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TAGnotes Wed 5 Sep 2001 Vol 3 Number 95 Issue 356

The Auction Guild Notes for Wed 5 Sep 2001
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For quality, variety & great deals, shop the experienced auction
sellers of the EMPORIUM http://www.lynnet.com/~jmm/emporium.html
        * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
For Hot Deals on women's clothing, visit "Coco's Closet", My Deals page
on
UpperBid.com:http://www.upperbid.com/cgi-bin/auction.cgi?justdisp&Cocorenee

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Interested in more information about TAG? Go to our website at
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and services there, along with editorials and other information.
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Today is the second anniversary of TAGnotes. The first message appeared
5 Sep 1999, and the first issue was sent out on 6 Sep 1999 Vol 1 Issue
Number 0.
Provide TAG with an anniversary present and get two OAI/OTI participants
to sign up for TAGnotes today. http://www.auctionguild.com
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On 3 Sep at 11:36:57 PT users reported that My ebaY was losing data and
that search brought up the message that, "The category is not a leaf
category." This problem was short lived and the site was stable for the
rest of the day.

On Mon night 3 Sep ebaY started implementing the planned changes to the
sign in procedures causing a plethora of problems. The first complaints
came at 04:29:18 on 4 Sep with the first noted effect being the
disabling of all third party software, including ebaY's own Seller
Assistant Basic and Seller Assistant Pro. At 05:38:57 PT users reported
that cgi 3 was intermittent causing problems with access to the various
ebaY boards, the ebaY announcement board was also intermittently
available. At 05:43:48 PT search became intermittent. These
intermittent problems continued until 08:14:22 PT. At 22:29:13 PT ebaY
posted that some users may experience intermittent difficulty signing in
to ebaY while they release new software to change the sign in process.

On 5 Sep at 05:18:40 PT users reported getting input errors when
updating preferences, and third party services were not working due to
the broken code engendered by the new sign on system. At 05:52:15 PT
the sellers lists were only showing the first 200 items and all the rest
of the items on the sellers list showing up as invalid. The ebaY
Australia site and the ebaY UK site were also broken.   Automatic PayPal
logos were not showing up on ebaY because of the changes.   06:42:55 PT
ebaY posted that due to their recent change of the sign in system, some
third-party tools were not working properly. At 07:42:18 PT the 'email
the seller' function was not working, and search was breaking down in
multipage search results. Problems with signing in and uploading photos
were also still in evidence. At 09:06:33 PT users reported the feedback
system was down. Search problems continued at 10:07:05 PT when using
Netscape. At 11:23:51 PT ebaY reported that Netscape browser users were
receiving a 'Not Found' error message searching using title or title and
description search. ebaY recommended using Internet Explorer. Users
reported problems with completed search at 11:49:47 PT and the sign in
problems continued. At 11:54:08 PT ebaY posted that they had fixed the
problem with search for Netscape browser users. At 12:25:11 PT the
entire site went down for 1.75 minutes. At 12:38:35 PT some users were
still reporting search not working. Using search would take the users
to the new sign-in page. After signing in, the user would be taken to a
Transfer Interrupted page, then switched to a terms of use page.
Pressing the continue button would take the users back and the whole
cycle would repeat. At 13:52:53 PT users continued to report the seller
list was broken, only showing the first 200 items with no access to the
rest. At 16:38:43 PT users reported there were still problems with sigh
in, and users could not set their My ebaY preferences. By 19:00:46 PT
most of the problems were resolved.

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 at 12:25:55 PT while discussing all the problems
caused by the new sign in system Sonny@ebaY said, "Search was never
broken. A banner ad served by another vendor was causing problems with
Netscape. If you tried a title search with Netscape, it would have
returned an error message and rendered your Netscape browser unusable -
you would have to restart your computer to get Netscape to work again.
Can you try that, please, and let me know if all is well for you?
Thanks!" TAG finds this an interesting statement considering that at
11:52:13 she said "Hi all, Search is fixed. On to the other issues....."
and the net result was that search was not working properly no matter
what browser was used. Another semantic manipulation of the facts so
that ebaY could justify to itself that ebaY would issue no refunds
despite a nearly four hour search outage.

