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TAGnotes Fri 14 Jun 2002 Vol 4 Number 34 Issue 416

The Auction Guild Notes Fri 14 Jun 2002
************************************************************
Cel02 is here! June is Celebration month with special bargains
and deals from the $Buck98 gang. Search for - Cel02 - in the
Title   http://members.ebay.com/aboutme/$buck98/
     * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Finished jewelry, jewelry making supplies, metaphysical, and
more. ebaY Id: rgmall, URL: http://www.rgshop.com Enjoy!!!
     * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
What $ells on eBay? Don't waste $$$ on items that don't sell.
Get 100+pages of eBay info only $4.95 Email julia-@aol.com
     * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
$Buck98 Event ends 18Jun $1.98 No Reserve Auctions
Don't miss it! http://members.ebay.com/aboutme/$buck98/
     * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
This issue brought to you by the preceding subscriber ads,
supporting TAG through their advertising dollars. Please support
them, by clicking on their links and buying their products.
Subscribers ads $5.00 - Commercial rates available via email.
BUY an advertisement and help us continue our work!!!
5400 subscribers.
TAG does not endorse the companies or products advertised
************************************************************
The TAGnotes archive is available in a searchable format at
http://www.escribe.com/business/TAGnotes/
More info about TAG is on our website at
http://www.auctionguild.com
You can find contact info for several sites and services there,
along with editorials, and image hosting directory and other info.
************************************************************
******* FRAUD ALERT *******
Beware of phone calls made to you from a person claiming to be
from ebaY. The caller offered the ability to change the way the
seller pays ebaY for fees, changing it from a credit card to having
it taken out of a checking account.   The caller said he was
calling all power sellers. The caller offered a special link in order
to make the change. (We did not get the link) Caller ID gave the
number used by the caller as (954) 623-9000. A call to the
number yielded a "not in service" result.   TAG warns sellers to
be careful of SCAMS such as this, but also does not recommend
paying ebaY via withdrawal from a checking account as this has
caused disasters for many sellers due to ebaY's faulty systems.
The results have been hundreds of dollars in "insufficient funds"
fees charged to the seller by their bank due to ebaY errors and
exorbitant "returned check" fees by ebaY added on top.
************************************************************
ebaY on 10 Jun at 20:07:39 PT ebaY reported that the view
account status page was down between 19:00 PT and 19:45 PT.
At 20:33:56 PT users reported intermittent cgi problems. At 20:42:48 PT
sellers reported that the descriptions on newly listed items were
missing and revising the item to add back the description did not work
either.

On 11 Jun at 04:23:07 PT revise an auction was still not working.
Attempting to revise an item caused both the images and description to
disappear.   At 06:05:20 PT a user noted that title and description
search had not updated for 28 hours. Users
notes an update at 06:14:30 PT leaving title and description
search 14 hours behind. At 07:25:17 PT sellers reported that the
revise an item problems were still happening replacing the
description with the word "none". Further reports were made on
the revise problem at 08:46:53 PT and 08:55:23 PT. At 08:58:20
PT users received "page forbidden" messages while attempting
to navigate from page to page, saying "Forbidden You don't have
permission to access /attrs/sell/ryi/continue.cgi on this server".
At 09:01:07 PT users reported that, they were still getting the
"page forbidden" messages whilst trying to revise an item. The
ability to revise appeared to be working again if you could get
access to your auctions.   At 09:55:13 PT newly listed items were
not showing up on My ebaY pages. At 13:07:21 PT users
reported cgi3 problems, preventing log in and access to the chat
boards. At 13:13:23 PT users continued to report cgi 3 very slow,
taking 3 attempts before getting access. At 21:38:01 PT the
"watch this item" button was no longer working Netscape. It
caused 404 errors and froze the back and forward buttons.   At
21:42:18 PT the "watch your item" button was not working with
Internet Explorer, throwing runtime errors. Despite the
problems, the item was added to the watch list. At 21:52:48 PT
buyers reported receiving 404 errors while trying to confirm the
bid on an item.

