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TAGnotes Thu 6 Dec 2001 Vol 3 Number 116 Issue 377
  

The Auction Guild Notes for Thu 6 Dec 2001
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***** WARNING *GONER* WARNING*****
Affects Outlook and Outlook Express on computers running Windows and it
can also send itself through the instant messaging program ICQ. TAG
heard from a subscriber that he received the "Goner" virus with the
subject line " RE: THOMAS BABLE HAS JUST SENT YOU $5.00 WITH PAYPAL
(name changed to protect privacy). Note that a legitimate PayPal notice
does not use all caps. The virus named Goner.scr. not only sends itself
out through Microsoft's Outlook address book, it also tries to delete
certain executable (.exe) files, including anti-virus programs and
personal firewalls. You can read more on this at and get clean up
instructions at -
http://www.cnn.com/2001/TECH/internet/12/04/goner.worm/index.html
http://www.mcafee.com/anti-virus/viruses/goner/default.asp?cid=2636
http://securityresponse.symantec.com/avcenter/venc/data/w32.goner.a@mm.html

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$Buck98 Holiday Extravaganza going on NOW. Next $Buck98 event starts 11
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     * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
For quality, variety & great deals, shop the experienced auction
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     * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
COLLECTIBLES, TALL TEXAS TALES
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     * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
New and used women's clothing sizes XXS-1X! Super-low shipping.
Visit http://auctions.yahoo.com/booth/ddeva_48045 for 100+ listings!
     * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
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. Seller
group ads also available. Subscribers Ads $5.00 - Commercial rates
available, email ta-@theauctionguild.com for details.
************************************************************
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.
************************************************************
*WARNING * SELLERS TRACK YOUR RELISTS * WARNING*
Just in time for their upcoming quarterly report, ebaY is once again NOT
giving refunds on relisted items that sell the second time around. The
last time this happened it took 21 days and a news article, for ebaY to
make a partial refund to sellers. ebaY claimed they could not do the
full refunds owed because they could not figure out how much money they
owed to sellers. TAG STRONGLY recommends you carefully track your
relists so that you can put in a claim for the full amount ebaY owes
you. Some third party auction management programs will provide this
information for you.
************************************************************
On 5 Dec at 03:52:04 PT users reported that Favorite searches in My ebaY
were disappearing. At 07:12:04 PT Ask Seller a Question was not
working, throwing "The page cannot be displayed, The page you are
looking for is currently unavailable. The Web site might be experiencing
technical difficulties, or you may need to adjust your browser
settings." messages. At 09:11:00 PT users reported feedback numbers
were changing when they should not have, decreasing without a
transaction. At 12:08:00 PT users reported the Ask Seller a Question
function was still down.   There appeared to be board and or site
glitches from 18:58:24 PT until 19:36:43 PT. At 20:41:22 PT relist went
down yielding errors saying "Input Error One of the parameters received
was invalid for this function. This probably means that your browser had
problems with the form or you invoked the function incorrectly. Please
go back and try again. If you're using an old bookmark, you may need to
rebookmark it due to recent changes to protect your privacy. We are
aware of the problem and are working tirelessly to resolve it as quickly
as possible." At 21:13:01 PT Sellers reported that Relisted auctions
were NOT showing as relist on their account pages, therefore ebaY would
not give refunds on items that sold the second time. ebaY defrauded
their sellers the last time this occurred, and never fully refunded the
fees to sellers.

