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TAGnotes Mon 10 Sep 2001 Vol 3 Number 97 Issue 358
 

The Auction Guild Notes for Mon 10 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
      * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
$Buck98 on eBay. No reserve. $1.98 opening bid auctions.
Next event SEP 11th http://members.ebay.com/aboutme/$buck98/
       * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Support the people who support TAGnotes. Click on their links, bid on
their auctions and buy their products. You too can participate in a Win
Win solution. Support TAG and promote your website or auctions.
Subscribers Ads $5.00 - Commercial rates available, email
ta-@theauctionguild.com for details.
************************************************************
TAGnotes has signed up its 3,000th subscriber. We want to thank all our
subscribers who have been so instrumental in getting the word out to
others about TAGnotes. Now if every subscriber would go out and get two
more subscribers to sign up, we would be at 9,000 subscribers in no
time. There is power in numbers. THANK YOU!
        * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
TAG is now soliciting short articles or emails to the editor on various
issues in the OAI/OTI. We want to get a users point of view, and will
post these contributions on the TAG website, on the Auction Voice page.
All published material will garner a TAGassist credit in TAGnotes.
Contribution can be anon., using a psudonym, using a user ID or under a
byline. Email us for details - ta-@theauctionguild.com   
        * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *                
       
The TAGnotes archive is available in a searchable format at
http://www.escribe.com/business/TAGnotes/
Interested in more information about TAG? Go to our website at
http://www.auctionguild.com You can find contact info for several sites
and services there, along with editorials and other information.
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ebaY's implementation of their new sign in system continues to be a
major problem. All the OAI/OTI boards are filled with messages about
bidders who can't access the site to bid, can't get to their My ebaY
feature and access their Watch list, along with sellers who can't list,
relist, revise or manage their ebaY accounts.

ebaY posted on 7 Sep at 21:18:42 PT acknowledging the problems caused by
the sign in feature. ebaY says that to sign in users must have cookies
enabled. Users have reported that they are receiving error messages
even when using a cookie-enabled browser.   ebaY is investigating.

Users are reporting that they appear to be "mixed up" with another
person's account. When reporting these instances to Customer Support
using the ebaY online form, ebaY want to know if the confused account is
one on a shared computer or totally unrelated. If you share computer
ebaY recommends that users
*Only have one active account open at any one time. Sign out when your
session is completed so that the next account that logs in will work
correctly. Closing your browser will not sign you out; you must click
the "sign out" button.
*If you want to have multiple active accounts open on your computer at
the same time, you should open multiple sessions. This works with
Internet Explorer; open a new session using the Explorer icon, rather
than other methods. Do not use the persistent cookie or "keep me signed
in" option.
*If you are not being signed out correctly, clean your cookie file.

Users are reporting that they appear to be caught in a "sign in loop"
where signing in brings them back to the sign in page. In most
instances, the user IS signed in; ebaY claims that if you click on any
of the site navigation buttons to move around the site it will work.
Sign in once and even though you're returned to the sign in page, click
any site button or link to go wherever you wish to go. Users can't use
the back button when the previous page was a sign in page; instead, use
the history feature at the top of the browser to move to the page that
you wish to locate. Bookmarks are also affected by the new sign in
procedure, and can be retained by choosing the "keep me signed in"
feature.