On 12 Jun at 07:46:50 PT the feedback system was not working,
giving messages that the item number was not valid, despite the
fact that the transaction was recent. Jerry@ebaY
posted at 10:34 PT that the "ask a seller a question" link in was
not working on ebaY Motors. Users reported intermittent
ongoing problems with the entire ebaY email system. At
15:37:12 PT ebaY acknowledged that listings that were revised
between approximately 11:00 PT on Mon 10 Jun and 11:00 PT
on Tue 11 Jun were missing their original description. ebaY
was unable to restore the original description on the affected
items. Only items revised during this time were affected.   ebaY
wanted sellers to check all their items to make sure the
descriptions were there, and to add back the description it
wasn't. For items with bids the seller needed to add to their item
description. ebaY claimed they would email the sellers who had
items affected. At 19:29:15 PT sellers trying to use the SYI2.0
form reported the category box would not come up the seller
could not get past the second page.   At 19:32:33 PT sellers
reported cgi 5 errors preventing them from listing. At 19:41:25
PT users again reported the "ask a seller a question" button was
not working. At 19:42:53 PT cgi 5 problems continued.   At
20:38:11 PT established sellers reported the system was no
longer recognizing them as a seller. At 21:19:54 PT sellers
reported the relist button was not working on the SYI2.0 form.
Attempts to relist items brought up a blank page when clicking
on review and submit. At 22:22:15 PT users on ebaY Canada
reported the "ask seller a question" form was not working.

On 13 Jun at 07:36 PT Jerry@ebaY posted that Hotmail users
were still not receiving site emails from ebaY. This problems
has been happening on all the ebaY sites for over a month, and
it now appears to TAG that Meg's much touted call to Microsoft
(from Newsweek's 17 Jun issue - " Whitman grabbed the
nearest telephone and called Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer in
Redmond, Wash. “I’m on it,” Ballmer vowed. By the end of
the day, Microsoft had dedicated a special Hotmail server just for
processing eBay messages.") yielded the same result as all
ebaY's promises of a "hot backup" system, increased customer
service and infrastructure reliability for increased fees, to their
customers. Microsoft evidently feels it can tell ebaY to sod off
just as ebaY does to its own customers, make promises and not
follow through. At 08:22:16 PT sellers reported hearing from
buyers that they were no longer using ebaY due to the difficulty in
navigating the site, since the new search was put in place.
Users also reported search was not working with only the first
page of a multipaged search result showing the auctions found.
Similar problems were occurring with the browse by category
pages. At 08:35:32 PT the review a listing page during listing
page was not working. At 10:39:37 PT users reported the
feedback system was down.

ebaY took their site down from approx 01:00 PT to 03:00 PT on
Fri 14 Jun. Both ebaY and ebaY Billpoint payments were down.
At 06:41:29 PT users continued to report problems sending
email through ebaY's system.    At 06:49:43 PT sellers reported
the relist feature on SYI2.0 was down. At 07:27:15 PT users
reported it taking over 12 hours for the gallery image to show up
on their auctions. ebaY posted at 20:09:49 PT that gallery
images were not appearing normally from 03:00 PT on Fri until
19:00 PT. Only recently listed items in the Collectibles category
were affected. ebaY claimed the problem was fixed. Sellers who
used gallery should request a refund of their gallery images.

TAG STRONGLY recommends that, if a seller feels that any of
the ebaY outages and glitches appears to have negatively
impacted the sale of any of their auctions or listings of any type,
request refunds. Don't pay for service if you don't receive it.

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 Tom@ebaY (tts-@ebay.com) in
response to a question about keeping the old SYI form to provide
sellers with a choice, said on 12 Jun at 16:59 PT,
"Actually, it's extremely expensive to maintain and build new
features for two Sell Your Item forms. In addition, the old Sell
Your Item form has limitations that would make it difficult to
maintain in its current format. For example, many people asked
for and use Item Specifics, but the old Sell Your Item form could
not fully support its needs. Finally, having two forms makes it
more difficult to provide customer support. The reason for this is
that for many questions we need to contact the seller to
determine which Sell Your Item form they are using before we
can give the right answer for the seller’s situation." TAG has a
solution for all these objections. All ebaY has to do is offer a one
page form that contains NO features - so no iPix, no gallery, no
Buy It Now, no second category, no home page or featured plus,
no highlight, no bold, no gift icon, no free counter, no Billpoint,
no item specifics, no escrow, and if possible no checkout. Any
seller who wants to use any feature will need to use SYI2.0.
There is a win-win solution for all and covers ebaY's objections
for leaving the "old" form.

