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TAGnotes Sun 30 Jun 2002 Vol 4 Number 37 Issue 419

The Auction Guild Notes Sun 30 Jun 2002
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************************************************************
Will there be a Free Listing Day in July on ebaY US ?
We are again just guessing, but it is possible ebaY will do a
Free Listing Day around 4 July or possibly even ON 4 Jul. This
would make sense in light of giving a FLD to ebaY Canada on
Canada Day. ebaY might also do this to counteract the predicted
storm when SYI2.0 becomes the default next week, particularly if
they see a drop in listings. The other thing ebaY might do is hold
a Free Listing Day for FIXED format only when they introduce it in
July. They are doing this on ebaY Germany and Australia on 2
July (see below). Just a reminder - If ebaY does do a free listing
day, plan on using your own image hosting service as ebaY's
iPix picture services tends to crash early, and prevents or slows
down listing to a crawl.
************************************************************
* FREE LISTING DAY ebaY GERMANY & ebaY AUSTRALIA 2 JUL
2002 *

FIXED PRICE FORMAT ONLY - NOT AUCTIONS or Auctions with
BIN

ebaY Australia and ebaY Germany are having a FIXED PRICE
ONLY Free Listing Day on 2 July 2002

Germany is 9 hours ahead of ebaY US PT and Australia is 17
hours ahead of ebaY US PT

*All Fixed Price items only that are listed on ebaY Australia in
Australian Dollars, between 00:00:01 (12:00:01am) AET and
23:59:59 (11:59:59pm) AET on Tuesday 2 July will be free to list.
Reserve and Final Value fees will still be charged.

* All Fixed Price items only that are listed on ebaY Germany in
Euros From 0:00:00 to 23:59:59 on Tuesday 2 July will be free to
list. Reserve and Final Value fees will still be charged.

*Listings are free for all categories excluding Real Estate.
*Listing in 2 Categories is free.

Details for Australia go to - http://pages.ebay.com.au/freelist.html
Details for ebaY Germany came via email only.

To figure out the times in Germany and/or Australia go to -
http://times.clari.net.au/index.htm
http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/
************************************************************
ebaY on 24 Jun ebaY fielded My ebaY changes. At 16:24:33 PT
users reported no access to My ebaY, and received, "This
function is currently unavailable" messages.   At 16:26:04 PT
users reported that seller search was down.   At 16:26:45 PT
users reported their My ebaY pages were in disarray. Relist was
not working with Netscape and throwing Javascript errors.   At
16:26:54 PT users reported the whole site was very slow.   At
16:28:10 PT sold items were showing up on My ebaY as unsold
items. Problem reports continued throughout the day. ebaY
pulled the new My ebaY format back at 19:26:49 PT. Users also
reported not receiving any end of auction notices for items
closing on 24 Jun.

On 25 Jun at 13:54:05 PT ebaY users reported that the feedback
on their ID card had 6 months of feedback transactions missing.
At 15:42:30 PT ebaY posted that ebaY iPix picture services were
down for listing with SYI2.0 from 14:58 PT to 15:08 PT. ebaY
posted at 15:05:02 PT that sellers would not have the ability to
delete items from the Sold and Unsold tables of the selling table
in My ebaY due to technical problems. According to ebaY, this
feature will not be available today, but should be available in the
next few weeks. At 17:40:28 PT users reported ebaY crashing,
and receiving "This function is currently unavailable We
apologize that you are not able to access this feature at the
present time. Our Technical Support Team has been notified
and we are working on resolving this difficulty as quickly as
possible. Please visit the eBay Announcements Board for
updates on recent and upcoming changes, major system
issues, and other important eBay news.
http://www2.ebay.com/aw/marketing-au.shtml". Nothing was
posted on the SAB. At 17:43:19 PT users reported that ebaY
reset all preferences on My ebaY back to the defaults.    Users
are warned to go check their preferences on My ebaY to insure
they are correct. Sold items were once again showing as unsold
in My ebaY. Users also reported that ebaY again failed to deliver
all end of auction notices.

