- Hi Jeff,
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- Ever since I read on Rense.com about eBay's 'flexible'
privacy policy, wherein they will hand over all manner of personal information
on its buyers & sellers to any 'investigator' who asks (no court order
required), I've been more than a little suspicious of them. http://www.rense.com/general41/bb.htm
-
- One of eBay's policies attempts to control the personal
property of its sellers even after an auction has ended (under the guise
of 'protecting the consumer'). It's called 'off-site selling' and it works
like this:
-
- Let's say you decide to sell a widget on eBay, opening
bid $5. The auction ends and no one bids on it. Now, a reasonable person
might think that you could then do whatever you like with your widget.
It's yours, after all. But not according to eBay.
-
- OK, let's say I am looking for a widget. I don't see
any on eBay in the active auctions, so I look in the completed auctions.
There, lo and behold, is a widget - your widget - and exactly the type
of widget I am looking for. Since no one bid on it, I'm thinking that it's
likely still available.
-
- So, I email you. Would you please sell me your widget?
I even offer you the same price of your opening bid.
-
- But guess what? According to eBay policy, you're not
allowed to directly sell me your widget. Nope. According to eBay, because
I learned of your widget through eBay, you must relist your item (paying
usual eBay fees, of course) and then I can bid on it if I wish. So your
widget isn't really your widget anymore, after it's been listed on eBay.
-
- I should mention that their written policy is somewhat
ambigious:
-
- "eBay prohibits email offers to buy or sell listed
items outside of the eBay site."
-
- Nowhere does eBay define "listed items". I
would have thought a "listed item" was one that was currently
listed, not one that had, at one point in time, EVER been listed on eBay.
-
- So I phoned them for clarification (their phone number
is listed nowhere on their site, but a net search turned it up: 1-800-322-9266).
The customer service rep sounded a little confused. First he told me that
'proper etiquette' meant that I could not buy an item that had ever been
on auction on eBay directly from the seller, if I'd learned of the item
through eBay.
-
- Never mind proper etiquette, I said, was it against eBay
policy to do so? The answer was, yes. So there you have it.
-
- And speaking of eBay 'protecting the consumer', there
are plenty of complaints on various forums about eBay's failure to do just
that.
-
- Here's one example:
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- Ebay is full of dishonest people. Here is what happened
to me.
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- I had a perfect feedback for selling and buying. However
only a 55 in feedback amount [number of people who had left feedback].
I had a auction going great, the best ever until a power seller decided
to have fun with my auction. He used 2 different IDs to do this. He used
a sniper to snipe my auction items at the last second.
-
- Then he emailed me saying if I did not make him a pillow
exactly like the one (and only one) he did not bid on and sell it to him
off eBay, he wouldn't pay for any of the items. He let me know that the
other person bidding on the rest of my items was none other than him! I
told him as it stated in my ad, all the pillows are original, I cannot
make a copy of one. I would make a similar one and put it up for auction.
-
- He emailed me back, saying "That won't do, you will
not get any money for the items I bid on and I will enjoy giving you negative
feedback because you only have a 55 and I have 2800, so your negative feedback
to me will not even be noticed."
-
- Then he continued to email me with vulgar emails, calling
me a "f...ing b...." Then he calls my house and threatens me!
-
- Meanwhile I am reporting all of this to eBay, sending
the email, filling out the appropriate forms, and the response I get from
eBay is there is not enough evidence to do anything about this guy.
-
- Okay, so now I am just a little frightened about the
phone calls, so I take my number down from eBay just to prevent this from
every happening again. I did not know that was a reason for automatic suspension.
Ironically, eBay does not have to post a telephone number to contact them
with. You have to search the internet for their phone numbers!!! But, now
my account is indefinitely suspended for trying to protect myself and this
guy is still having fun I'm sure doing the same thing to others with other
IDs...
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- I have protested by email, by phone, filled out all the
forms, online chat, everything I can think of, but eBay sends back form
letters that have nothing to do with my request.
-
- eBay is unresponsive to its customers and protects dishonest
sellers. It may change someday as long as we all continue to try to do
something about the wrongs they are doing and not just say, what's the
use. Believe me, I will not let this wrong done to me drop.
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- http://www.my3cents.com/showReview.cgi?id=5114&wrapper=
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