On 6 Dec at 08:49:31 PT sellers reported that ability to revise auctions
was down with messages saying, "The category designated for this item is
invalid." Revise was working only in MSIE javascript browser version,
not Netscape, Opera or WebTV. At 16:10:08 PT Mr Lister failed throwing
messages that said, "You must submit your item within 24 hours of
beginning the transaction." This made no sense and continued throughout
the day. At 18:58:09 PT the entire site started to fail with relist
going down, at 19:10:10 PT listing went down, at 19:16:33 PT MY ebaY
pages were down and at 19:17:50 PT the whole site crashed. ebaY
announced at 21:04:16 PT that "We are currently experiencing technical
difficulties. Our engineers are working to identify and quickly resolve
the issue." And at 21:10:04 PT View Item, My ebaY and the ability to
list, revise and relist items were down. At 21:19:28 PT ebaY continued
to report the system not working. A user posted at 21:58:01PT that they
had signed in on one of the ebaY boards and were signed in under some
unknown users ID, demonstrating that site security was compromised
during the outages. Sonny@ebaY The Customer Support Operations Manager
whose team takes care of reporting, investigating, and escalating bug
and technical issues on the site posted at 22:20:26 PT that "So sorry
about this. We are moving heaven and earth to fix" and at 22:24:40 PT
when asked how long the outage would be, "I wish I knew. Hopefully not
much longer. " ebaY announced at 22:25:03 PT that "Some site functions
were intermittently unavailable from 20:55 PST to 22:15 PST. The
situation has now been resolved and all site functions are once again
accessible." which is belied by the postings made by Sonny. At 22:38:43
PT Sonny@ebaY posted, "Everything seems to be back up now, folks."

The critical functions of the site were actually down from 19:16:33 PT
to 22:38:43 PT which should invoke ALL automatic refunds and listing
extensions, and even ebaY's admitted down time from 20:55 PT to 22:15
PT, should in accordance with ebaY's policy, invoke automatic credits of
all associated fees for affected listings, with the following listings
eligible for credit:
Any listing scheduled to end during the outage
Any listing scheduled to end in the hour after the end of the outage
Additionally, credit will be issued for the 10-cent promotional fee on
any 10-day listing that is running during the outage (regardless of the
time it's scheduled to end)
Includes either of the following features:
View Item
Bidding

Listings are not extended

There were NO such credits mentioned on the Status or Marketing
Announcement Boards.. Outage policy is at
http://pages.ebay.com/help/community/png-extn.html
In addition, ALL the problems with sign in/cookies, list, relist,
revise, WebTV access, and Checkout continue, with many sellers reporting
that having opted OUT of the Checkout button, the button was STILL
appearing on their ended auctions.

ebaY took their system down for maintenance 7 Dec from 00:59:48 PT until
03:21:45 PT. The Billpoint web site and functions were also down during
that period.

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.
http://www.auctionguild.com/generic.html?pid=17
If you don't get your refunds complain to the BBB Online at
http://www.bbbsilicon.org/index.htm
And also file a complaint with the FTC
https://www.ftc.gov/ftc/complaint.htm

Pink Quote Of the Day - Kevin Pursglove to Orlando Sentinel on 6 Dec,
"EBay spokesman Pursglove said the company expects its sellers to "make
a good faith effort to ship within 30 days." Still, he said, high-volume
sellers such as Disney are accorded more room for error than smaller
auctioneers." and " Pursglove said that some auction sites have been
suspended from doing business on eBay for as few as five complaints,
when they represent a high percentage of their overall sales." TAG
simply asks WHY is Disney given the ability to maltreat buyers???
Another example of a level playing field where all are equal, just some
are more equal than others. Disney also HIDES their feedback, which
ebaY allows.

