E-Bay Going After Offline Deals 76
bmongar writes: "It seems that eBay is going after sellers that make contact with people who bid on their items who were not the winners. They want those companies to sell only to those people through eBay. ZDNet is running the story It seems to me that is only likely to discourage their best customers their powersellers. I think they may lose more money from this than they loose from offline deals." Sites like eBay operate on a surprising amount of trust -- I've had happy deals there, and an unhappy scam experience, too. Raise one pinky if you think they can really do much about offline sales, though.
"Buyer Beware" (Score:1)
Actually, those people are quite dumb to complain to Ebay about such problems, since they decided themselves to do a transaction outside of any auction system.
That being said, I can't say I agree with Ebay on trying to police 'offline auctions/deals'. If two parties decide to make a transaction, that is their business and no one else's, regardless of how they came into contact.
And if Ebay gets complaints about said transactions, the above phrase should be their only answer to those complaints.
Re:So eBay wants to crack down on offline sales? (Score:1)
Re:a bit strange, maybe (Score:1)
Starting with E-Bay themselves, we can only hope.
I quit using e-bay when I started getting spam to an account I only used for E-Bay. Never posted anywhere with that account, never used it but for e-bay. SPAM SPAM SPAM SPAM.
I hope E-Bay goes out of business. I've hated their policy, "service", and attitude for quite a while. I was never scammed, but thousands were. Good ridence to them.
In a minute I'll tell you how I really feel.
That's what eBay *wants* you to think. (Score:4)
If you've got an item for sale, build your customer base from people who bid on eBay auctions, and sell direct instead of via auction, then guess what? EBay doesn't get any money!
I've heard a few tales recently of sellers who were warned by eBay for listing their websites in their auction listings. They were allowed to link to their own sites, but disallowed from tagging the link with anything that mentioned that merchandise was available for sale on the site. So, "Visit www.junkforsuckers.com for more SUPER-RARE L@@K! trinkets!" at the end of an auction garnered a warning.
It's the same story as a lot of web companies: make things free/cheap/easy at first, to gather a userbase, and then crack down on the rules. Now that eBay is the most popular auction site around, they can afford to do this. I'm not saying that it's wrong either, but it's certainly not about decreasing online fraud -- rather, it's about increasing the bottom line.
eBay cracking down on Spam? What 'nads! (Score:2)
> The company also announced that it would crack down on spam, or unsolicited email, sent to members
Obviously eBay's own spam [deja.com] is just fine.
Not only have they been documented spammers for quite some time (reference Dejanews over the past 6 months), they're now resetting members "no, I don't like spam!" settings.
If their crackdown on spam is indicative of their crackdown on offline deals, offline buyers and sellers have nothing to worry about.
(Hey, eBay, you readin' this? I DON'T LIKE SPAM. And calling it "valuable email communications with news, offers and special events" doesn't change the fact that you can't polish a turd. Now go away or I shall taunt your marketroids a second time.)
Buy offline you just ASK to be SCAMed (Score:1)
If you buy through ebay you are covered if the seller is trying to scam you. If you buy something NOT through ebay you don't have the wonderful little insurance policy to protect your investment.
If you are willing to buy offline, you are just asking to be scammed!
bidders contacting sellers. (Score:4)
However, there is no reason a losing bidder can't contact the seller offline, especially if the seller is a legitimate business thats just selling for the purpose of drawing in new customers or selling off surplus/older equipment and features newer equipment offline from ebay. Auctions are very much a buyer beware excersize, but if the buyer is the one inititating the contact, thats good for them, good for the seller, and GOOD FOR EBAY as the seller will keep selling products on ebay because now not only do they pick up the top bidder as a customer, they will also drag in a number of potential customers as well.
-Restil
auction based econnomic systems (Score:1)
Now, if EBay really wants to get serious about keeping items listed under auction house under their control, they would be well advised to develope auction contracts just like the brick
and morter, atom hack houses.
It would also be nice to see ebay collect and share a little more information about the transactions that flow thir bit of wire. Personally, I'd like to see S/N barcdoe EDI type of information along with individual contacts with buyers and sellers to sample the degree of satisfaction (feedback doesn't cut it). In addition, it would be very helpful if emergent pricing informaiton could be made public. I'd also like to see mail header information matched up with geographic location (and don't tell me that it can't be done, because there are serveral companies doing just that right now).
