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TAGnotes Thu 27 Dec 2001 Vol 3 Number 120 Issue 381

The Auction Guild Notes for Thu 27 Dec 2001
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New, used, vintage clothing, 100+ auctions. Now on Ebay too!
Visit http://www.ddeva.com for quality items and super-low shipping!
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For quality, variety & great deals, shop the experienced auction
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     * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Autographed 'Producers' Playbill Ends 2 Jan 02
http://members.ebay.com/aboutme/800-macgeek/
     * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
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.
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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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The Checkout shipping and handling problems continue. It appears that
ebaY has fixed the problem with the 0.00 shipping and handling amount
in the end of auction. Relisted auctions, particularly those listed
through third party service providers, are still showing 0.00 for
shipping in the listing.

The site was relatively stable from 24 Dec through 27 Dec, though users
reported intermittent periods of slowness. The serious ongoing problems
with sign in/cookies, listing, relisting and revision, incompatibility
with MSIE, Netscape, AOL, and at times all browsers, difficulties with
search, both for lack of ease of use and the limit of 10 days on
completed auctions all continued. Some sellers were finding that where
they had opted out of Checkout, Checkout was not showing up on the ended
auctions. Other sellers reported that though they had changed the
setting on My ebaY to opt OUT of Checkout, their options mysteriously
changed back. Both buyers and sellers reported that when they used
Checkout to send messages to complete an auction, neither party received
the communications.

On 26 Dec at 10:04:37 PT ebaY posted that their stores site at
www.ebaystores.com was down. At 10:10:51 PT, ebaY announced that ebaY
stores were down from 09:42 PT to 10:02 PT. Both international and US
stores were affected. At 20:42:44 PT users reported error messages
whilst trying to access the site and intermittent slowness.

On 27 Dec ebaY reported at 14:45:32 PT that ebaY picture services was
down. Sellers were unable to upload images to new listings. Images
previously uploaded through ebaY picture services were still viewable.
At 14:56:38 PT ebaY announced that ebaY picture services were down from
14:25 PT to 14:40 PT.

ebaY will take its site down for maintenance from 01:00 PT until 03:00
PT on Fri 28 Dec. ebaY will also take down its Billpoint payments web
site during the same time 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

TAG wonders if ebaY is breaking the LAW and it's own rules? Jim
Griffith also known on ebaY as dale@ebay, Uncle Griff, Aunt Flo, and the
ebaY ambassador, in a TV show with Maury Povich told a 6 year old child
that ebaY would reinstate the childs ebaY account. The child's dad died
in the 11 Sep disaster and the boys ebaY account had been closed.
Griffith said the account would be reinstated, and also gave the child a
$500 check from workers (the worth of approx 8 shares of ebaY stock).
It is illegal for minors to enter into contracts, and also against ebaY
rules for a child to have an account, bid or sell on ebaY. Technically,
they should not even be viewing the site, since it is for those over 18.

ebaY announced they will start charging subscription fees for stores
starting January 2002. The store subscription fee is $9.95 per month for
basic level stores and $49.95 per month for featured stores. New stores
sellers who open their store after 1 Jan will get a 30 day free trial
period. Featured stores may not be eligible for the 30 day free trial.
For more info go to -
http://pages.ebay.com/storefronts/seller-landing.html

ebaY is adding stores to the auction search results page. When users
type in a keyword during a search, ebaY will display a list of store
names that contain items matching that keyword. The store names will
appear in a "related stores" section at the bottom of the left-hand
navigation area of auction search results. ebaY will display up to four
Store names per page of Search Results. This section will only appear if
there is at least one Store per page of results with items matching the
query. In this box, the store names will be ordered according to
subscription level and ending time of items, so for the most part only
corporate partner stores or very large sellers will ever appear in this
search. Anchor stores will appear first in the list, then featured
stores, then basic level stores. Within each tier of stores, those with
items ending first will display at the top of the list. ebaY is also
adding a store search tab to their advanced search. Users will be able
to search for Buy It Now items in stores by typing in a search query.
Users can also search for stores by store name by typing in the name of
the store. To preview go to -
http://pages.ebay.com/help/basics/preview_relatedstores.html
In TAG's view, ebaY is once again exploiting auction sellers who pay
listing fees for every item they list and therefore pay for auction
search, to provide free advertising to their corporate clients to the
exclusion of the ordinary sellers who built the site and maintain its
profitability.

TAG has seen dozens of postings on the OAI/OTI chat boards and received
several emails with copies of the notice of ebaY's free listing day on
20 Dec. Unfortunately they all arrived starting on 23 Dec and are still
being received by sellers as of 27 Dec. This appears to be a very large
gaff on ebaY's part - rubbing the sellers noses in the fact they did NOT
get to know about or participate in the free listing day. Fortunately,
those sellers who subscribe to TAGnotes received adequate warning and
notice. Whoever ebaY is paying to send these notices for them, needs to
be fired, as they obviously cannot handle the assignment.

ebaY slinks away from Auction of America. It appears that ebaY will not
make up the difference between the less that 7 million raised and the
100 million ebaY promised. In TAG's view ebaY received an inordinate
amount of publicity and exploited Auction of America to get folks to
sign up for ebaY's less that successful Billpoint payment system. In
addition, ebaY manipulated its system of providing "credit" advertising
on sellers item list pages, to benefit only corporate sellers and ebaY
employees. ebaY sabotaged Auction of America from the start by not
allowing PayPal to participate, and by making the sellers 100%
responsible for the contributions whilst ebaY took all the credit. The
introduction of Checkout was pretty much the final blow to AofA as
Checkout forced sellers not wanting to use Checkout to close their
Billpoint accounts permanently.
http://www.internetnews.com/ec-news/article/0,,4_946201,00.html
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/cn/20011227/tc/ebay_s_sept_11_auction_winding_down_1.html


ebaY TV continues to solicit user stories. For more info go to -
http://pages.ebay.com/ebaytv/

