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TAGnotes Sat 16Jun 2001 Vol 3 Number 71 Issue 332
  

The Auction Guild Notes for Sat 16 Jun 2001
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We have been receiving reports from subscribers that ebaY is closing
some threads on the ebaY threaded boards that have the TAG Pink
Quote of the Day, and other information from TAGnotes in them.
TAG wonders why this ebaY censorship is taking place at this time,
and what ebaY is trying to hide. This is something ebaY does without
explanation on occasion. TAG encourages ebaY users to use common
sense and not jeopardize their ability to sell and buy on ebaY, but also
to not let ebaY use threats and intimidation to silence the voices of
users.

On 13 Jun 16:52:40 PT ebaY users reported that ebaY had ended
auctions, and instead of the auction disappearing as normal, the
items were still showing on the sellers search list as 'fake' items.
This was just one of the many ongoing problems ebaY has had with
the new listing page for over three weeks. AT 18:26:40 PT ebaY
posted that most of the problems with listing and ebaY pic services
were resolved. At 20:32:40 PT ebaY posted that the Discussion and
Help Boards were down. The older chat boards were not affected.   
At 21:27:38 PT users continued to report listing problems, and also
receiving 404 error messages on the site when accessing the chat
boards and other site pages. ebaY posted at 21:29:19 PT that the
boards were down from 20:16 PT until 21:22 PT. At 23:49:52 PT
ebaY announced that is was going to take the boards down for
scheduled emergency maintenance on Thu 14 Jun from 02:00 PT
until 05:00 PT.

Users reported on 14 Jun at 12:41:50 PT that the relist link was
broken. It came back up at 12:55:22 PT went down again at
12:59:16 PT and continued to be intermittently down until approx
13:33:38 PT. Other than the never fixed ongoing ebaY problems
list located at http://www.auctionguild.com/generic.html?pid=32

ebaY performed regularly scheduled maintenance from 01:00 PT to
03:00 PT on Fri 15 Jun. Billpoint was also down for maintenance on
Fri 15 Jun maintenance from 01:00 PT to 03:00 PT. At 07:11:32 PT
users reported the sell form down. Again the site ran well for the rest
of the day, except for the ongoing problems.

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.

Users reported problems with images not appearing when previewing
Mister Lister review pages. ebaY acknowledged the problem existed
and that their engineering staff is working on finding the root cause
of this technical glitch. Once the Mister Lister collection is
submitted to ebaY, ebaY claims the images appear.

ebaY Storefronts - Though it is unknown what will actually happen with
the storefronts when they are launched officially on 18 Jun, it appears
that if you have opened a store and decide to close it, you will lose
all your auction listings also. If you decide to close your store, you
will have to cancel all the auctions you have running. TAG recommends
you experiment with storefronts under an alternative ID. ebaY stores
will be open on 18 Jun for all users. For sellers who sign up between 18
Jun and 1 Aug, ebaY will waive the monthly fee and the listing fees
until 1 Sep. After 1 Sep there will be a $9.95 monthly fee for each
store and a five cent listing fee on each unique listing in the store.
Only one listing fee will be charged for multiple items. If a seller
lists one item, there will be a five cent listing fee. If the seller
lists 100 of the same item the listing fee will still be five cents.
Final value fees apply to all sold items.

There also appears to be a problem with credit card acceptance. All
users will have to accept credit cards to use the stores, and currently
the only third party credit card service provider the site recognizes is
Billpoint. Users with Credit Card Merchant Accounts are covered, and
the work around is for sellers to check of the Merchant Account option
even though they will be offering, for example, PayPal or PayDirect, and
not an actual merchant account charge card.
http://cgi6.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?StorefrontLogin&usage=1

Gifs you can Use page,
http://www.auctionguild.com/generic.html?pid=58

Check all the latest ebaY insider trades, where Meg Whitman and
Pierre cash in another approx 4 mil each in stock.
http://biz.yahoo.com/t/e/ebay.html

Pink Quote of the Day - On 13 Jun at 23:31:33 PT in a discussion
about ebaY problems and changes Sonny@ebaY said, " please
understand that a lot of the policy changes we make are a direct
result of the legal climate - prior to a couple of years ago, there
was no internet law. Now, we are scrutinized very closely by virtually
everyone. I joined eBay back in the days when you could sell anything,
do anything, say anything. Those days are no more, and as the internet
becomes more and more mainstream, there will be more and more laws and
precedents with which we must abide, just as there are in non-virtual
business. Other policies come about because of blatant abuse. :( " TAG
feels that ebaY has gotten very good at placing blame for problems on
anything and anyone BUT ebaY, and this appears to us to be the ultimate
in self justification. All the problems at ebaY and all the anti seller
policies are either the fault of the legal system or the sellers who
abuse the system. Nothing is ebaYs fault or responsibility. The ebaY
philosophy
in a nutshell.