Whatever... once a company gets beyond the initial thing that makes them, they forget everything about continuing that process.
Two small changes that eBay could make (Score:2)
- Do not display high bidder's name until the auction is over at the defined closing time.
- Do not allow everyone to see the bid history of on an item. Only allow the seller to see this, and only after the auction is over.
With these changes, if a seller closes his auction early then he won't know who bid on the item. Also, the trick of looking through the bidding history for completed auctions to locate potential buyers will no longer work.There's an article on Cnet from two days ago (Score:2)
eBay cracks down on members' offline deals [cnet.com]
I don't quite get this (Score:3)
Or, to put it another way, I _didn't_ buy it via Ebay, because I bid on that 'scope in more than one auction. Each time, I was the winning bidder - at a price well below my maximum bid - but nobody else had a maximum bid very close to mine, so the bid didn't make reserve, and the seller opted not to sell.
So I e-mailed the seller, asked how much they actually WANTED for it, because I actually wanted to buy a microscope and they seemed to be pretty close to the only game in town for the kind of 'scope I wanted, and could afford. They told me the price, it was OK with me, I bought it, Ebay didn't get their cut.
Take me away, officer.
If Ebay want to crack down on fraud then, by all means, they should crack down on fraud. Great idea. But the offline selling rule is not one about fraud, it's one about side-stepping Ebay's revenue-gathering mechanism; various people who sell outside Ebay channels just happen to also be defrauding buyers.
I don't think it's all that likely that offline selling of the sort I participated in really hurts Ebay much, when you _don't_ take fraudulent operators into account. Because, it seems to me, deliberately posting items for sale with unrealistically high reserve prices in order to get off-line buy offers will only let you sell stuff for about as much as the market will bear anyway, but it will greatly cut down the number of people who will actually offer to buy. So I think, overall, it would have to seriously _reduce_ your profits. It's just something that happens now and then when the secret-reserve-price system allows a patient seller to frustrate less patient buyers who just want to BUY the darn thing, but can't, because no other bidder pushed the bid up past reserve for them.
Enforcing some rule against not-bad behaviour because the set of people who are breaking that rule significantly overlaps some other sets of people whose behaviour _is_ bad is the same sort of superficially mathematically sensible but socially unacceptable policy as choosing to arrest black people purely on the grounds of their blackness, because you live somewhere where black people are more likely to have committed crimes than whites.
This may work, for sufficiently small values of "work", but it's still the wrong strategy.
Re:no more bootlegs? (Score:1)
On another note, Yahoo! Auctions (what could be considered eBay's arch-rival) actually *does* offer a similar feature. Sellers can return to their auction page and click on [Remove this bidder] if they cannot complete the transaction with that bidder. However, this is done without the consent of the bidder, so the bidder *does* risk winning two similar auctions.
- Ed.
Then and Now (Score:2)
As a note, I am having the feeling that ebay is starting to feel a little bit of pain these days anyway. Prices there have dropped low enough (at least in my area) that I don't really even feel like listing. Perhaps it is the novelty of the "name your price" model wearing off, perhaps it is the slowing in the economy, but the action isn't there currently.
Re:The purpose of this (Score:2)
I think did fine by allowing only finallized sellers & bidders to post feedback because those are official sales that eBay makes money on, and also only official transactions get dispute resolution and bidder insurance.
I thought bids were always retractable, now bid retractions are tracked as part of the user history.
The few times I have accepted a seller offer off eBay's system, without an official item to go along with it, I have done well but I am always cautious because there is often NO RECOURSE if something goes wrong, I have a friend that was suckered by this. The no recourse exposes the buyer to too much risk and since eBay didn't make any money on that transaction, why should they support it?
A more convenient "defer to non-winning bidder" option sounds great.
I know it sounds like money-grubbing on eBays part but there are legitimate non-grubbing reasons why they want to do it.
Re:Forget ebay, buy your stuff here! (Score:1)
My only bid on eBay.. (Score:1)
True (Score:1)
I agree that they can't actually prevent the transactions themselves. However, their threats to jerk the accounts of those who go around them is probably within their rights. As far as I can tell (IANAL) there's nothing that can be done legally to them if they do. Flack from their customers seems to be the only outlet.