On 8 Sep the sign in/cookie problems continued. At 09:49:26 PT users
posted that the store links work with IE but not Netscape. Users also
reported that they could not get rid of cookies one signed in. Clearing
the cookie, signing out, exiting the browser made no difference, the
cookie reconstructed itself. Two possibilities, somewhere ebaY is
setting a code on those computers, possibly in the registry file. Or,
ebaY is locking on to the IP addresses of the computer and assigning the
IP address to the user name. ebaY posted an update at 16:50:21 PT about
the ongoing problems.
*Some users are receiving error messages stating that they cannot be
signed in because cookies are not enabled on their browsers, when
cookies are enabled. At this point, this appears to be limited to
non-Internet Explorer browsers, and seems to be occurring most often on
certain pages. ebaY continues to investigate.
*AOL users have reported that they appear to be caught in a sign-in
loop, returning them to the sign in page after they are signed in. ebaY
is working on a solution for this issue. In the meantime, ebaY says that
a user who signs in once IS signed in, even though it appears they are
not. Use the navigation on the site to move around ebaY. Don't use your
back button to return to a sign in page.
*Users with multiple accounts on the same computer (including those who
use shared equipment at libraries, universities, etc.) may have
difficulty logging on to the different accounts. Sign out by using the
"sign out" button, and not by simply closing the browser. ebaY is still
investigating this issue.
*Users have reported that "sign out" does not fully sign them out of
ebaY. ebaY is still investigating this issue.
*Users trying to contact other users through "send payment reminder" and
other features were sometimes receiving a message stating that their
registration was blocked, and were unable to complete the activity. ebaY
says this has been corrected.
*In some cases, these issues can be resolved by deleting cookies from
the computer. WebTV users may not be able to clear their cookies
themselves. They can try unplugging the WebTV unit to reset it. ebaY
feels WebTV users who still have problems should contact WebTV customer
support.

In TAG's view ebaY wants their paying customers to solve the problems
caused by ebaY once again inflicting untested or inadequately tested
programming on their users.

On 9 Sep at 11:12:47 PT users reported search not working. At 17:25:46
PT ebaY updated the sign in/cookie problems once again.
* The message that cookies are not enabled when cookies are in fact
enabled continued.
* Using the "sign out" button continued to be a problem.
*AOL users continued to be caught in a sign-in loop, returning them to
the sign in page after they are signed in. ebaY claims they corrected
this issue on My ebaY, Change My Password, and Leave Feedback, and
should correct it on other areas of the site in the near future. ebaY
recommends ignoring the loop and navigate the site as normal.
*Users with multiple accounts on the same computer (including those who
use shared equipment at libraries, universities, etc.) need to sign out
when they are finished using ebaY by clicking on the "sign out" button
in addition to closing the browser.   Don't use the "keep me signed in"
option if you share your computer with other users.
*Delete cookies from the computer. This will not assist WebTV users. At
23:03:50 PT users reported ebaY UK not working, with pages coming up
garbled.

On 10 Sep users reported at 13:11:18 PT that search the announcement
board and home page were down. At 13:15:36 PT ebaY reported that some
users were having problems accessing the ebaY home page. And at
13:25:13 PT announced that some pages, including the ebaY home page,
were down from 12:58 PT to 13:16 PT. ebaY managed not to mention that a
critical feature, search, was one of the pages not working. At 18:14:12
PT ebaY yet again updated the unsolved and ongoing problems involved
with the faulty launch of the sign in system.
* The message that cookies are not enabled when cookies are in fact
enabled continued.
*The problem that using the "sign out" button does not work continued.
*AOL users continued to be caught in a sign-in loop, returning them to
the sign in page after they are signed in. ebaY claims they corrected
this issue on My ebaY, Change My Password, and Leave Feedback, and
should correct it on other areas of the site in the near future. ebaY
recommends ignoring the loop and navigate the site as normal.
*Users with multiple accounts on the same computer (including those who
use shared equipment at libraries, universities, etc.) need to sign out
when they are finished using ebaY by clicking on the "sign out" button
in addition to closing the browser.   Don't use the "keep me signed in"
option if you share your computer with other users.
*Delete cookies from the computer. This will not assist
*Some users are receiving error messages stating that they cannot be
signed in because cookies are not enabled on their browsers, when
cookies are in fact enabled. We have made significant progress in
identifying this issue. As we work toward correcting it, you may find
that the following steps help to alleviate the issue:

Some work arounds suggested by ebaY
*Sign in to ebaY before logging in to any of the discussion boards
including the Community Help Boards, Category-Specific Discussion
Boards, User to User Discussion Boards, Workshops and Affiliates Boards.
The Chat boards are not affected.
*If you still have problems signing in to the rest of ebaY, close all
open browser windows and then open a new browser to sign in to ebaY.