Ongoing Issues and Information -
Don't like search? Join the Search Protest thread on ebaY to change
search. The thread has 1325 posts with feedback totals in the hundreds
of hundreds of thousands.
http://forums.ebay.com/dws?14@146.9SRVab8ZiV6^-@.eee35ba/0

The anti Checkout thread continues currently has 4100+ posts
To add your comments go to -
http://forums.ebay.com/dws?50@8.CcKSabMyAmm^-@.eed7f8f
Anti and No Checkout logos are available on the TAG site at -
http://www.auctionguild.com/generic.html?pid=58
For those still getting the Checkout logo on their auctions, TAG has a
Checkout disable script you can add to your auction description on the
website at -
http://www.auctionguild.com/generic.html?pid=73
Make sure you keep an eye on your Checkout options, as ebaY has a
tendency to change your "opt out" selection to "opt in", despite your
wishes.

Is Checkout interfering with your online business? Is the new search
slowing down your sales? Tired of the scam Chargebacks form Billpoint?
You pay ebaY for services, so file a complaint against ebaY with the
Better Business Bureau, the FTC and or The Consumer Trouble Shooter.
http://www.troubleshooter.com/data/access.html
BBB Online - http://www.bbbsilicon.org
FTC - https://www.ftc.gov/ftc/complaint.htm

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
For WebTV users, some users have had some limited success by unplugging
their WebTV unit after each ebaY session for sufficient time to let the
unit.

To move an item to another category go to -
http://cgi5.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?ChangeCategoryShow
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, ebaY UK, 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
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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


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 Auction/ Warehouse is highlighting its unwanted gift showcase for
all those gifts you received but don't want or need. In a poll taken on
the Yahoo Auction site, responders said that they would keep the
unwanted gift and let them collect dust versus returning or exchanging
them (34% vs. 15%). Thirteen percent voted to keep and use the gifts
they did not like, while 17 percent said they give them to someone else.
Twelve percent said they would donate them to charity. 84 percent of
those surveyed said they would lie to protect the gift-giver's feelings
and tell him or her they liked the gift. Which gift items missed the
mark? Clothing came in at 36 percent followed by home
accessories/decorations at 30 percent. Gifts less likely to be unwanted
- jewelry and music/CDs tied at 6 percent, while food items and gift
certificates came in at 10 percent.

Ongoing Issues -
Users can attempt to seek user to user help 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

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

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 01 Yahoo Auctions had 274,047 listings on the site.
As of 5 Dec 01 Yahoo Auctions had 399,258 listings on their site
As of 7 Dec01 Auctions had 504,507 listings on their site
http://auctions.yahoo.com/
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Haggle is closing down. Haggle has been a free online auction house that
opened on 10 Sep 1996. It was primarily for computers and electronics,
though many other items were also listed on the site. Haggle eventually
became part of goto network. They are now referring their users to
Ubid.Com. For more details go to -
http://www.haggle.com/exeunt.html
* * * * *
AuctionWatch.Com had some problems with launching auctions during ebaY's
free listing day. Some auctions were delayed and some were not launched
in time for free listing day.
To compensate sellers for the problems, AuctionWatch is going to have a
free listing day in January where AW listing fees will be waived. AW
will provide more details next month. AuctionWatch had a site crash on
25 Dec and was back up on 26 Dec. The crash prevented sellers from
posting new auctions, though current auctions and images were available.
AW also had intermittent service problems on 27 Dec.
http://www.auctionwatch.com/mesg/list.html?num=49
* * * * *
Deadzoom.Com and their image hosting service disappeared from the net on
22 December. TAG reached one of the owners, Roderick Hutchinson, known
on the site as PaPa. He said that on the 22nd their site was attacked by
a hacker that caused a denial of service attack. The hosting company
Deadzoom was using was not very helpful in helping them restore service,
so Deadzoom moved to a dedicated server at another company. Deadzoom had
much of the site restored on 25 Dec, with many images back on auctions.
The uploading capability is not yet available. They continue to work on
the site and will do so until it is back. Though they hope they will be
able to restore ALL images, this might not be possible. They did a site
backup on 10 December so all images to that point should be ok. They are
trying to get the backup tape from their former ISP to restore the
images between the backup done on 10 Dec and the site crash at about 3
PM ET on 22 Dec. Mr Hutchinson was very upset by the outage and was
both concerned with and aware of the impact on his customers. To view
the current status go to -
http://www.deadzoom.com/
* * * * *
PhotoPoint Lawsuit? Once again users are joining together to
investigate the feasibility of bringing a lawsuit against PhotoPoint.
If you are interested in participating, send an email to
contac-@yahoo.com. There are approx 200 former PhotoPoint users
interested in participating.
* * * * *
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
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Have any information for us? email us at tag@theauctionguild.com
TAG Subscribers often contribute information reported on in TAGnotes.   
Visit their auctions or websites.
TAGassist Contributors
http://www.boldjewelry.com

http://www.longlocks.com

http://cgi6.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewListedItems&userid=tupelohoney9


http://www.angelfire.com/extreme2/backintimetreasures/sale.html

http://cgi6.ebay.com/aw-cgi/ebayisapi.dll?ViewListedItems&userid=rapparts@aol.com

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