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TAGnotes Mon 31 Dec 2001 Vol 3 Number 121 Issue 382
  

The Auction Guild Notes for Mon 31 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!
     * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
For quality, variety & great deals, shop the experienced auction
sellers of the EMPORIUM http://www.lynnet.com/~jmm/emporium.html
     * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
$Buck98 is holding a New Years clearance sale. All items start at $2.02
with No Reserve Search for 2K2 Starts 1 Jan 02
http://members.ebay.com/aboutme/$buck98/
     * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
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.
************************************************************
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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Virus is written in Visual Basic 5. Attacks through MS Outlook. For more
info and cures
http://securityresponse.symantec.com/avcenter/venc/data/w32.maldal.d@mm.html

http://vil.mcafee.com/newVirus.asp
http://vil.mcafee.com/dispVirus.asp?virus_k=99288&
************************************************************
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 to a certain degree, though users continue to post
intermittent reports of the problem showing up in the EOA emails.
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 27 Dec through 31 Dec, though users
continued to report 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.

On 28 Dec at 12:13:25 PT ebaY posted that users have asked why completed
item search changed last month from 15 days to only 10 days of completed
items. ebaY claims this limitation was required due to the increased
number of items on the site to an alleged 9 million worldwide. ebaY says
they working with their software vendor to increase the capacity for
completed item search. ebaY expects to have 15 day completed search
back by early February. TAG would like to know what happened to the
promise to restore 30 day search that users have been waiting for over
two years for ebaY to fulfill. At 14:31:00 PT ebaY announced there were
problems for users accessing ebaY Motors through their AOL co-branded
site. Users could not view items when browsing listings or view sub
categories when browsing. ebaY claims this did not affect their other
sites.
At 15:16:10 PT ebaY posted that they had corrected the problem they were
having with users accessing items when browsing ebaY Motors through
their AOL co-branded site.

On 29 Dec at 02:28:00 PT ebaY reported that users were having problems
signing in from the co-branded sites, such as AOL, Compuserve etc. ebaY
says they recently changed the domains that serve these sites, and they
prefer blaming the users for the problems. ebaY recommended users clear
their bookmarks cookie files and temporary internet files.

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 I - ebaY pinks were once again on a post removal
rampage, this time on the ebaY HTML board. Seemingly with no
explanation as to why the posts were removed by Jerry@ebaY he went on a
removal spree and suspended posters. katy@ebaY then responded to the
furor caused by Jerry and on 30 Dec at 19:17:25 PT said, "Jer-@ebay.com
does work for eBay. If you have had a post removed, please assume it is
deemed by us to violate our board posting policies, which state, in
part: "Other inappropriate postings not listed below may also warrant
removal and/or suspension from the site" Thank you all for your
cooperation. Katy" and at 19:40:06 PT, "Please be mindful of our
policies. We never mind if you are critical of eBay, but do ask that you
keep it appropriate to the board and do not use copyrighted items in
your postings. Thanks! Katy". In observing the board, TAG could see no
violations of the written rules, and not even violations of the
unwritten ones. It appeared to us that ebaY was trying to capture some
of the former Photopoint users, so in a complete ebaY policy reversal
was removing links to other image hosting sites. Not only has this
always been permitted, but ebaY itself has in the past linked to image
hosting sites through Pongo. Has ebaY added some new unwritten rules to
their ever changing policy written in invisible ink? The site is the
only one on which you stand in the same place and the violation line
moves under your feet. Of course the pinks make up the rules as they go
because they sure don't know them, and to expect them to understand the
"fair use" copyright laws also would definitely be taxing them well
beyond their limitations.

