eBay responds to cancelled auction questions

Petescorner

I sent the following email to eBay for clarification of their auction cancellation policy. Their response follows.

My email to them:

I am seeking an offical eBay clarification on behalf of a message board
community of eBay buyers and sellers regarding acceptable reasons to End
an Auction Early.

Is it acceptable to eBay to end an auction early, simply because there
is no reserve set and the current bidding isn't up to the seller's
expectations?

Also, why doesn't eBay show the number of cancelled auctions, the same
way it shows bid retractions? It seems to us, that this would keep
sellers from ending auctions early as a "selling tool" whenever their
auctions aren't meeting their expectations.

We thank you for your response to the above questions.

Sincerely,
1,000+ eBay members from our forum

Their response:

Hello,

Thank you for taking the time to write to us with your concerns. I would
be happy to assist you further.

I understand you are contacting us today regarding sellers ability to
end their listing(s) early.

Any seller has the right to cancel all bids and end an auction early if
they want to. I can only imagine your disappointment, but the seller
does have the right to do this. It is at the seller's discretion if they
want to end their item early or not.

In addition, you are correct eBay does not have a policy of recording
seller's cancelled auctions. This may be something to consider in the
future however.

If you would like to see a change in eBay policy or have other
suggestions, we would encourage you to write to our Product Marketing
Department by using our web form located at:

http://pages.ebay.com/help/basics/select-support.html

Our Product Marketing staff and eBay Management welcome the input of our
users and will gladly review your comments.

Thank you for taking the time to write in.

Regards,
Jared B.
eBay Customer Support Rep.



Even though eBay doesn't consider cancelling auctions early because of a lack of bids to be against their rules (at least according to the author of their response) I still don't belive that makes it "ethical." But, at the risk of starting a third thread on this topic, I wanted to post their response for everyone to see. Afterall, we are the "1000+ eBay members" of whom I was writing on behalf of. And even though their answer doesn't support my view (that cancelling auctions for this reason is against the rules) posting it is the ethical thing to do.

As a side note, I wish the eBay representative would have specifically said, "Sellers can cancel their listings for any reason at all", rather than saying "Any seller has the right to cancel all bids and end an auction early if they want to. " We already know they can cancel their listings (in general) but a specific question deserves a specific answer. But oh well, for now, it appears they see nothing wrong with this type of behavior.

-Dan

Dog97

In other words they sent you a 7 paragraph letter that didn't say a darn thing! They completely sidestepped the "reason."

newbiecollector

Exactly!!!!!! as Dog97 said.....that was a real good non-answer to a specific question.

ldhair

They have a data base full of canned responses. Cut and paste and baffle them with bs.

cacheman

Typical "Doublespeak".......or, the new product that's out, "Lawyer in a Can".

Dukie101

If you would like to see a change in eBay policy or have other
suggestions, we would encourage you to write to our Product Marketing
Department by using our web form located at:

http://pages.ebay.com/help/basics/select-support.html

Our Product Marketing staff and eBay Management welcome the input of our
users and will gladly review your comments.

Thank you for taking the time to write in.

Regards,
Jared B.
eBay Customer Support Rep.

So,why don't we just get a list of users here,stating changes we would like to see and forward?

mrdq

EBAY is a seller's medium, they make their money from the seller's. I doubt they'll start recording that and I doubt most people (from the ebay community as a whole) really care how many auctions have been cancelled. Look at the 1 million items (lots of it crap) posted every day. Who cares if the holly hobby pink dress auction was cancelled because it was only at 80 cents and should bring $1.25!! MUCH of the stuff is garage sale material anyway.

tom

supercoin

I don't agree with (and don't practice) the early-ending thing either, but given eBay's dismal record on cracking down on outright fraud, don't look for them to do anything on a mere ethical question.

Now, do something really evil like putting a link to your web page in your auction, and then they'll suddenly be all concerned about preserving the eBay community.

Russ

<< <i>They have a data base full of canned responses. >>



Idhair nailed it. The response may not even have been done by a human at all. It may be a 'bot using a keyword search of the inquiry that pastes in the response. eBay gets hundreds of thousands of eMail each year. It would not be that difficult to build a script to handle most of them, but nearly impossible to manually respond.

