katy@ebaY
said, "this has not been popular and we know that. I can't say that this
means it will change, but it is under review as all features are when
they first appear...Katy" TAG sees this as a concise statement of
ebaY's arrogance and hubris, and that it clearly demonstrates how ebaY
views their customers. PQOD #2 In a discussion, again, about the lack of
posts about the ebaY outages and indexing problems on the ebaY Site
Announcement board, Gwyneth@ebaY said, "I get my information directly
from Operations. I'm usually on the phone with them. We report on those
systems outages that are documentable. A lot of the problems reported on
the board are not affecting everyone, or they begin affecting people at
different times. It would be impossible to document all the various
issues, especially those that are regional, ISP or systems-based." and "
I don't want to post on the AB saying "All's Fine" if it's not. That's
why I'm holding...."
and at 11:32:04 PT, "There's a difference between an "outage" and
someone having an issue. There are MANY reasons an individual
may not be able to access eBay. The idea that every single issue is
an "outage" is not realistic." So once again ebaY has lots of excuses
about why they do not inform their paying customers about the
site problems and outages. They don't know they are having problems,
so it is better to pretend they don't have any, the problems are anyone
and everyone else's fault BUT never ebaYs, and if they posted EVERY
problem, the SAB would scroll so fast it would be a blur. The TRUTH as
TAG sees it is that ebaY does not want to reveal the real state of their
unstable infrastructure, they want to hide the information from the
press, the public, their stockholders and their users. We are
disappointed that the early promise shown by Gwyneth, in providing a
more accurate, timely and truthful SAB has
deteriorated so quickly.
TAG editorial on ebaY's links ban, and what you can do about it.
ebaY Cuts The Threads of The Web? FIGHT BACK!!!
All the Billpoint logos are not in compliance with the 88X33 limit.
Updated almost daily - more info, more companies to watch.
Join our fight to help level the playing field so the users who built
ebaY have a chance and fight against ebaY's new corporate
favoritism program. http://www.auctionguild.com/generic.html?pid=57
For sellers who feel they have not had adequate refunds, that ebaY is
restraining trade, defrauding sellers by not providing the services
paid for, or other situations not dealt with to your satisfaction,
you can file reports with The Attorney General of California and
also in your home state
http://caag.state.ca.us/piu/mailform.htm
The Better Business Bureau
http://www.bbbonline.com
The Federal Trade Commission
http://www.ftc.gov
The Office of Consumer Affair,
US Department of Commerce
http://www.consumer.gov/sentinel/index.html
File Complaint
https://rn.ftc.gov/dod/wsolcq$.startup?Z_ORG_CODE=PU01
The FBI's Internet Fraud Units
http://www.nipc.gov/contact.htm#arrow,
National Fraud Information Center
http://www.fraud.org
eComplaints http://www.ecomplaints.com/
ebaY is changing the deadbeat bidder program what ebaY calls
the Non-Paying Bidder (NPB) Program. Under the changes, a
deadbeat with three unique warnings (rather than the previous
four unique warnings) will be indefinitely suspended. ebaY is also
adding a feature where sellers have an option to add NPBs to their
blocked bidder list after they have completed the on-line final
value fee credit request. ebaY is adding a sub navigation bar
to the NPB pages to guide users through the program. Sellers
will be able to receive a final value fee credit without the 10-day
waiting period if the NPB is no longer registered on ebaY (NARU).
If ebaY was REALLY serious about ending deadbeat bidders, all
they would have to do would be to require all users to fund an account
(does not HAVE to be via credit card, could be by check, money
order, PayPal etc). If an NPB is filed, ebaY refunds ALL fees
(listing,special feature and FVFs) to the seller, and charges the buyers
account for those fees. ebaY gets all their money back, the seller gets
their fees back, and it wont take long for the deadbeats to disappear.
The reason ebaY will NOT do this, is because several million user ids
will be removed by users who don't want to fund each ID.
Things to note - on the Buy it Now feature on the US site there is
a note that says "Free during promotion" and on the Canadian site
says "Buy It Now - Special Promotion Extended!" Is a Buy It Now
fee coming soon?
ebaY has launched their ebaY Stores. This is supposedly limited to
a small group of sellers in a pilot program starting today. There are
small business owners and individuals in the program, along with
larger companies such as IBM and the Hard Rock Cafe - the ones TAG
believes the storefronts were designed for. On 18 June ebaY Stores
will be open to all qualified online sellers (no qualifications listed
yet)Pricing includes a monthly subscription fee of $9.95 and a fee of
$.05 per item. FVFs range from 5 percent to 1.25 percent based on
selling price. For those sellers who sign up early ebaY is charging FVFs
only until 1 Sep 2001. Buyers will be able to search for items in a
seller's store, and checkout. Items a seller has for auction on ebaY
will appear alongside the fixed price items in the store. Fixed price
items will not appear in the ebaY core site search. ebaY is planning to
add a shopping cart, and will integrate Half.com listings (watch for the
new restrictive user agreement we warned about!) Article on stores is
at
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/010611/sfm100b.html
Though the stores are not available to everyone, those who don't
want to wait might be able to get in through several of the open
back doors and set up a store. Try - http://cgi3.ebay.com/aw-
cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewStore&name=ebayewatchteststore
ebaY posted about the severe weather in Texas and Louisiana. If you
are transacting business with ebaY members who are located in or
near these parts of the US, be aware these circumstances could produce
delays beyond the control of your transaction partner.