Huh? (Score:2)
Between this, and that ridiculous patent, I'm starting to lose quite a bit of respect for eBay. What's next?
Re:Not at all legal (Score:2)
I'm not so sure this is a bad thing... (Score:3)
When I visit eBay, it's usually because I'm looking to buy something. I want to see people who are honestly trying to sell that given item, not advertisement. Corporations listing items on eBay as promotional stunt just dilute the list of "real" sellers and jack up prices. As far as I'm concerned, we're better off without them.
If you're just an average eBay user, I don't think they're going to crack down on you just because you arranged an off-site sale once. Not only would this generate some obvious bad karma, policing it would be difficult and expensive. The ones who will be affected by this are the fly-by-night companies who consistently place ad-oriented eBay listings. Average users don't have anything to worry about it.
Besides, the servers hosting eBay.com belong to eBay, and they can ban whatever they want from them.
Yu Suzuki
Re:Is that really +1 funny? (Score:1)
I just don't know. This is like a hate crime! Dogs are treated better than this!
My own experience in this (Score:3)
I just recently bid on some Playstation 2's on eBay. Within hours of my bidding I was receiving offers to purchase ps2's via email from those who have gotten my email from the auction pages.
I was interested in a couple of the offers because they were lower in price compared to those being offered directly from ebay's auctions.
So I asked for their reference, aka. their eBay screen names. I wanted to see these sellers' feedbacks.
At the same time this was happening, I was still the highest bidder on one of the ps2 auctions.
Eventually I opted to pay a bit more for an extra level of security and confidence, rather than take a chance with an offline seller.
But it is true, this type of activity has the potential of ruining eBay's reputation, as it encourages bidders to abandon paying for auctions they've won. It can also create distrust in eBay's user feedbacks, as unscrupulous sellers can leverage their high user feedbacks to take advantage of offline buyers, since there's no way for victims of fraud to leave bad feedback for them on eBay's system.
On the other hand, it seems like eBay OWNS the good credit standing of all of their members, disallowing them from using it elsewhere. This isn't fair. Imagine if your good credit, credit that can get you financed for a house, a car, and a business, can be taken away in a second by the credit card companies. How would you feel then?
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Not at all practical (Score:1)
To get many of the user's email addresses, you gotta click on a userid name to get info. Then you have to login again (or use the damned cookie) to get the info.
If you store information requests, and cross reference with bids, you have a list of people who are contacting outside of the auction.. supposedly (God forbid I email for more info on an item!)
Fine and dandy if they want to stop fraud. It's simple: Put up a big letter disclaimer that says for sure "WE CAN'T GUARENTEE ANYTHING NOT THROUGH US!" If you can't read the words on the page, then it's your own damn fault if you get scammed.
Re:Two small changes that eBay could make (Score:1)
So let's say I'm selling something. With your proposal, I wouldn't be able to tell from the eBay web site who the online high bidder was, but the high bidder could simply contact me thru e-mail and then we'd reach an agreement offline.
From experience, if I'm bidding on anything of moderate value that could have wear-and-tear or problems the ad doesn't reveal, I always contact the seller to get a better "feel" for him/her and the item. I believe that this contact is essential.
How do they know? (Score:2)
What are they going to do, send their protection racket thugs around to my ISP to insist that all my outgoing mail be routed through their Carnivore-like system scanning for any reference to a business transaction? Or are they going to use shills to contact and entice (read: entrap) buyers and sellers to make offline transactions? "Uh-oh, the ebay police are after me, I guess I'd better turn myself in. You *know* what they can do to you with those fire hoses."
It seems this is all style (well, lack thereof) over substance - smoke and mirrors. Ok, there may be people complaining, but as many people have said here, they don't have a legal leg to stand on. I predict that this will cost far more in ill will and lost customers than it saves in fraud.
Just like the government's unwinnable 'war on drugs', ebay should concentrate on truly fraudulent transactions and the like and not waste their energy on this issue.
Look at what they're prohibiting (Score:2)
That's right, if you click on that web page link to somebody's store, you're violating eBay policy.