PQOD II - Users posted this excuse received from ebaY as to why the
emails for free listing day went out after the fact and did not reach
sellers until a week after the free listing day occurred. "Checking our
email logs we found that the email was sent on the evening of December
19th and the morning of the 20th. However, it appears that once eBay
sent the free listing day email there was a delay with some Internet
Service Providers or Internet routing services because we are now
hearing that some members received their free listing day email late. We
realize the disappointment over this situation, but regrettably we will
be unable to provide other reimbursements for those that received the
late emails. We understand how important the free listing days are to
sellers, and realize the disappointment when members find out that
they've missed it. Regrettably, eBay is unable to provide alternative
reimbursements for those members that missed the free listing day."
ebaY once again attempts to place the blame on the internet, the ISPs of
users and ANYWHERE but on their own shoulders. ATAG finds it amazing
that a small outfit like TAG can manage to get the info to users in a
timely manner, but multi billion dollar ebaY, who just spent 45 million
dollars on a holiday shopping ad campaign aimed at folks who are not
even online, could not manage to get a simple email message sent out.
And here is the headers from an ebaY seller (identifiable info xxxed
out) unless we are reading them incorrectly, clearly showing the hold up
between the ebaY computers NOT at the ISP -
X-Persona: <xxx-@emxxx.net>
Return-Path: <eBay.14410-@reply.ebay.com>
Received: from campaign-3.sjc.ebay.com (emailebay.com [216.33.156.118])
by mail.empireaccess.net (8.11.0/8.11.0) with ESMTP id fBP9A4923494
for < xxx-@emxxx.net >; Tue, 25 Dec 2001 04:10:04 -0500
Received: from campaign-4.sjc.ebay.com (campaign-4 [10.201.2.226])
by campaign-3.sjc.ebay.com (8.10.2/8.10.2) with ESMTP id fBP7dar03278
for < xxx-@emxxx.net >; Mon, 24 Dec 2001 23:39:36 -0800
Received: from [10.1.41.13] (aggie.sjc.ebay.com [10.1.41.13])
by campaign-4.sjc.ebay.com (8.10.2/8.10.2) with ESMTP id fBKFGxl25211
for < xxx-@emxxx.net >; Thu, 20 Dec 2001 07:16:59 -0800
From: "eBay" <eBay.14410-@reply.ebay.com>
To: xxx-@emxxx.net
Subject: Glad Tidings and Free Listings from eBay!
Date: Thu, 20 Dec 2001 09:44:31 -0800
Message-ID: <1008870272490.eBay.1441035.3282.0@reply.ebay.com>
X-Mailer: Kana Connect 6
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: multipart/alternative;
boundary="1008870272490.MimeBoundarY"
Status:

On 28 Dec users reported that ebaY had fixed the 5000 item limit applied
to viewing sellers lists. This is particularly important for large
sellers and made absolutely no sense whatsoever.

Sellers who create a new store or who change their store name will not
be able to include the following in their store names:
*A web site address (for example, www.xzy.com) or any top-level domain
names. Further, "www" may not be used anywhere in the store name.
*The letter "e" followed by numbers. This is to prevent confusion, since
ebaY assigns each user an account number beginning with an "e" followed
by numbers (e.g. e12345).
*The "<>" Symbols. The use of either one or both of these can result in
the disappearance of a store name and are therefore not permitted.
*Consecutive underscores "__".
*An ampersand "&" at the end of a store name.
*An underscore "_", dash "-" or period (dot) "."
We thank store sellers in advance for their compliance with these
policies.

ebaY does not allow links in auctions to sniper sites. There has
recently been an increase in links to the Auction Sniper site in
listings from sellers who use Auctiva tools. Users are responsible for
the content of their listings and links to the Auction Sniper site are
not permitted. ebaY has requested Auctiva to stop facilitating these
links. At this time, ebaY says they will only be issuing warnings, but
repeated violations will cause ebaY to end listings.
http://pages.ebay.com/help/community/png-links.html
You can edit your Auctiva link box turn it off or modify it at -
http://www.auctiva.com/myaccount/editMyServiceBox.asp

ebaY announced the addition of 'item specifics' feature to search, in
the Tickets categories. Item specifics is a feature that add specific
places on the sell your item form and allow users to search using these
item details, in addition to regular Title and Description Search.
Since this is already available in the current search system, TAG is
concerned with what this might portend, such as greater limits on the
description block and its ability to be searched. The info will be
visible on the auction page at the top of the item description. For
sellers not providing item specifics, there will be no change to the
auction page. ebaY plans to add it to other categories of the site where
ebaY feels it is relevant.   ebaY seller tools, Mister Lister, SAB and
SAP will not support item specifics at this time.   Sellers using tools
not capable of providing the extra listing form blocks may edit their
listings to include item specifics, using revise an item, if the seller
can get revise to work.
Selling with Item Specifics -
http://pages.ebay.com/help/sellerguide/item_specifics.html
Searching with Item Specifics -
http://pages.ebay.com/help/basics/e_product_finder.html