Of course what TAG most highly recommends for folks who do
not want to use SYI2.0 is for them to MOVE their listings to a site
such as sellyouritem.com. Get 3 million listings on an
alternative site and all of these problems with ebaY would
disappear. ebaY has clearly stated they are doing all these
things so that all the "marginal" sellers take their "clutter"
elsewhere - maybe it is time for sellers to accede to ebaY's
wishes. Then all ebaY's corporate non marginal sellers can sit
around and sell their new closeout and surplus merchandise to
each other.

PQODII - In response to endless questions to ebaY about why
the emails about saved searches were for old and expired
auctions, James at ebaY said via email, ".... In these cases
where you are getting notices of closed items in your saved
searches, it is due to a backlog of sending out the notices at our
end. The notices get backed up and when they finally get sent,
the items that were in the notices have closed during the
backlog. I recommend going into your 'my eBay' page, under
favorites, and running the search manually at your leisure, to get
current search results until the backlogs catch up. It was my
pleasure to be able to assist you. We appreciate that you chose
eBay, and I wish you success with all of your eBay auctions!
Regards, James L. W. eBay Customer Support eBay Your
Personal Trading Community (tm)" Since this has been
happening for weeks TAG wonders why ebaY is bothering to
offer this service. Why not just close the thing down and clear
the old garbage out, then start it up again. It is obvious that they
will never clear up the "backlog" since it has been going on for
so long. This is insane!

-----------
Board Post of the Day - whilst attending the SYI2.0 online
propaganda session, snyderstr at 16:03 PT on 12 Jun said, " I've
used the SYI 2.0 form and I *HATE* it. Not because it's new, not
because I can't understand it, not because I can't load it, not
because I like the old form better, not because it's slow, not
because it's 7 pages too long, not because it's full of features I
never ever used in 4 years of selling on eBay, not because its
garish colors blister my eyes after looking at a screen for 16
hours a day, seven days a week, not because it wants to use
java and ActiveX, not because it's not Opera-friendly, not because
it doesn't have "See Item Description for Shipping terms", not
because it doesn't make sense.... No, it's not any ONE of those
reasons; it's for ALL of them! (and more, but I get annoyed just
thinking about it.)

What I hate most about SYI 2.0 is it claims to be a faster, easier
solution to the relatively simple task of selling an item. All I want
to do is put in a title, description, category, and how much I want
for it on ONE page. How HARD can that be? Well, apparently
hard enough, because I have to jump through all sorts of hoops
and wiggle through wickets just to change a category on the
LAST page. Or a description. Or a title. Or a Reserve Price. Or a
Price. Why should I have to LEAVE the *last* page to make a
minor edit? That's stupid. So I use the OLD SYI and it does
everything I need it to do on ONE page. And I do it dozens of
times a day (well, before I realized I was a "marginal seller" and
my "clutter" was not really wanted on eBay). Last April, I ran over
6000 auctions in a 30 day period. This month, it will be perhaps
500 or so. When SYI 2.0 becomes the Law of the Land, I'm
probably pretty much out of here. It's just TOO MUCH HASSLE to
list items on eBay. Do you guys *GET* that? Do you have any
CLUE about how tough you are making selling on eBay for
"marginal sellers" of "clutter" like me? Do you have any idea how
much revenue you are going to LOSE with SYI 2.0?

And, no, I do NOT want to use SABAS, SAPRO, Mister Turbo, or
any other listing "facilitator" built on eBay technology. I just want
a nice, tight, fast, clean seller form. A Seller form that ASSUMES I
know what I am doing when I change a category number from
"585" to "584" without having to hold my hand and explain to me
that WWII is not the same as WWI.... You had a chance to really
clean up the seller form, streamline it, make it fast and efficient
for KNOWLEDGEABLE users. Instead, you created a page for
novices, and claim that is the solution to EVERYONE'S
problems. Let me tell you right now, if you think you have solved
the problem of fast, easy, efficient, and clean selling, SYI 2.0 is
NOT it. " TAG thinks that sums up the real seller view about
SYI2.0 rather than ebaY's lies and manipulated "survey". It will
be interesting to see what happens on the ebaY boards when
the uninformed majority is suddenly confronted by the SYI2.0
form instead of the current one.