On 26 Jun at 06:15:08 PT users reported that keyword search
was not working. At 08:16:38 PT users noted that ebaY was still
jerking around the My ebaY coding, and the new My ebaY had
returned, causing problems with My ebaY. At 08:50:33 PT users
reported that the new My ebaY had incorrect totals for sales.
About half the sales were missing.   At 09:44:05 PT buyers
reported that seller search was not working. The users received
error messages saying, "Error 400 Bad Request Due to
malformed syntax, the request could not be understood by the
server." At 10:00:11 PT item titles started showing up across the
site with coding numbers instead of punctuation and/or
ampersands. This problem was not resolved until 28 Jun. At
10:28:03 PT users reported keyword search was not working. At
12:00:37 PT users reported the doll categories were corrupted.
At 12:10:55 PT users reported problems with their watch lists
and also could not delete items past the 20th on the list. Trying
to delete resulted in messages that said, "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 13:48:04 PT users reported problems with ebaY
iPix picture services. At 14:30:37 PT users reported that relist
was down. At 15:24:56 PT, users were receiving java run time
error s. At 16:24:54 PT users reported the coding at the top of
the toys and dolls categories was broken and key word search
was also not working. At 16:25:54 PT users reported that the
revised My ebaY pages, no longer showed the time an item sold,
only the date. Some users find this critical since they have so
many listings ending each day. At 16:27:45 PT users reported it
taking ebaY upwards of 22 days to credit their accounts after
payment was made. At 17:50:48 PT category coding problems
spread from toys and dolls to clothing. At 18:31:16 PT buyers
reported that they could not bid on items because the bidding
link icon was missing.

On 27 Jun 01:00:44 PT, users reported that site access
remained very slow. Users reported at 04:23:44 PT that the
coding in the title problem was still occurring. On 27 Jun
01:00:44 PT, users reported that site access remained very
slow. Users reported at 04:23:44 PT that the coding in the title
problem was still occurring. still going on. At 07:12:47 PT users
reported ongoing problems with the new my ebaY format.
Auctions that had ended were showing up with time remaining
and final bid price etc, were not updated on closed items. At
07:39:49 PT users reported more My ebaY problems. The items
sold totals were incorrect, only reflecting a small percentage of
items sold. Sold items no longer have an ending time, just the
date. The checkmarks indicating a relisted item were
inaccurate, not reflecting al the relisted items. At 08:02:12 PT
users reported being unable to make a one time payment to
ebaY. At 08:31:09 PT the "live help" feature was down. At
08:49:26 PT users continued to complain about My ebaY
problems, with dollar totals of listed items missing. At 08:51:54
PT, the one time payment feature was working again. One seller
reported that if their account valance exceeded $25. they could
no longer revise items.   At 09:21:51 PT users reported revise an
item was not working, returning messages that say the item was
listed on another site. At 13:34:44 PT users reported receiving
the new "good news" end of auction email. The new email was
15 kb as opposed to the former at 9kb.   At 16:33:26 PT users
continued to note the listing title coding problem. At 16:58:51 PT
users reported that emails sent through ebaY's email system
were taking upwards of six hours to get to their destinations.
This was a real problem for bidders trying to ask a question of
the seller. At 20:22:33 PT users reported the fonts changing in
their My ebaY pages, ebaY jerking around the code again. At
20:40:20 PT, users reported problems with incompatibility
between Netscape and My ebaY. Sellers could not save
changes to pages or relist using Netscape.