PQOD II - In TAG's view, showing that ebaY can still fool some of their
employees or that the pinks still believe that ebaY users can be fooled.
When asked if the powers that be (PTB) at ebaY care about so many
unhappy and restless individual posters. Sonny@ebaY said, " absolutely,
positively they care. The community is one of our biggest barometers -
the comments here on the boards, the emails we receive, the suggestions,
the thousands of surveys we send out each week. And we do try to be
responsive. When Checkout launched, the community had issues with parts
of it. So we reviewed what we heard, explored other options, and made
modifications to the feature. We did the same thing with the reserve
price changes last year, and recommendation emails earlier this summer.
But we do get a ton of feature requests and suggestions outside the
venue of these boards and we give them equal weight to what we read
here. I've worked in Customer Support here for four years and been an
eBay member even longer, and I've seen it happen over and over again.
Like any other large company, we are continuing to grow and explore
different avenues for that growth. I can't make you believe that the PTB
care - all I can do is give you my take on it. And I know, to the bottom
of my heart, that they do." All this being nothing more than twisted
truth, since ebaY only acts when they fear the stink raised by sellers
will cause a nasty smell to get to their investors and drop the stock
price. Since the PTBs at ebaY sell enormous amounts of stock at every
opportunity, they want to keep the stock price up as long as they
possibly can. It will be the employees with ebaY stock dependent
pensions and all the outside stockholders who will lose their money as
with Enron. ebaY continues to lie about these alleged concessions, and
the fact that they lied about Checkout being optional, that the Checkout
button is still appearing on closed auctions in which the seller has
opted out of the Checkout button, is just one example of ebaY saying
they would do something, but doing something different. The fact that
there is not one single poster on any of the OAI/OTI boards to say they
asked for any of these destructive features also puts their alleged
claims in their true light - as blatant lies. ebaY enacts these changes
for their own agenda, and not due to any request or need of the so
called community. ebaY manipulates its users and the stock buying
public with their spouting of "community" propaganda, when what was once
the community on whose backs ebaY was built, is now just a commodity
they sell to corporate partners, advertisers and investors, the very
number of users which ebaY claims, being a lie in itself. ebaY's
actions destroy without caring or consideration, the livelihoods of
thousands of sellers living on the edge and dependent on ebaY for food
and shelter in the name of obscene profitability for the PTB's. There
is nothing caring or community minded about that.

Butterfields Auctioneers - an ebaY Company is having a Vintage Movie
Poster sale in on 9 Dec at 12:00 PT. Included in the sale are Werewolf
of London One-Sheet movie poster: $40,000-50,000, Flash Gordon One-Sheet
movie poster: $25,000-30,000, Alfred Hitchcock and James Bond posters,
movie posters designed by Saul Bass and
Horror/Sci Fi posters. Buyers should beware that Butterfields does not
have a stellar feedback rating, and often charges exorbitant shipping
fees. Check the fine print BEFORE you bid.

ebaY partner Disney is in trouble with buyers, for their poor service,
failure to deliver, exorbitant shipping fees and fraudulent listings.
Article on the subject can be found at
http://orlandosentinel.com/business/orl-bizauction06120601dec06.story?coll=orl%2Dbusiness%2Dheadlines

http://cgi2.ebay.com/disney/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewFeedback&userid=disneyauctionears


Don't like search? Join the Search Protest thread on ebaY to change
search. The thread has over 1100 posts with feedback totals in the
hundreds of thousands.
http://forums.ebay.com/dws?14@146.9SRVab8ZiV6^-@.eee35ba/0

Users are also reporting that in the middle of their auctions, a notice
comes up saying the seller's credit limit has been reached. The only
way to prevent this from happening to your auction is to NOT USE
BILLPOINT. To find out what your Seller credit limits are, go to
https://www.billpoint.com/index.html
Sign in and click on Fee Schedule & Policies on the left side of the
screen.

Problems with Checkout continue since ONLY the button is optional. Even
this option is not working as sellers who opted out are again reporting
that the Checkout button is still appearing on their closed auctions.
TAG advises continuing to use logos to demonstrate you do not use
Checkout. You can also use HTML in the location box of your auction and
post in bold red letter that you do not use checkout. Using the location
box makes your non-acceptance of Checkout visible to the buyer at the
end of
the auction on a page otherwise dominated by ebaY's mandatory Checkout
info. You are limited in the number of characters you can use in the
location box, so keep it short. Several logos are available on the TAG
site at -
http://www.auctionguild.com/generic.html?pid=58

Is Checkout interfering with your online business? Is the new search
slowing down your sales? This is a service you pay for, so file a
complaint against ebaY with the Better Business Bureau, and or The
Consumer Trouble Shooter.
http://www.troubleshooter.com/data/access.html
BBB Online - http://www.bbbsilicon.org
These links could also be used to complain about the false advertising
about the free store listings until the end of the year if ebaY refuses
refunds.