You can view the high quality Militaria offered by Snyderstr at -
http://www.sellyouritem.com/Search.html?UserName=snyderstr

-----------
ebaY Motors appears to be getting worse and worse. TAG is
getting increased numbers of complaints of the way ebaY is
treating its sellers at Motors. With a sharp increase in prices, we
guess ebaY is trying to get rid of all you marginal sellers and
clutter on ebaY Motors also.   TAG has also heard from an ever
increasing number of buyers on ebaY Motors, that ebaY is not
responding to their problems. Combined with endless search
problems, all the problems that plague ebaY core, and a
noticeable increase in deadbeat bidders, ebaY Motors is on its
way to developing an unhealthy atmosphere. Since ebaY does
not yet dominate the online car market, now might be the time for
some of the savvy car sellers now using ebaY Motors, to join
forces with a dominant site such as CarsDirect.Com to provide
an auction and trading site for individuals and small business
sellers.

-----------
"It's a step, says global marketing chief Bill Cobb, toward the
creation of "the first worldwide economic democracy."" Source -
Newsweek 17 June Issue page 52

TAG wants to know how a "worldwide economic democracy" can
be controlled by a company that chooses a fascist model of
"community control" to base itself on? If the worldwide economic
democracy develops, it will be in spite of ebaY NOT because of it.

Newsweek ebaY articles can be read online at -
http://www.msnbc.com/news/764160.asp?0bl=-0
-------------------
ebaY's VERO program has always been problematical. Usually
the seller with closed auctions has the most trouble, because
ebaY shoots first and then does nothing to assist the seller in
getting legitimate auctions restored. Nor does ebaY penalize
VERO partners who abuse the VERO program to close
legitimate auctions.   The latest VERO problem we have heard
about appears to be selective VERO enforcement for small
business or individual VERO holders.

In one case, we heard from a VERO partner, who contacted ebaY
with a list of dutch auctions in violation of his copyright. ebaY
closed the violating auctions that had no bids, but let run the
auctions with bids. Persistent protests and multiple contacts
with ebaY finally got ebaY to end all the auctions in violation,
though it took 9 days to get ebaY to act. This was in May. In June
the VERO rights holder again found some auctions illegally
violating his intellectual property rights, offered by the same
seller. ebaY emailed the VERO rights holder that the auctions
had been closed, but once again ebaY closed the auction with
no bids and left the one with bids running.

If other VERO rights partners have experienced this problem with
ebaY, the VERO rights holder would like to hear from you as he
is compiling a dossier of ebaY violations. Email him at -
al-@tasticman.co.uk

-----------
ebaY is adding the ability for buyers to bid on their auctions via
their wireless devices for $2.99 a month. ebaY and InPhonic
signed a deal to provide this service. Neither would reveal
financial details of the revenue-sharing deal, but InPhonic CEO
David Steinberg said, "the service will need to be adopted by 5
percent to 10 percent of eBay's "dedicated" members, or those
that buy from the site one to three times a month, in order to be
financially viable." ebaY's previous wireless ventures were
failures, but ebaY hopes since this one is two way it will
succeed. Mr Steinberg should take heed of the ebaY kiss of
death to the companies it "partners" with, as there appears to be
lots of promise but little result for any company joining forces
with ebaY. TAG thinks part of this problem is ebaY's lie about
ebaY's user base, which ebaY pegs at 46 million but is more
realistically in the 10 to 13 million range, and that is total, not
necessarily active, users.
http://news.com.com/2100-1033-932504.html
http://www.usatoday.com/money/tech/2002-06-05-ebay-service.h
tm

-----------
In May three ebaY insiders sold 202,000 shares of stock.
Director Scott D. Cook exercised options for 120,000 shares 2
May for about $1.56 a share and sold the shares the same day
for about $53.88 a share. At the end of May, he directly owned
222,916 common shares. Senior Vice President Michael R.
Jacobson exercised options for 70,000 shares between May 1
and May 15 for $2.50 a share. He sold the shares the same
days for about $53.02 to about $56.83 a share. At the end of
May, he directly owned 125,773 common shares. Senior Vice
President William C. Cobb exercised options for 12,000 shares
May 15 for about $38.19 a share and sold the shares the same
day for $57 a share. At the end of May, he didn't directly own any
shares.   Souce Dow Jones Newswires Washington

-----------
ebaY is changing My ebaY over the next few weeks. The
changes:
*Save preferred number of days to view items (up to 30 days).
*Watch up to 30 items in the Watching table
*Prioritize the placement of each table in the different tabs
(Selling, Bidding, Feedback, etc).
*Find other items from the same seller when not the winning
bidder, using the "Items I Didn’t Win" table.
*Be able to delete items from Sold and Unsold tables.
*Automated movement of ended items in the Bidding and
Selling tables to more appropriate tables. (e.g. If you win an
auction it will move from your "Items I've Bid On" table to your
“Items I’ve Won” table.)
*Track which of your sold and unsold items you've already
relisted.
*Changes to the Feedback tab.