Perhaps their usage policy has changed since I signed up, but I don't remember agreeing to check my First Amendment rights to free speech and free association at the door.
-
Re: (Score:1)
Re:Why not change the system? (Score:1)
They already do - it's called a Dutch Auction, and the rules are quite different.
I've been to "auctions" where the auctioneer has auctioned off the first item as though it was the only one and then told the audience he'd sell any number of the item at that price. No creditable auctioneer would do this.
heh (Score:1)
Re:Who are these people anyways? (Score:1)
Re:offline sales are NOT ebay's responsibility. (Score:1)
The biggest example is someone that advertises an item, and says something like, "Don't bid, email me for prices." I've seen whole categories where there were no actual bids going on.
Ah, but they're pre-empting this too.... (Score:3)
I've had a LOT of good transactions over Ebay and may have had the first fraudulent one (after several hundred positives) a couple of weeks ago.
Over a two-hour period, a new Ebay seller [ebay.com] (who was subsequently yanked from Ebay) sold $56,000 worth of stuff in 60-odd auctions. Some of the people sent money right away via Paypal. Others of us took a wait-and-see attitude. So far, I haven't heard of any one of these people actually receiving the goods.
At least one person's filed a fraud claim.
_Deirdre
Re:Two small changes that eBay could make (Score:2)
I know why Ebay lists all bidders: so that you can see that the seller themself is not inflating the bid price. Given that you want the buyer to know this, how would you accomodate that need for information and balance it against the privacy you suggest?
Re:offline sales are NOT ebay's responsibility. (Score:1)
When did it become legal again to sell people?
Not at all practical (Score:3)
I'll be honest, I've actually purchased something where another seller contacted me after I'd lost another auction on a similar auction. The only way I'd even consider turing someone into Ebay for something like that is if they tried to screw me. The other silly thing is, they really haven't changed the rules, those have always been the rules.
I've always had good experiences... (Score:4)
The only way I can see ebay pulling this off is by hiding all emails except for the highest bidder. If the other bidders have questions for the seller, it would have to go through a web-form that anonymized everything. This, of course, has it's own set of implications.
Nuts (Score:1)
The purpose of this (Score:4)
Private Individuals (Score:5)
However, if a seller cancels an auction shortly before the close, then sells the item to whomever was the top bidder, thus bypassing eBay's fees, I think eBay has a right to go after him.
-- russ
-
The IHA Forums [ihateapple.com]
Re:no more bootlegs? (Score:1)
Why not change the system? (Score:5)
Personally, I think they could take advantage of this: Why don't they add a feature to sell to one of the loosers of the auction?
Here's a really simple example of how to do it: both the seller and the bidder click a little button that says "defer to next highest bidder."
Solves a bunch of problems actually (but will, of course, create new ones). The thing is, I believe that a step in this direction would impress the customer base of EBay and help them greatly. Good PR and all ya know. And I personally think it would be easier to work out the possible problems of this sort of innovation than it would be to go about things the way they are...
JDW
(I accidentally put this in the wrong place the first time
What about real auctions? (Score:3)
| my pinky being raised (Score:2)
Re:I've always had good experiences... (Score:1)
a bit strange, maybe (Score:1)
They do not want to be cut out of the deal. They do not want to provide free advertising.
although this part might be closer to the truth:
I don't know. It looks like a bloody mess to me. There is alot more in the original article.Who are these people anyways? (Score:1)
I've sold a Lego set or two on the Internet (via Usenet) before. I might even have hit a hundred transactions over the eight or so years I've been on Usenet. But a thousand is incredible!
Do these people just sit around all day and sell crap online? Is it a business? Or are these folks just bored soccer moms? Are they dealers? New age pawn shops?
It really amazes me that there is a "community" of auctioneers. I mean, we all participate in all sorts of unusual hobbies (Lego is mine) but the kind of time these people must put into this is really amazing. Is this their job? (ie, do they do nothing but run auctions?)
The other thing I always wanted to ask was: Is it me, or are a lot of these things being bought and sold again, and bought and sold again, over and over again? ie, are people making money by rehashing the same auction items repeatedly?