TAG found this post by a gold power seller on an ebaY board to very
succinctly say it all, "What *works* for me is BUYERS being able to
*FIND* my stuff. And they have done NOTHING to help that in three years.
The Search engine is *still* a kludge. Indexing is *still* flaky.
Re-indexing is a total fiasco. And, after 5 **YEARS** of improved
technology, we *still* are limited to 45 character titles. I'm totally
unimpressed with all of the "enhancements" to the site with NO ATTENTION
given to the *mechanical* portions of the site that generate traffic."

ebaY's Billpoint is running another promotion to try to get users to
make their purchases using Billpoint. If a buyer uses Billpoint they
are entered in a contest to win a trip to Super Bowl XXXVI in New
Orleans plus the total dollar amount purchased with their Visa card on
ebaY during September. There are also thirty $100 Visa NFL gift cards
http://www.billpoint.com/promotion/nfl.html
http://www.billpoint.com/promotion/nfl_rules.html
TAG feels that ebaY needs these promotions since Billpoint cannot stand
on its own merits. TAG regularly receives emails from sellers who have
had charge backs long after they have shipped an item to the address
provided by and allegedly confirmed by Billpoint. Not only does the
seller lose the item, and the money paid for the item, but Billpoint
also charges the seller an additional $10. Proof of shipping, proof of
the item being received and even when the seller receives positive
feedback saying the item was received and satisfactory will NOT get
Billpoint to return the money to the seller.

ebaY is changing the Antiques & Art categories. Send additional comments
by 10 Sep to anti-@ebay.com. Details of the proposed revisions can be
found at
http://pages.ebay.com/preview/chg-antiques.html.
The numbers in brackets next to the names are the category numbers. To
see all current categories with their numbers go to
http://listings.ebay.com/aw/listings/list/categories.html.

ebaY has added more information about the ban on the sale of travel
vouchers. The ban went into effect 1 Aug. For more detailed information
to the policy go to
http://pages.ebay.com/help/community/png-travelvouchers.html

Community overview board –
http://pages.ebay.com/community/index.html
ebaY news board - http://pages.ebay.com/community/news/index.html

ebaY categories with the category number
http://listings.ebay.com/aw/plistings/list/categories.html

ebaY contact information including analog mail and email addresses and
phone numbers, regular and toll free, refund info and insider trading
info etc can be found at
http://www.auctionguild.com/generic.html?pid=17

5.96 million auctions inflated by 5.2% (double listing percentage
checked 29Aug01) yielding 5.65 mil auctions   On 7 Sep 00 ebaY had
Approx 4.97 million listings.
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Amazon Auctions, zShops and Marketplace took the site down for
maintenance making auctions and zShops unavailable and Marketplace items
not purchasable beginning approximately 23:00 PT Tues 4 Sep through
approx 03:00 PT Wed 5 Sep.

Pro Merchant inventory and report tools will be available but load files
and report requests will not be processed. Auction listings will be
extended per the standard outage policy.

Announcement Board
http://prospero.amazon.com/n/mb/listsf.asp?webtag=am-sellannounce&nav=start&ctx=0


It appears that the link from used books now only links to Marketplace
books and no longer brings up zShop listings.
User to User boards
http://forums.prospero.com/am-sellconnect/messages/?msg

Amazon live telephone customer service 16 hours a day
Toll-free in U.S. and Canada: (800)201-7575
http://auctions.amazon.com
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Exodus Communications, the company that provides hardware and web
hosting for sites such as ebaY and Yahoo, along with a plethora of
smaller sites such as Auction Watch, is in trouble. Their CEO since
1998, Ellen Hancock, resigned on Tues 4 Sep, and reports say she might
have been forced out. Exodus is carrying more than $3 billion in debt
spent on rapid expansion of its business as it built 40 data centers
around the world. Articles -
http://www.thestandard.com/article/0,1902,28879,00.html
http://cbs.marketwatch.com/news/story.asp?guid=%7B53D9FB32%2D9486%
2D4D8C%2D8C1B%2D3C8E65B190F4%7D
http://www.internetnews.com/asp-news/article/0,,3411_877911,00.html
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ap/20010904/tc/exodus_hancock_1.html
* * * * *
Privacy Protection software is needed by everyone. The newest update
for Ad-Aware is now available at
http://www.lavasoftusa.com/software.html
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Online Auction Users Association
Attend the OAUA annual meeting at http://www.auctionusers.org/chat/
Thursday, September 6, at 5:00 PM Pacific. This will be an online
meeting, and all members are invited to attend, in the "Annual Member
Meeting" room

OAUA has put together discount packages for their members for auction
management services.    http://www.auctionusers.org/discounts-am.shtml

Interested in volunteering and serving the Online Auction Community?
Check out http://www.auctionusers.org/volunteerop.shtml

Live Chat
Thur 6 Sep - OAUA Annual General Meeting, more information to follow
http://www.auctionusers.org
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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 or websites.
TAGassist Contributors –
http://www.coin-center.com

http://members.ebay.com/aboutme/copper-maven/

http://www.pantheus.com/
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