ebaY took the site down for maintenance on 28 Jun from approx
01:00 PT until 03:00 PT. ebaY Billpoint payments remained
available from the http://www.billpoint.com/ site. Users reported
at 03:14:09 PT that seller search on ebaY CA was broken. At
07:56:17 PT ebaY finally fixed the problem with coding in auction
titles problem. This problem had lasted 46 hours. Anyone who
had an auction affected by this problem should request refunds
of all listing fees, since the coding problem could negatively
affect the ability of buyers to find the item in search. At
08:08:16 PT users reported ongoing problems listing with SYI2.0. The
form caused system crashes, would not save preferences for country,
caused runtime errors, crashing the browser, and eliminated the second
category when items were moved from one category to another. At
08:36:10 PT users reported the listing forms were very slow to use.   At
10:40:42 PT users reported problems with cgi 3 and posting to the chat
boards. At 11:33:53 PT My ebaY was not showing all ended auctions
within the last 24 hours, and those showing were listed randomly.   At
15:02:09 PT users reported that items listed on ebaY Canada during the
free listing day, were still not showing in search, 24 hours after
listing. On 28 Jun at 17:36:42 PT users reported no longer receiving
end of auction notices. At 20:54:55 PT users reported reloads very slow
on the site. This continued through 22:28:20 PT.

On 29 Jun at 07:22:11 PT, users continued to report not receiving
end of auction emails. At 07:56:44 PT use of the "ask a seller a
question" links returned "unable to contact" notices. At 08:36:25 PT the
"Save this Setting" function was not working. At 10:33:44 PT users
reported being unable to access My ebaY. At 10:44:59 PT users reported
being able to access My ebaY from AOL but not Internet Explorer. At
12:15:27 PT users complained about the presence of "items I didn't win"
on My ebaY, and their link to "items won". At 12:42:23 PT users were
unable to revise items, receiving, "This item was listed on a different
site" messages. One user wondered if this was because they were trying
to revise the item from a different computer. At 19:06:31 PT sellers
reported the selling form was down, preventing listing on the site. At
19:13:51 PT sellers reported the relist links were broken, and My ebaY
was loading very slowly.   At 19:22:20 PT users received "502 Connection
Failed This Web page could not be opened. There may be too many people
accessing this page or the page may be unavailable. Please try again
later." messages when trying to access the site. At 19:23:21 PT users
reported cgi 1, 3 and 5 were down.   These problems continued through
19:30:42 PT. At 19:35:35 PT sellers using the old ebaY form from the
link provided by ebaY received a message saying, "Please do not use any
HTML coding in this form." At 19:43:52 PT users reported widespread site
problems with Sellers lists corrupted, relisting inaccessible, and pages
that freeze or just don't download.   At 20:28:53 PT ebaY posted that
the SYI2.0 page was down from 19:00 PT to 19:09 PT. ebaY claimed that,
"No other eBay systems were affected." but as usual it was a lie. At
20:56:19 PT there were more reports of users who could view
their sellers page with AOL but not IE.

On 30 Jun at 08:01:14 PT buyers again complained about the
"items I didn't win" feature on My ebaY. One user reported at
11:24:58 PT that she could not view any of her my ebaY
information unless she printed it out. At 12:34:28 PT users
reported getting page can't be displayed messages. At
15:55:46 PT users again reported not receiving end of auction
emails.   At 16:40:39 PT the site crashed came back up and
crashed again lasting until 16:43:24 PT.

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

-----------
Board Post of the Day I - On 27 Jun posted by
marginally*marginal at 15:36:24 PT in a conversation about the
"new" My ebaY, "... I've been complaining about the OLD "new"
eBay since the day they spawned it to replace the OLD "old"
eBay. That was followed by the New Improved New eBay (which
is the old New eBay we have now), which was neither new nor
improved. It is a total kludge compared with the OLD new old
NEW eBay. The new old My eBay is better than the NEW new
*improved* My eBay, but still MUCH worse than the OLD old My
eBay. But that's like saying the hangnail on my toe was better
than then I sprained it, and that was better than it being broken
from dropping an anvil on it. If they brought back the OLD old My
eBay, I'd be a happy camper. But, feel free to complain.
Personally, I've seen the way the "fix" stuff here too long, and it's
almost NEVER for the better. There are rare exceptions."