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.
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
Spot checks of the Corporate sellers on TAG's list show almost
universal violations by these corporate sites, including ebaY owned
ReturnBuy.

US ebaYers, here is what your money is paying for. You are carrying
these sites on your back and here is why -
http://www.thedeal.com/cgi-bin/gx.cgi/AppLogic+FTContentServer?
pagename=FutureTense/Apps/Xcelerate/Render&c=TDDArticle&cid=
TDDFBCOSWNC&preview=true

And the REALITY -
ebaY US - SELLERS - You pay listing, special feature and final
value fees. Fees were raised this year despite record breaking profits.
All links out of ebaY were cut as ebaY tries to force all users to make
ALL their sales through ebaY.
**ebaY Australia 37,237 listings
**ebaY Canada 223942 listings after free listing day on 10 Jun
**ebaY France, ebaY paid $112 million in May for Paris-based iBazar
currently has 2524 listings
**Germany, Austria and Switzerland (all listings on ebaY Germany)
ebaY paid $43 million for Alando.de and has 1664397 listings after
the free listing day on 14 Jun.
**United Kingdom, Ireland (all listings on ebaY UK) - 342961 listings
**Italy - 2197 auction listings
**Japan - No fees charged - 9809 auction listings
**ebaY US, New Zealand (all listings on ebaY US) 4.9 mil auctions
**Korea ebaY paid $ 264 Mil Can't determine auction numbers

Interesting ebaY protest auction. This long time ebaY power seller
is auctioning his shooting star ebaY jacket in protest of ebaY's
recommendation emails that SPAM ebaY buyers and bottom feed
off ebaY sellers long established businesses.
http://cgi.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?MfcISAPICommand=
ViewItem&item=1156855648

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/

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
* * * * *
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
* * * * *
Aucland.Com a French online auction house that is the industry
leader in France. This is the company ebaY is taking on by its
purchase of iBazaar. With no listing fee, Aucland charges a final
value fee of 4%. Aucland also has a very interesting feature called
Member Sites. This is a page on the auction site that provides links
to Members WebSites. The Sites are sorted by category and are a
COMMUNITY feature whereby Members that have links to Aucland
get a link BACK to their website. To see the member site page go to
http://myaucland.aucland.fr/Contents/fr/Entre/site/default.asp
http://www.aucland.fr/
(for those needing translations go to
http://babelfish.altavista.com/translate.dyn)
* * * * *
ePier has a bidding glitch whereby a bidder can't increase their
proxy bid unless they are outbid by another bidder. ePier
acknowledges this glitch in the software system, but don't know
when it will be repaired. ePier has also been having chronic and
reoccurring problems with images not showing up on auctions.
They claim to have fixed the image problems as of 13 Jun, but
complaints continue to crop up on the sites boards.

ePier has instituted a mandatory annual fee of $20.00 for sellers who
deal in the Militaria and Adult categories. Though ePier claims this
is a 'verification' fee, their is no information on the site to justify
this
claim, and it appears to be a subscription fee, so a form of selling
fee.
They say this fee will eventually be required of all sellers.

On 13 June ePier posted that they had Denial of Service attacks for
the last few days. The attacks cause slower than usual downloads, and
trouble connecting to ePier. http://www.epier.com
* * * * *
Compaq has an outlet store and auctions of equipment.
http://www.compaqfactoryoutlet.com/cwstore/templates/auctions/
more_auclist.asp
http://www.compaqfactoryoutlet.com/
* * * * *
Boomspeed.Com users continued to report problems with Boomspeed
on 14 Jun. Images either did not show up at all, or were showing
images not belonging to the user. The site was back up on the 15th
and appeared to be functioning normally again.
http://www.boomspeed.com
* * * * *
Tools4auctions Technologies Inc. is a company in Burnaby, British
Columbia, Canada providing auction management tools for ebaY.
They also have Auction Shops, included in the price of their ad
packages. Packages run from $7.90 for 10 ads to $49. for 100 ads.
Contact info - John Crittenden, President, Phone: 604-421-1085
Fax: 604-421-1086 mailto:john.cri-@tools4auctions.com
http://ads4auctions.com
* * * * *
US Government - one of the largest eTailers is the US Government.
Horses and Burros - www.adoptahorse.blm.gov
Property Dispersal(ie-Homes) - www.gsa.gov/pr/prhome.htm
Surplus Property sales and auctions -
http://159.142.162.71/Portal/main.jsp?catcode=1-9-0-0-0-0
* * * * *
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/

Vintage Items Co-Op info can be found at
http://pages.zdnet.com/juststuff/vintmarket/
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***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****
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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://cgi6.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?MfcISAPICommand=
ViewListedItem-@ertl-family.com

http://auctions.yahoo.com/booth/watafind

http://www.esnipe.com
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