Netscape 4.78 is a version of Netscape that is said to work well with
ebaY and to provide a successful platform on which to relist and revise
auctions on ebaY. We have heard from a subscriber that 4.79 is an
improvement.
http://home.netscape.com/download/0730101/10000-----_qual.html?cp=dowcomm


Since ebaY is no longer fully compatible with Microsoft IE, TAG
recommends you have IE, Netscape AND the Opera browsers on your
computer, so you can alternate between them as required. Better yet use
another auction site, where the depth of problems you find on ebaY does
not exist. Opera can be found at http://www.opera.com

ebaY categories with the category number
http://listings.ebay.com/aw/plistings/list/categories.html
An off ebaY category number locator page
http://www.kinem.com/files/cat.htm

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

ebaY Community boards
http://pages.ebay.com/community/index.html
ebaY news board
http://pages.ebay.com/community/news/index.html
ebaY status announcement board (SAB)
http://www2.ebay.com/aw/announce.shtml
* * * * *
Amazon Auctions, zShops and Marketplace
http://www.amazon.com

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


An interesting thread on websites, with lots of good info,
recommendation and links to the web site services sellers are using.
Definitely worth a read for anyone considering opening their own
website, (something TAG feels ALL sellers should do) or looking for a
new provider!   
http://prospero.amazon.com/n/mb/message.asp?webtag=am-sellconnect&msg=2806.1&ctx=0


Amazon chat boards -
http://prospero.amazon.com/n/mb/listsf.asp?webtag=am-sellconnect&nav=start&ctx=0


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
* * * * *
Yahoo Auctions TAG has been hearing from WebTV users that Yahoo Auctions
is FULLY WEB TV compatible. WEBTVers, please let us know your
experiences using Yahoo Auctions.

Remember Yahoo allows links from auctions, and has a MUCH more liberal
and less paranoid point of view on off Yahoo sales. Yahoo's policy can
be found at -
http://auctions.yahoo.com/phtml/auc/us/legal/linking_policy.html

On 21 Nov Yahoo announced changes to their buyer protection plan
http://auctions.yahoo.com/phtml/auc/us/ins/protectionpromo.html
Yahoo is trying to discourage Western Union and other wire transfers to
a post office box or to any international location as much of the online
fraud occurs that way.

Yahoo Auctions has user to user help boards at
http://experts.yahoo.com/expertinbox?b_id=383051397&t_id=openboard
and community chat boards at
http://auctions.yahoo.com/html/community/
Live chat
http://chat.yahoo.com/?room=Chat%20Central::1600326456

As of 24 Nov Yahoo Auctions had 274,047 listings on the site.
http://auctions.yahoo.com/
* * * * *
OldandSold.Com This site is a very small but very nice antiques and
collectibles auction site. With approx 1500 auctions it has the usual
problems attracting large numbers of bidders. It has had some good
publicity, being mentioned in the Kovel's Bid, Buy and Sell Online, and
other articles. They write articles for the Antiques Digest, and have
lots of cross linking to their featured dealers sites. For all those
looking for a TRUE antiques and collectible site, this is a good one to
try. TAG has found the folks running the site friendly and helpful.
http://www.oldandsold.com
* * * * *
Two new sites in the works -
http://antique-show.net/
http://littleauction.com/
* * * * *
Boomspeed users reported site problems with garbled images and outages
on 5 Dec.

Boomspeed offers a free 1 meg account to host auction images only, one
per person, valid email address required. For $5.75 per month for a 100
meg account they offer web hosting, email, outside linking and other
features.
http://www.boomspeed.com/services.htm
http://www.boomspeed.com
* * * * *
Auctiva Pro users can request a one day extension of their account due
to outages on 5 Dec. http://www.auctiva.com/help/
http://www.auctiva.com/help/wbupdates.asp

If you have the Auctiva Service box on your auctions, you can turn it
off or modify it here - You can turn off or customize your service box
here:
http://www.auctiva.com/myaccount/editMyServiceBox.asp
http://www.auctiva.com
* * * * *
Online Auction Users Association
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
*************************************************************
Have any information for us? email us at ta-@theauctionguild.com
TAG Subscribers often contribute information reported on in TAGnotes.
Visit their auctions or websites.
TAGassist Contributors

http://www.bllamb.com

http://www.ebaney.com/store.html

http://members.ebay.com/aboutme/pipsaswa/

http://www.TomMullins.com

http://members.ebay.com/aboutme/twheid/
***********************************************************
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and eTRADERS GUILD
www.auctionguild.com
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877-SAFETAG
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***********************************************************
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