Calum
Re:Why not change the system? (Score:1)
greedy. (Score:1)
________
Seems like the initial idea just got lost... (Score:2)
All they have to do is just have a message saying that offline deals might be a good idea, but have none of the protection that eBay offers.
Cheers,
leroy.
hmmmmm (Score:1)
The ironic thing is, E-bay encourages you to contact the bidders in its 'promotional' e-mail. especially if you have a high-reserve auction, and no one is near the reserve. (In that situation they wouldn't get their $$, untill the product sold .. since you could keep auctioning it eternally. .. im a greedy bastard) and only ONE of the auctions was sold to the highest bidder. .. the high bidder acutally BOUGHT the account. .. I still had to pay auction fees for all these auctions. Not to mention the countless times I have gotten stiffed in the past as well. (probally about 8 auctions of the 50 or so i have bought/sold in .. have gone bad - not a very good ratio.) .. where the user is redirected to another web page with idems for sale, if they open the auction. those have been multiplying latley - and i can see where that is just BLATENT disregard of e-bay. (but really, would *you* buy from a site like that?
I sold 4 UO accounts on e-bay (yeah yeah
The first one the winner contacted me once, then vanished, no $$ no nothing. SO I sold to the next one down in the list.
The second auction was the same deal.
the third auction went great
and the fourth action I was contacted by someone with more money than common sence, and ended the auction early. (for a lot of too ! so e-bay didn't get their cut.)
Honestly, in the end
Is quite possible though, that they are attempting to get rid of the 'buy a car for $4.99' people
Gosh (Score:1)
No really, what a bunch of twats, the've noticed a loophole in their system and the're trying to plug it.
Re:I don't quite get this (Score:1)
I have bought a few things on ebay, and have delt with sellers "offline" who were clearly manuplating the reserve price in order to avoid ebay fees. Clearly it is pretty silly for a seller to do this in the long term, but people do it. What ebay should do is just make it clear that any transaction not within ebay's purview is "at your own risk." (of course, that is the case with any ebay transaction anyway.)
Artificially Driven-Up Prices (Score:1)
Re:I'm not so sure this is a bad thing... (Score:1)
How is a small business or some such not a real seller? I've bought several peripherals from peecee part distributors; in all cases, the cost from the auction was lower than the cost at their websites. Whenever I've seen this, it's apparently been the small biz offering a product at a lower price on eBay in hopes that (a) it would draw attention to their website and/or (b) the bid would eventually go high enough to make money.
Besides which, I feel more comfortable buying from a place with a real-looking business website and a real business phone number than from someone who is just a small-time eBay person; the former gives more ways to be tracked down, whereas the latter does not. *shrug* I've bought from both, though.
They have *no* right to do this. (Score:2)
eBay's involvement with the auction ends *there*.
Any further communication between me and any
of the people that bid on that auction is a private
communication and/or transaction, in no way
involved with eBay.
If they think they can
control who I send email to, or who I deal with
outside of their web site, someone there is
smoking some seriously good drugs.
Re:Buy offline you just ASK to be SCAMed (Score:1)
You mean, like going to the store?
ErikZ
I've been scammed on eBay, have you? (Score:2)
List of offline sellers **HOTHOTHOT** NR (Score:1)
Re:What about real auctions? (Score:1)
Re:What about real auctions? (Score:1)
Is that card really signed by Mark McGwyer? Does that video card really work?
Quack
First Thumbnail Galleries, Now This (Score:1)
trade regulation and decentralization (Score:1)
My guess is that Ebay will cave in and allow it. (Score:2)
there are other auction sites (Score:2)
I _used_ to use ebay a lot.
E_Bay needs to worry about security first... (Score:2)
I directed them to close my account after someone had tried to change the password, since I was not using it anyway. We had a protracted exchange before they finally agreed to close it. About six months later I received a message from someone wanting to know when he would receive the baseball cards that he had purchased from me. I checked it out and my old account was active, with several card auctions going. I complained to E-Bay and copied the victim in. I never did get a response from E-Bay.
Coincidently, about a week before this there was a fraud attempt on the credit card that E-Bay knew about...
Re:Who are these people anyways? (Score:1)
Yet not unfathomable. Imagine a long-time sports-card collector or dealer who's whittling down their collection. Been to a card show? Some of them have multiple truckloads of boxes of cards. Just one example...