Russ, NCNE

hughesm1

<< <i>Typical "Doublespeak".......or, the new product that's out, "Lawyer in a Can". >>



Same answer 98% of our politicians would give (if they worked for Ebay instead.)

cointagious

well, we got our answer - clear as mud.

actually, what i read into is that they are aware of it and accept it. so, i guess it's...










ethical!

ritchiewan

The stance taken by ebay is that the item belongs to the seller to do with what they want up until the auction closes with the reserve met and a winner is announced. This comes from many hours setting in the soapbox, bidder and the technical forums on ebay (a very good source of information).

ritchie

IrishMike

As Pau Harvey is want to say,"Now it's time for the rest of the story, this is cut and pasted from Ebay:

A seller cancelled all bids and ended an auction early

eBay policy currently gives any seller the right to cancel all bids and end an auction early. We encourage sellers to post an addition to the description of the auction explaining why they have ended the auction early. However, this sometimes this does not happen.

If you have any additional questions about why this happened, we suggest you email the seller and ask them directly. If you think a seller may be abusing this policy, you can report the situation to us through our webform. When sending us an email Be sure to include all relevant auction numbers and User IDs.





--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
To send us an email, please go back to the previous page, scroll to the bottom and click 'Contact Support'.



It's even obvious to Ebay that cancelling sales early without a justification is unethical.

ritchiewan

Yes, but it is very very difficult to violate a policy that gives "seller the right to cancel all bids and end an auction early". What then is there to report?

ritchie

cointagious

knowledge is power.

i concur with the idea of tallying cancelled auctions and ebay providing that info to prospective bidders. i hope ebay does too.

WWBillman

Like was said in the other thread, Ebay is a sellers market and the sellers are their bread & butter. But without the buyers their would not be to many sellers to make money from. Its easy for them and the business that use Ebay to overlook that concept.
Ebay like many businesses and business men are only concerned with making money and ethics is very rarely a concern unless they feel they can profit from it. If we have learned anything in the last year from Enron and the likes Honesty, Integrity, & Ethics seldom play a role in business.
The only thing we as consumers can do is let them know we do not agree which I have done here. I will also be sending Ebay a letter expressing that same opinion. Until changes are made I will not bid in any auction where I know the seller practices this type of salesmanship. I appreciate all the honest ethical members of this board bringing these type of sellers to everyone’s attention and hope it continues. If there are dealers or sellers here who disagree and practice this type of salesmanship feel free to ring in with your Ebay ID I will be more than happy to spend my money elsewhere.

IrishMike

well cointagious, we finally found something we could both agree upon, took a while didn't it.

WWBillman

My letter to Ebay. I would encourage all who feel the same way to also let them know. Feel free to plagiarize parts of mine if you want.
................................................................................................


I am both a buyer and occasional seller on Ebay and have noticed a very disturbing trend developing within the seller community on Ebay.

Ebay has seller tools available for them to protect their investments and control the final sale price of their goods. They are called Reserves and minimum bids. If a seller is not wanting to part with his goods for less than a minimum dollar amount they can use that figure as a minimum bid or in plain sight for everyone to see let his potential buyers know he has a hidden reserve they must meet before he is willing to part with his goods. He then places his item up for sale.

When a seller instead chooses to list his item without a reserve with a low minimum bid he is telling all his potential customers I have no reserve and my goods are up for sale at whatever the current market deems them worth. He again places his item up for sale. A buyer in good faith enters into the contract and commits his money to purchase the item by placing his bid.
BUT, in reality the seller only know to himself has a reserve but is either cheap and avoiding the seller fees involved in listing a reserve or starting the auction at a higher opening bid to protect his investment, or is trying to entice more competitive bidding. Then when the seller sees he screwed up and his secret reserve is not met he ends the auction in the last few minutes refusing to sell his item.
There are only 4 reasons Ebay allows a seller to end an auction early and they are;

1. The item is no longer available for sale.
2. There was an error in the minimum bid or Reserve amount.
3. There was an error in the listing.
4. The item was lost or broken.

Reason #1 "The item is no longer available for sale." has a period at the end of it. "The item is no longer for sale in this specific auction because I did not use the seller tools available to me and do not want to sell it for that price" does not qualify in my opinion.

Or he will use #2 or #3. What it took him 3 to 10 days (depending on the length of the auction) to realize 1 minute before the end of an auction there was an error? The only error was he is to cheap to pay the fees to protect his investment or he is trying to entice more competitive bidding. That is not an error it was his choice.

Ebay has yet to completely define the rules in regards to ending an auction early and to much is left up to interpretation.

To me it boils down to seller ethics.
Some sellers choose to use the tools available to them and run an honest business.
Other seller instead choose to avoid fees and try to deceive and manipulate their prospective buyers in an attempt to maximize profits with little regard to their customers. They justify it by saying it is not against the rules.