To see the upcoming changes go to -
http://pages.ebay.com/myebay_preview/index.html

-----------
ebaY is changing the search page and expanding the popular
search on the search results page.   ebaY is combining Related
Items, Popular Searches, and Related Stores into one box called
"More on ebaY".

-----------
ebaY is changing the revise your item function. These changes
are for compatibility with the SYI2.0 form. For more information
go to   http://pages.ebay.com/community/news/ryi_faq.html

-----------
Glitch on Half.Com system? There has been a reoccurring
problem on Half.Com that could get buyers in trouble. What
happens is that items show up in your shopping cart that you
never placed there. Buyers should carefully check their
shopping carts to make sure the items in the cart are ones they
(and not ebaY) placed there. In addition, ebaY uses items left in
shopping carts as an excuse to SPAM Half.Com users.

Half.Com survey -
http://half.ebay.com/account/survey/redirectToSurvey.jsp?sid=10
0001

-----------
Why Half.Com deserves their UNSATISFACTORY rating with the
Better Business Bureau. Better Business Bureau -
http://search.bbb.org/search.html
Name - Half; City - San Jose; State - CA

A Half.Com Seller has a problem with a buyer remorse situation,
demands shipping refund from Half.Com and gets NARUed
from Half and ebaY. To read all the details go to -
http://www.rglbrgl.com/

-----------
Here are a couple of book reviews we found interesting about
"The Perfect Store" by Adam Cohen
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/06/06/1530228
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/chronicle/archive/
2002/06/09/RV93924.DTL&type=books

-----------
ebaY Trivia - When you go to the ebaY Home Page you are
asked to accept Twelve (12) or more cookies. When we last
checked there were 10 Mediaplex cookies and 2 ebay.com
cookies, and then when you attempt to leave the home page you
get the added bonus of a popup ad along with another Mediaplex
cookie. Almost every ebaY page asks for three or more cookies.
ebaY needs to put their site on a cookie reduction diet!

-----------
An ebaY seller victims group is trying to organize their efforts to
recover their money from items paid for and allegedly not
delivered by ebaY seller shadowsb. The information TAG
received alluded to $750,000 dollars worth of merchandise not
received by buyers. The cheated customers website says that
ebaY knew about the problems with this seller and allowed the
seller to continue operating for two months, despite the
knowledge. To find out more about this seller and the group
trying to recover their money go to their website at -
http://www.geocities.com/imad_scam/

-----------
Ongoing Issues and Information
--------------------------------------
See the TAG website for miscellaneous ebaY info at -
http://www.auctionguild.com/generic91.html

Is Checkout interfering with your online business? Is the new
search slowing down your sales? 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
FBI's Internet Fraud Complaint Center at: http://www.ifccfbi.gov/

Want to use your website address in your ebaY User ID? Here is
a workaround. Put a name or word first and then include your
web address in parenthesis. So in TAG's case we could register
this ID - tag(www.theauctionguild.com). This will work and
circumvent ebaY's rules. You might even be able to put your
email address in the parenthesis.

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

* * * * *
Yahoo Auction/Warehouse/Classifieds (YA) - SBC
Communications and Yahoo, which are offering a co-branded
dial-up service. They plan on offering high-speed access
services this summer. SBC Yahoo Dial is being offered in the 13
states where SBC operates. It will cost $21.95 a month for
unlimited access, but subscribers who need to install a second
telephone line will be charged $15.95.
Souce CBSMW Frank Barnako's Internet Daily

Yahoo auction counts on 14 Jun:
Antiques & Art   30961
Automotive 2405
Books & Comics 12865
Clothing & Accessories 19911
Coins, Paper Money & Stamps 38113
Collectibles 21766
Computers 7205
Electronics & Cameras 3691
Home & Garden 14936
Jewelry & Watches 42742
Movies & TV 10416
Music 9956
Sports & Outdoors 4473
Sports Cards & Memorabilia 46782
Toys, Games & Hobbies 33541
Video Games 2484
Other 6850
Total auctions: 309,097

On the US -
As of 19Apr02 Yahoo Auctions had 329,060 (-40,688)
As of 7May02 Yahoo Auctions had 316,720 (-12,340)
As of 24May02 Yahoo Auctions had 314,105 (-2615)
As of 14Jun02 Yahoo Auctions had 309,097 (-5008)