Board POD II - And at 19:18:58 PT posted by
marginally*marginal, "I wouldn't hold my breath on that
insurance. I've got a feeling the same people that did the math
for A4A are working the numbers on eBay Healthcare...."

Board POD III - Posted by red-deer on 30 Jun at 10:52:41 PT, "I
stayed up late last night trying to use the SYI 2 page. It's a no go
via Netscape. At one time (approx. 2 years ago) Netscape threw
very few errors on eBay, now it seems in order to anything I need
to fire up IE. I can't re-list via Netscape, and just this morning
received a 404 error when attempting to tweak a Gallery image. I
tried 4 times, then gave up. I fired up IE & had no problem
re-listing or tweaking my Gallery image. It appears that eBay has
now become so arrogant that even Netscape users no longer
count. Nice touch, except they forgot that there's probably 10's of
thousands of Netscape users that are *buyers* only.
HELLO????

eBay has become a site where you need a 21 inch
monitor,[unless you enjoy scrolling], 4 different browsers ['cause
at least *2* of them will not work at any given time], cable or DSL
connection ['cause the banners & all the other junk takes forever
to load], and you still need to cross your fingers & toes & pray
that *something* won't be broken & cause you to reboot when
your screen freezes up. I can understand eBay not caring about
sellers [obviously they feel there's plenty more where that came
from] BUT to ignore the constant pleas from BUYERS to make
this site easier to navigate is VERY hard to understand? This
site has become a bug invested jungle, and sooner or later eBay
will be wondering why all the BUYERS have left." and I've sent
the JS errors to the geeks at eBay & all I get is the runaround.
The last time the errors showed up was when the code slingers
came out with the IPIX crap on the SYI page. Take a wild guess
where the JS errors were ..... in the IPIX code. I've been selling on
eBay since 1997, and the ONLY time new code errors show up
via Netscape is when some pencil necked geek at eBay starts
screwing with new code THAT HAS NOT BEEN TESTED in
advance."

-----------
Sell Your Item 2.0 will become the default listing form this week.
Revise Your Item 2.0 will also become the default except for
items listed with the old Sell Your Item form.

Sellers can use the old Sell Your Item form after SYI 2.0
becomes the default listing form. ebaY will eventually remove the
old Sell Your Item form. Sellers can bookmark the old SYI form at
this URL http://pages.ebay.com/sell/index_old.html
You can also copy the HTML to your desktop and will probably be
able to use the old SYI form for considerably longer than ebaY
plans on letting you use it.

ebaY has the new category selector for SYI 2.0 ready for use with
Internet Explorer versions 5.0 and above for Windows. This will
be the default on SYI2.0

For more info about Sell Your Item 2.0 go to -
http://pages.ebay.com/sell/sellyouritem2/index.html
To provide input on Sell Your Item 2.0 email -
syi2fe-@ebay.com

-----------
ebaY launched the changes to My ebaY on 24 June, pulled them
back until 26 June and proceeded to figure out how to make
them work on the site. As always with ebaY's programs, My
ebaY now only works within a limited range and with lots of
glitches, mini crashes, causing disabilities across the site. TAG
imagines it will probably take several weeks for ebaY to work the
worst problems out, and the cost of losses will, as usual, be
borne by the sellers. Sellers might want to consider trying
another site such as sellyouritem.com oldandsold.com or
ioffer.com whilst ebaY fixes all the bugs and problems they have
created with their usual stellar fielding. This might also be a
good idea since ebaY soon plans to launch the fixed price format
and other coding changes.

To view the My ebaY changes go to -
here. http://pages.ebay.com/myebay_preview/index.html

-----------
Travel Policy Update - Travel sellers must disclose additional
fees, to include:
1.) All non-shipping and handling fees paid to the seller or any
other private party must be included in the listing price.
2) The precise amount of taxes paid to government agencies or
fees to state or local regulatory bodies must be included in the
item description but do not need to be included in the listing
price.