We all know not being against the rules does not qualify behavior as being ethical.

Ebay has a very similar policy regarding bid retractions for buyers. In an attempt to ensure the bid retraction option is not abused Ebay records the number of retractions for each buyer on their feedback page for sellers to see and if they become habitual offenders it can lead to disciplinary action by Ebay.

Why in turn does Ebay not do the same to sellers who in my opinion are abusing the option to end auctions early?

Could Ebay please define the rules governing the ending of an auction early and/or implement a system where like bid retractions the number of times a seller ends their auctions early is recorded on their feedback page to warn potential buyers.

Enforcing the use of the seller tools available (reserves and higher opening bids) for sellers to protect their interests would increase revenue for Ebay and encourage more honest & ethical business practices for those sellers who otherwise do not care.

Thank You

William H. White
Ebay ID: wwbillman
...................................................................................................
Ebays Reply, I guess it is the best I can expect for now.




<< <i>Subj: Receipt of your email to eBay Suggestions (KMM57605523V86793L0KM)
Date: 08/04/2002 1:55:12 PM Central Daylight Time
From: cswebform@ebay.com
To: bwhite12265@aol.com

Thank you very much for sharing your suggestions with us. The
communication we receive from our community members is critical and,
although we are not able to personally respond to your message, we
appreciate the time it took to write us.

Our product development team is working to read, discuss, and process
the input that we get from our members. We are currently going through
many changes as we learn more about the emerging phenomenon known as
eBay, and we are engaging in projects to improve and expand our service
(As well as to address the incredible variety of entirely new issues
that are coming up every day). Ideas, constructive criticism and other
input from people who can see eBay from different perspectives are
extremely valuable.

However, there is one formality we would like to clarify. In order to
avoid any possible misunderstanding, we must advise you that any
comments or materials you have submitted or may submit to us, including
questions, technical or creative suggestions or ideas, are considered to
be non-confidential and non-proprietary.

Because we are trying our best to handle each of the suggestions that
come into the suggestion box with care, this isn't the best place to
reach eBay for support if there is a problem that you need to have
addressed quickly. The general customer support teams are working around
the clock to help our members by answering questions, providing
assistance, and doing anything else they can do to help. For any
general questions, or if you need help with your activities on eBay, you
can write directly to a Support Representative by accessing the webform
located here:

http://pages.ebay.com/help/basics/select-support.html

Please be sure to select a topic other than those listed under
suggestions. A Customer Support Representative will be in touch with
you within 24 hours in most cases.

For news and information regarding new developments and changes to eBay,
you can access the Announcement Board here:

http://www2.ebay.com/aw/announce.shtml

Again, thank you for taking the time to help us learn more about what
you want and need from our service. >>

supercoin

Hello Bill,

Thank you for taking the time to write to us with your concerns. I would
be happy to assist you further.

I understand you are contacting us today regarding sellers ability to
end their listing(s) early.

Any seller has the right to cancel all bids and end an auction early if
they want to. I can only imagine your disappointment, but the seller
does have the right to do this. It is at the seller's discretion if they
want to end their item early or not.

In addition, you are correct eBay does not have a policy of recording
seller's cancelled auctions. This may be something to consider in the
future however.

If you would like to see a change in eBay policy, please stuff it.

Thank you for taking the time to write in.

Regards,
R. Bot
eBay Customer Support Rep.


Color me cynical.

dorkkarl

pete, i have tried asking question of ebay at least a dozen times. i've gotten jared before when it was his turn to wake up and hit the reply key on their auto-reply generator. the dude is a zombie. bet: ask him a follow up question, and 2 things will happen: (1) "jared" won't be the one replying, it'll be another zombie, and (2) zombie #2 will suggest taking the issue to the management level, which is just another room full of zombies.

i gave up on asking ebay direct questions years ago. i have absolutely NEVER gotten a meaningful reply to any question b4.

K S

Charles

I think a better idea is for each of us who disagree with Ebays cancellation policy to write the Wall Street Journal vowing not to bid on any Ebay auctions until Ebay changes they're policy. I'm doing that tonight. Anyone else?

Charles

dorkkarl

HEY RITCHIEWAN, are you a PICK dude??? dont EVEN be telling me that you are!!!

i started on a mcdonnell-douglass in 1979 running reality. you?

K S

1956Quarter

So much for "Be sure you want to make this bid before you bid. By bidding you are making a BINDING contract with the seller to purchase this item." BUNK!!!