Gifs you can Use page,
http://www.auctionguild.com/generic.html?pid=58
Announcement Board Marketing - (MAB)
http://www2.ebay.com/aw/marketing.shtml
Announcement Board Status (SAB)
http://www2.ebay.com/aw/announce.shtml
ebaY Contact Information, analog mail and email addresses and
phone numbers, regular and toll free, refund info and insider
trading info go to http://www.auctionguild.com/generic.html?pid=17
Approx 4.92 mil auctions inflated by approx
6% due to double listings yielding an actual count of approx 4.63 mil
On 10 Jun 2000 ebaY had approx 4.65 mil auctions
* * * * *
Amazon Auctions, zShops and Marketplace
Announcement Board - http://amazon.remarq.com/list/16791839
Amazon live telephone customer service 16 hours a day
Toll-free in U.S. and Canada: (800)201-7575
http://auctions.amazon.com
* * * * *
Sell Your Item.Com had internet connection problems on 11 Jun.
In a refreshing contrast to ebaY, full postings about the problems
were placed on their announcement board.
http://sellyouritem.com/ViewAnnouncements.html
Sell Your Item has an import tool for transferring your items to their
site - http://sellyouritem.com/ItemSell.html?Import=1
The site has approx 9000 items for sale but no bids
http://sellyouritem.com/
* * * * *
Vrane.Com has fees for certain products. The products packages and
fees can be found at http://www.vrane.com/product.html Free tools
can be found here - http://www.vrane.com/f.html
Vrane has the best tools in the industry, and the most responsive
customer support. They will also build custom tools, and host them.
They get TAG's highest recommendation.
http://www.vrane.com/
* * * * *
Boomspeed has been inaccessible for a few days due to the severe
flooding in the Houston area, where Boomspeed is located. TAG
talked to the owner and was told the Boomspeed site was not down, but
all internet access into and out of Houston was down.
As soon as internet service is restored to the Houston area,
Boomspeed should once again be accessible. As of this printing
the site is still down. http://www.boomspeed.com
* * * * *
AuctionImages offers reliable for a fee image hosting. They have
added special services for WebTV users providing 5 megs of space
for 5 dollars a month. WebTV users can launch auctions from the
AuctionImages and have the html for multiple images automatically
inserted. Users can buy additional megs of space at $1.00 per meg.
They also offer full image hosting services including editing images
and uploading. http://www.auctionimages.net/fs.shtml
http://www.auctionimages.net
* * * * *
BayPal has an image hosting and listing service that is said to be WebTV
compatible. BayPal has both a free service and a $5. a month
premium service. There are certain criteria required to qualify for the
free services. You must be an BayPal message center member, The
images are for online auctions, and have a 15 day limit and can be a max
size of 60K, and have a total 5mb of space. Premium members have no
size, time, space or other limits on their images. For full details go
to http://www.baypal.com/newbaypal/guidelines.php
Pricing and comparison of services is at
http://www.baypal.com/newbaypal/
* * * * *
Online Auction Users Association
Interested in volunteering and serving the Online Auction Community?
Check out http://www.auctionusers.org/volunteerop.shtml
http://www.auctionusers.org
* * * * *
Online Auction & Trading Site Co-op
Interested in an OAT Site Co-op?
Interested in getting involved?
Information on co-ops -
http://www.rurdev.usda.gov/rbs/pub/cir55/cir55rpt.htm
http://www.wisc.edu/uwcc/
More action on the co-op scene coming soon!
Go to http://www.auctionpie.com
They host live chats every Sunday night at 8:00PM EST
Vintage Items Co-Op info can be found at
http://www.ali-baba.org./ and
http://pages.zdnet.com/juststuff/vintmarket/
*********************************************************
***PLEASE NOTE: Many long links we post in TAGnotes must be
copy/pasted into your browsers URL/Address box in pieces, with no
extra spaces, to get them to work due to HTML limitations****
*********************************************************
If you would like an Auction House or Service Provider added to
this list, please email us at ta-@theauctionguild.com.
Have any information for us? email us at ta-@theauctionguild.com
*************************
TAG Subscribers have often contributed to information reported on in
TAGnotes. Visit their auctions.
TAGassist Contributors -
http://members.ebay.com/aboutme/debtrek/
http://cgi6.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewListedItems&userid
=bllamb&completed=0&sort=0&since=-1
http://www.antique-central.com/welcome.html
http://ourworld.cs.com/_ht_a/losttracks1/id18.htm
***********************************************************
THE AUCTION GUILD
and eTRADERS GUILD
www.auctionguild.com
Not just a venue
877-SAFETAG
READ TAGnotes
Have the most current information at your fingertips through
our almost daily email synopsis of announcements and changes from
the Online Auction Industry. Subscribe today at-
http://www.auctionguild.com
or email us - tag@theauctionguild.com
***********************************************************
All trademarks and brands are the property of their respective owners
Copyright 1999 - 2001 The Auction Guild Inc All rights reserved