There was an interesting take on one possible answer to that question in an article [salon.com] on Salon [salon.com] a while ago. In some cases, people were scouring the surrounding regions (flea markets, estate sales, meatspace auctions, etc.) to find stuff to sell on eBay, sometimes for hefty profits. In some cases, they did turn it into a small-business enterprise.
Some time ago, in several of the computer hardware categories, you could find quite a few sellers who had a large quantity of sales-by-auction under their belts, and numerous items up at any one time. Several of these were small to mid-size computer shops, clearing out older inventory for which there wasn't a local market, but for which some general demand did exist. (One fella used a little rubber frog named "Skippee" and had lots of old Mac and Apple stuff. Cute.)
There's some of that, too, both by small-time sellers and the power-sellers. It's really no different than speculation of any other kind to try and make a profit - it just seems like that's too much work for the general eBay going price.
Some people do use eBay as a form of business (Score:1)
I have heard of people making various things for the purpose of selling them on eBay - stay at home moms who have nothing else to do for example..
Tim
Re:I've been scammed on eBay, have you? (Score:1)
Re:How do they know? (Score:1)
One, and they don't do this yet but it wouldn't surprise me, is to mask all email addresses with an eBay resident proxy (kind of like joey@my-deja.com) which then forwards the mail to the member's real back email... but lets them monitor whatever they want to monitor. This lets them control everything. If a buyer wanted to encourage backchannel contacts they could make their real email visible somewhere, but in that case you presume the buyer isn't worried about fraud or likely to complain about it.
The second thing they can do and probably are doing is simply responding to customer complaints. If ten of us lose an auction and we're all contacted afterwards by the seller saying "guess what, i found an extra one after all" then the chances are pretty high that someone will rat on the seller. If the practice violates an enforceable seller agreement, game over.
While it can be argued that what people do offline is their own business, eBay would certainly not escape liability for "bringing together" fraudulent sellers and their victims, so they have a legitimate interest in policing this behavior.
Re:I've been scammed on eBay, have you? (Score:1)
Though extremely late in response... (Score:2)
Out of over 40 transactions, I have only had one go bad on me, and that was when I was selling - someone didn't send me the money after repeated contacts, so he didn't get the item, and I relisted the item - and it sold, and this time, I got the money, the buyer got the item - and everyone was happy.
My most recent experience has involved a VGA->TV converter that didn't work after I bought it. I have since contacted the seller, and he has said he will refund my money - we are still working things out, but I expect this transaction to go good as well.
There are obvious scams out there - some you have to watch for, and others are fun (I actually tried, knowing what I might find, to buy the Projection TV converter - I got a lens, and instructions - and they suck! - but I had a laugh - I got what I expected, and the seller got his money - so I did get sold something, and it wasn't a true "scam").
I think Ebay goes too far with this, though - I don't have a problem with a seller using Ebay as advertising, as long as they really sell a product (I do hate those sellers who put up Ebay ads with a price of 1 cent or something - all to get you to come to their site, only). I have gone to some seller's sites, and actually found it cheaper to buy from their own site, than from the auction (just because it is fixed price).
Online auctions are wacky things - sorta like real life f2f auctions, but in other ways strange...
Worldcom [worldcom.com] - Generation Duh!
Re:I've been scammed on eBay, have you? (Score:1)
You're fucked. Part of PayPal says that you can NOT get your money back by calling the card company, and this has been verified by CC companies. Police call is the recourse.
Re:Buy offline you just ASK to be SCAMed (Score:1)
Re:Not at all practical (Score:1)
That is exactly what they are dealing with:
"However, fraud that occurs in those offline transactions and spam have become the two biggest complaints eBay receives from members, prompting the changes"
Basically eBay is worried about people scaming users through this method, over which they have no control, and blaming eBay.
However, the question to ask is why doesn't eBay make it clear that these are transactions that they accept no responsibility for, and just leave it at that? I would bet that their [internal] answer is because of the money they loose from not having those transactions going through them.
echo $email | sed s/[A-Z]//g | rot13
I've done it too... (Score:2)
That's just plain dumb.
--