For the complete travel policy, go to
http://pages.ebay.com/help/community/png-travelvouchers.html

-----------
ebaY has officially launched the ebaY Toolbar utility. Once
downloaded, the new Toolbar appears at the top of your browser
window and in your Windows Explorer windows.   The toolbar is
optional and free to use, but TAG cautions the spyware
capabilities of these types of utilities. The company that
designed this for ebaY is infamous for its harvesting actions.
For more info about the toolbar go to -
http://pages.ebay.com/ebay_toolbar/
Download the toolbar at http://download.ebay.com

-----------
ebaY has moved Maynard Webb into the chief operating officer
position vacant since Brian Sweete left the position in January
02. Though Brian was supposed to leave ebaY according to this
report he took a vice president of marketing position. Currently
Jeff Jordan is head of U.S. operations, and Matt Bannick, head of
international operations, will be chief revenue officers, reporting
to Chief Executive Meg Whitman.

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

-----------
ebaY is holding its first ebaY University in Australia on Saturday
27 Jul 2002 in central Sydney. For details and booking go to -
http://www.seeuthere.com/rsvp/invitation/invitation.asp?id=/6620
88701386
-----------
ebaY and Burger King in south Florida is running a promotion as
part of the ebaY BK partnership. See article at -
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/business/3566927.htm
-----------

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

* * * * *
Amazon Auctions, zShops and Marketplace - posted on 27 Jun
at 20:45 PT that due to maintenance, all Amazon.com web
pages would be down for approx 30 minutes at approx 23:00pm
PT on 29 Jun.

---------
Amazon Marketplace shipping rates and credits for Video
Games and PC
Games purchases will change beginning June 28, 2002.
The new seller credits will be as follows:
Standard               Expedited
$2.26                  $5.05

The rates for buyers will be as follows:
Standard               Expedited
$3.49                  $5.49
Marketplace shipping rate changes announced in earlier posts
are now in effect. The rates can be viewed at our Help pages:

Seller credits:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/browse/-/537880/
Buyer rates:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/browse/-/537734/

---------
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/Classifieds (YA) -
Yahoo collecting fees owed to them by auction sellers. Many of
these bills are very old and are for very small amounts. To read
article on subject go to -
http://news.com.com/2100-1017-940172.html

On the US Yahoo auction counts as of 28 Jun 02
Antiques & Art   27311
Automotive 2229
Books & Comics 13987
Clothing & Accessories 20595
Coins, Paper Money & Stamps 41254
Collectibles 21494
Computers 8060
Electronics & Cameras 4021
Home & Garden 14823
Jewelry & Watches 27192
Movies & TV 11313
Music 9076
Sports & Outdoors 4287
Sports Cards & Memorabilia 46159
Toys, Games & Hobbies 31388
Video Games 2191
Other 6041
Total auctions on June 28, 2002: 291,421
Yahoo Auction counts brought to you by
http://members.ebay.com/aboutme/copper-maven/

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)
As of 28Jun02 Yahoo Auctions had 291,421(-17676)

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/

* * * * *
USPS rate change will require zone charts, to figure out your
postage. Here is an excellent tool to develop a chart for your use
-
http://www.concho.com/uspsrate/makezonescript.cgi
enter your ZIP code (Seller Zip Code) and then print it out.
Also -
http://postcalc.usps.gov/Zonecharts/
http://www.usps.com/ratecase/_pdf/notice123.pdf
http://www.usps.com
************************************************************
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://members.ebay.com/aboutme/red-deer/

mark-@yahoo.com

http://www.antique-central.com

http://www.longlocks.com

http://members.ebay.com/aboutme/jd-spirit/

http://www.esnipe.com/

http://www.sellyouritem.com/MyPage.html?User=backintime-treasures

http://cgi6.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewSellers
OtherItems&-@ertl-family.com
***********************************************************
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