In an unannounced change, it appears that ebaY Billpoint payments is
adding the requirement that the credit card used for verification
required the shipping address be the same as the mailing address and the
same as the credit card address.
http://forums.ebay.com/dws?50@118.E7sAa7fiHVx^-@.ef1a152
keb-@ebay.com post 9:22am December 28, 2001 (#15 of 19)

In another one of their weird slanted surveys, Media Metrix put out
another one of their press releases on holiday season shopping. Though
ebaY has once again shown up as number one, that is probably because
Media Metrix conveniently leaves out several top shopping destinations,
such as Yahoo, AOL, MSN, and other sites that provide shopping portals.
Media Metrix in their very strange way of setting criteria, which they
don't disclose, includes American Greetings and eGreetings in the list,
sites that really don't sell anything, as they are used primarily to
send free greeting cards. Of course technically ebaY does not sell
anything either. How Media Metrix arrive at their numbers is a mystery.
For example on a normal week ebaY receives 25 mil visitors and Yahoo
receives 125 mil. It is hard to believe that the number of visitors to
Yahoo does not translate into a rating in the top 10 for shopping, but
Media Metrix leaves them out of their survey altogether. How convenient
for ebaY http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/011228/nyf016_1.html

TAG no longer reports ebaY numbers because we don't believe ebaY is
providing accurate numbers in their categories anymore. We believe they
are lying about and inflating their numbers to prevent stockholders from
knowing the true state of listing on ebaY. Even with ebaY's various
means of inflating these numbers, the inclusion of a multitude of
foreign sites and the proliferation of corporate sellers and stores
listings, the listing numbers on ebaY continue to be stagnant for well
over a year. To see the trends on ebaY go to the MedVed site to view
their long term records.
http://www.medved.net/cgi-bin/cal.exe?EIND

Meg posted a New Years message on the MAB filled with what in TAGs
opinion is its usual half truths and blatant lies. The newest
interesting lie is that ebaY has an average of 7 mil auctions on the US
site. Unfortunately this is high by approx 2 mil, so now for the first
time, ebaY is also lying about its auction numbers, in additions to its
usual lies about registered users and uptime. Conspicuous by its
absence was a total lack of acknowledgement of the contribution made by
sellers and buyers to Auction of America, and absolutely no mention of
the total raised.
http://www2.ebay.com/aw/marketing.shtml

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. Some other WebTV links that might be useful -
http://www.collierad.com/coolebaytools/webtvstory.htm
http://www.geocities.com/glynne2/index2.html

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
* * * * *
Amazon Auctions, zShops and Marketplace is having a holiday clearance
sale
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/browse/-/517808/ref=mk_ss_clearance/103-1162116-7199055

and also conducts Friday sales, where many sellers pick up great
bargains for resale -
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/browse/-/548166/ref=outlet_nav_fs/103-1162116-7199055

Find links to all events on the Outlet tab.
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
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/
* * * * *
NEW AUCTION AND TRADING SITES
http://www.quickbidauction.com/
http://www.littleauction.com/ opening mid-Jan
http://www.antique-show.net/
http://www.playerauctions.com/
* * * * *
Do you put out a Catalog? You might want to consider doing so!
Google has started a catalog search page. "Add Google to your catalog
mailing list! To create the most useful and comprehensive catalog search
service we need to include your publication. Please add us to your
subscriber list, using this address:
Google Catalogs
171 Main St. #280A
Los Altos, CA 94022
Once you have added us to your mailing list, please send an email to
catalog--@google.com notifying us. You should see your catalog on
the site within a few days after it arrives in our mailbox. There is
absolutely no charge to be included in Google"
Catalog Search.
http://catalogs.google.com/googlecatalogs/catalog_vendors.html#add
* * * * *
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.
* * * * *
Auction Wizard 2000 comes highly recommended by several of our
subscribers, and it is now compatible with ebaY, ebaY stores, Yahoo and
PlayerAuctions (a site for online game players). They are also planning
on adding Amazon.com Auctions.   It costs US$75.00 per user license, and
installation CD's are available separately for US$10.00 each. 60-day
fully functional demo trial. Upgrades that occur during the trial period
are free - the same way they are for registered user
http://66.114.141.27/index.htm
* * * * *
Online Auction Users Association
http://www.auctionusers.org
************************************************************
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.sidneyfenemore.com/

http://www.boldjewelry.com

http://www.longlocks.com

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

***********************************************************
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