Yahoo Auction counts brought to you by
http://members.ebay.com/aboutme/copper-maven/
-----------------
Ongoing Issues -
------------------
YA allows links to your website in your auctions. Their policy for
links in auctions is at -
http://auctions.yahoo.com/phtml/auc/us/legal/linking_policy.html

How to get help on Yahoo and Yahoo Auctions
Yahoo Help Central - http://help.yahoo.com/
Yahoo Auction Online Help Pages -
http://help.yahoo.com/help/auctions/
Contact YA for help -
http://add.yahoo.com/fast/help/us/auct/cgi_feedback
Auction Abuse help -
http://add.yahoo.com/fast/help/us/auct/cgi_abuse
Copyright infringement Help -
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/copyright/copyright.html

Yahoo contact Information
http://www.auctionguild.com/generic.html?pid=38
http://auctions.yahoo.com/

* * * * *
Amazon Auctions, zShops and Marketplace - On 11 Jun at 17:32
PT posted that due to upcoming postal rate changes, Amazon Marketplace
shipping credits to sellers will change beginning 28 Jun. At that time,
buyer shipping rates will also be adjusted.
The new seller credits will be as follows:
                                     Media Mail
Expedited
Books                           $2.26                       $5.05
Music, Video, DVD     $1.84                       $3.85
The rates for buyers will be as follows:
                                       Media Mail
Expedited
Books                             $3.49                      $5.49
Music, Video, DVD       $2.49                       $4.99

Amazon Marketplace international shipping rates for DVD will
also beadjusted on 28 Jun. The new seller credit will be $8.95, and
the amount paid by the buyer will be $9.79.

---------
Amazon.com is test marketing restaurant menus online. The
company has collected offerings from 1,600 restaurants in six
cities (including San Francisco, Washington and Seattle) to
determine whether their 35 million customers on the site are
interested in such information
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/browse/-
/913908/ref%3Dtab%5Fre%5Fre%5F9/104-9895512-4543917

---------
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

* * * * *
BidVille.Com - The Spring Fling Sale on BidVille ends on Sat 15
Jun.   BidVille says that, "Many sellers have reduced opening
bids, and are offering some great special promotions, such as
free shipping, free gift with purchase, etc."
http://www.bidville.com

* * * * *
AuctionPie.Com is looking for beta testers to help get their
auction and trading site started. The plan for AuctionPie is that it
will be a subscription based site with a fixed monthly fee to place
auctions and fixed price items for sale. For more info go to -
http://www.auctionpie.com

* * * * *
USPS - New rate charts -
http://www.usps.com/ratecase/_pdf/notice123.pdf
http://www.usps.com/ratecase/html_rates/R700.htm

* * * * *
Egghead.Com - the final bits of yolk left from what was once
Egghead.com are slated to besold at auction at the company's former
headquarters in Menlo Park, Calif. Eggheads name, URL and other
intellectual property were acquired last December by
Amazon.com (AMZN).

Source CBSMW Frank Barnako's Internet Daily
http://cbs.marketwatch.com/news/story.asp?column=Internet+D
aily&dist=nwtid&siteid=mktw

* * * * *
Microsoft is cutting the price on MSN TV Internet receiver and a
discounted service access plan. The device is manufactured by
Thomson Multimedia -
http://www.thomson-multimedia.com/gb/00/index.htm.
Microsoft offers subscribers an unlimited monthly access plan
for $21.95, or an economy plan for $9.95 a month that includes
five hours of service. http://www.msntv.com/

Microsoft announced that users of its Hotmail service will no
longer be able to retrieve messages from other e-mail accounts
unless they pay $19.95/mo for the service.

Source CBSMW Frank Barnako's Internet Daily

* * * * *
Master Card and Visa are facing a class-action anti trust law suit.
The Supreme Court is allowing the case to proceed to trial as a
class-action case. As many as four million merchants may
share in any damages awarded. Wall mart sued in 1996,
alleging the two credit-card companies use their credit-card
market dominance to force stores to accept their debit cards.
The retailers are seeking damages of $13.1 billion to $15.8
billion, reflecting a decade of alleged debit-card overcharges by
the two companies. Under federal antitrust law, any damages
awarded by the court would be trebled if the merchants prevail in
court. Source - article written by John R. Wilke Staff Reporter Of
The Wall Street Journal
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