USER suggested workarounds include
*Do NOT sign in
* Access the site through one of the non-US sites such as ebaY Canada,
UK, or Australia.
*Use a browser such as Opera (www.opera.com) that ignores most of the
intrusive tracking code on ebaY.
*Use protection against ebaY's cookies with programs such as AdAware,
clean your cookie files frequently, get the new IE V6 browser and set
the P3P option to screen out ebaY's intrusive tracking code.

At 17:34:55 PT users reported problems with access to Billpoint,
preventing buyers from making purchases.

In TAG's opinion, sellers who feel their auction were negatively
impacted by buyers not being able to access ebaY to bid, should request
refunds for ALL auctions running during this ongoing fiasco.
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, while discussing the ongoing sign in/cookie
problems, gwyneth@ebaY on 8 Sep at 14:24:16 PT said, "There is a whole
group of people here on a Saturday (including me) trying to fix this
issue, ....... I understand your frustration, but trust me that we're
not ignoring this issue. We're working on fixing it. " And at 14:31:48
PT, when asked how ebaY could launch such a major piece of code untested
said, "a.) we did test it. Unfortunately, some times things do not work
on the live site the way they do in the controlled QA environment;
that's just a function of a site as large and dynamic as eBay. b.) We
have had meetings on this twice a day, and a team working round the
clock on this, since it began. I have worked till 3am the last three
nights. It's not a situation of "just getting a meeting" on this; we're
really working on this. I promise. :)" If ebaY had worked this hard
BEFORE launching, and phased this in on non critical sites, such as one
of the non US sites first, or with a beta group of testers, they would
not be scrambling now to fix what has turned into a major fiasco. This
problem showed its first symptoms on Thursday 6 Sep. Once again it is
the SELLERS who are paying for ebaY's beta testing, through lost sales,
and TAG feels those sellers should not let this go by unchallenged but
should request across the board refunds, and file fraud and BBB
complaints against ebaY if no refunds are forthcoming. TAG would also
like to see the answer to WHY ebaY needs all these dozens of cookies
planted on users computers? If ebaY is really not selling information,
why the need for so many tracking tools?

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

ebaY announcement board http://www2.ebay.com/aw/announce.shtml
* * * * *
Amazon Auctions, zShops and Marketplace is experiencing serious
problems. Users posted that throughout the day, books were showing up
without descriptions or with another seller's descriptions. Shipping
and payment information was missing. Books in zShops are showing as
closed, when they should be open, and books that should not be open yet
are showing as sold and generating sold notices. Amazon posted on 10
Sep at 20:58 PT that Marketplace listings are displaying incorrect
condition information. Amazon will resolve this as soon as possible; no
further action is required on the part of sellers. An update will be
posted to this forum when functionality is restored.
Announcement Board
http://prospero.amazon.com/n/mb/listsf.asp?webtag=am-sellannounce&nav=start&ctx=0


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
Auction Pro phone number 1-877-251-0696
http://auctions.amazon.com
* * * * *
ePier has announced that effective 17 Sep 01 they are planning on
starting to charge a 2.5% final value fee on items sold on their site.
Though this might be a reasonable way to charge fees, since ePier
promised in writing to never charge fees, this is being viewed by many
as a betrayal of their users. ePier's self claim of being "about
creating a safe and dependable free eCommerce portal" appears to be
another promise it can no longer keep.
Fees are at http://www.epier.com/pricing.asp

Users posting on the sites boards, including those users most supportive
of ePier in the face of all criticism, have expressed their anger at
being lied to. Earlier this week ePier had removed the main chat board
and appears to have brought it back at the vociferous request of their
users. TAG wonders if it was to limit the protest against fees.
http://www.epier.com
* * * * *
Privacy Protection software is needed by everyone. The newest update
for Ad-Aware is now available at
http://www.lavasoftusa.com/software.html
* * * * *
An interesting article on cookies and P3P security in the new IE6
browser
http://public.wsj.com/sn/y/SB1000069609340586250.html
* * * * *
Site where you can learn about cookies, what they do and how they work
http://cookiecentral.com/
* * * * *
Online Auction Users Association elections are over and the election
results and new board members names are posted on the OAUA site.

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

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
*************************************************************
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.longlocks.com

http://www.coin-center.com

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

http://www.pantheus.com/

http://www.wheatlandferry.com
***********************************************************
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