Glad to be of help. Anytime we can ruin your day, just let us know!

Deadlord39 wrote:Glad to be of help. Anytime we can ruin your day, just let us know!

Text from the footer of every eBay press release states that the website is "an online marketplace which brings buyers and sellers together", and yet per Deadlord eBay has "just spent two years on an overhaul of their systems and procedures to prevent...direct contact between a seller and a buyer."

bonk!

I'm certainly not saying don't do it. Personally I could give a rat's arse. But it IS against the rules. Unethical? I think it's unethical for eBay to cater to its customers based on sales, so phuq 'em.

I thought I'd chime in here too!     I could really care less about the "ethics" of it . . . especially from ebay's point of view.

However . . . anyone who sends me an unsolicited email I instantly consider a P.O.S. spammer and they are blocked, reported (if necesary) and generally despised by me.  

Now . . . that is not to say that you're a bad guy . . . but, come on . . . with all the spam crap people have to deal with in the mailboxes . . . please . . . sending someone an unsolicited email is a horrendously annoying, crappy thing to do.  I don't care what you have to offer . . . spam is spam and it all sucks ass.

Will you lot give it a rest and get back to maintaining the Interesting Items threads please!!! How am I meant to find decent stuff if you're all hanging out here?

Fact is, ebay has cornered the market and then set out to abuse that position in every conceivable way. They couldn't give a rat's arse about the buyer or the seller as can easily be determined from their policies. If you see a bidder paying 100% over the odds in auction then you should be able to jump in and offer them a deal - that's what supply and demand market trading is all about. Ebay operates a protected market policy on the back of a virtual monopoly. And the money they take (8.2% final value fees in the UK right now, pure theft) they blow on crackpot schemes like Skype. If they'd have kept their greed in check and left Skype to fail for lack of a business model (just like an other ill conceived venture) they could have handed a little back to the people who pay their wages. Now they'll probably flog Skype in a cut price deal - that's our money vanishing into thin air. I agree spam is a pain but ebay could at least stop hiding shop listings in a barn behind the main store. Imagine you bought a display item for $20 and then found it on sale behind a curtain for $10 after you cleared checkout? That's how ebay operates and I don't see how that benefits the customer at all. I wouldn't break their rules, even though I don't agree with them, but any loophole or technicality available and I wouldn't hesitate. I don't think ethics enters into it where ebay is concerned. What we all need is a serious competitor, one launched in the spirit of the Internet. Don't see it coming along though.

Anyway, back to work in the Interesting Items threads please, no more shirking!

Not that I'm the most prolific buyer or anything, but I've never received a "hey, you lost this item, I'm selling it here" PM after an auction concludes. I have, however, gotten more than one "hey, you outbid me on this item, can I have xeroxes pls?!?!". On the grand scale of ethics and retribution I would much rather aim a well-placed kick at sender of the latter.

If you sent me one of those emails on that basis I'd be delighted. Just noticed another kick at shop sellers, the "Shop eBay Shops" panel on the main search. Sure, it shows shops that have items matching the search, but favours the shops that have those items out for auction or BIN. So for coverage you have to start dumping stock into auction which is pretty much a game of roulette. And means higher fees of course. Maybe this is the answer to the question I've seen raised, why do people set the same auction and BIN price - just advertising. I ended up hoping that some of my stuff didn't sell last auction, just to keep a presence in search.

I did send a mail pointing a second place bidder to a matching item - once. I knew the bidder's track record, knew he wanted the item, knew I had it at literally 33% of the bid price and I sent the mail without thinking because it was such an obvious thing to do. Then it dawned on me and I checked the guidelines. Sure enough, what I'd done was classed as commercial spam. Ridiculous but those are the rules and we all know why. I also send mails to people who have bought from me and have asked for items I don't have. If I spot those items on sale from another seller I send a link. Still commercial spam according to the rules but stuff it, I could equally put the link here and just direct the buyer to it.

Beyondthebreach wrote:anyone who sends me an unsolicited email I instantly consider a P.O.S. spammer and they are blocked, reported (if necesary) and generally despised by me.  

I raise the "long lost brother" objection to that one.  

bonk!

Well after reading more of these posts I have altered my choice.  I will probably still be doing it for the items that get alot of bid activity or are especially hard to find in a certain condition. As for those that think it is "sad" or "patheticc" well you won't have to deal with me doing it for too long. I am not in this as a business. Pretty much once the items from my two collections are gone I will not be selling RPG items anymore. I have been having kind of fun watching items and keep track of the prices of certain items using trusty old Excel (I am kind of a statistics geek that way) but I probably won't keep going with it.

P.S. I see on these forums that Cougarrind has a pretty bad name in these parts. I am sure tha my two cents won't count for squat but I did conclude a sale to him about two weeks ago that seemed to go just fine. It took us about a month and half to complete it (he was watching my other items to see if I was going to sell any in lots) but when all was said and done I sent him out the packages, left him positive feedback, he received the product, and thne left me reciprocal positive feedback. I am sure when you are dealing with the number of transactions that he seems to deal in there are bound to be some that wind up being classified as "poor". It is just the nature of business.