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Automated Scripts Overrun eBay Holiday Contest
turnkeylinux writes "TechCrunch is reporting that eBay is under fire from users because of a holiday giveaway contest gone awry. On Tuesday Nov. 25, eBay announced its $1 Holiday Doorbusters deals promotion, giving away 100 gifts on a daily basis, all for a $1 fixed price. The gifts ranged from jewelry, clothing, digital cameras, and GPS devices to a brand-new Chevrolet Corvette. The only catch is that there's no announcement on when these items are released or in which category they will be. But cheaters came up with a clever way of winning deals on an automated basis by continuously running scripts to bid on items for $1."
story at 11.
Yes i make scripts for just such purposes. Oh, and visit my sponsor Big-Al's-house-o-porn.com
Are these scripts still running. Seems like it's time to list a ton of stuff for a buck that wouldn't even sell at a garage sale. I wonder if they check the shipping price... could really nail them then.
Reviewing just the first hour of video games.
eBay needs help. They have alienated there sellers, gone to supporting "stores" more than hobby/small-time sellers, and they take almost 10% of sells.
Now they show they can't think through the obvious implications of a badly designed promotion (scam).
Really ebay would do much better to cut their fees and support the mom and pops in this economic environment. I think the time is ripe for competition in the on-line auction market. http://poorbenjamin.blogspot.com/2008/08/for-jerry-yang-to-ponder.html
Think Deeply.
Meanwhile, bot scripts are being offered on RentACoder for $20 and even free of charge here and there.
How can I sell my scripts if there is someone giving them out for free? This is outrageous!
Any life is made up of a single moment, the moment in which a man finds out, once and for all, who he is.
I don't see how making a script of this sort is cheating. If they don't want to allow scripting that is their problem to try and stop but anyone with the knowhow will realize that spending 30 min writing a script is much better then spending 24 hrs/day hitting refresh on the same search.
It seems Ebay's advertising CEO's have trumped it's techinicians, as is inevitable in all companies.
giving away 100 gifts on a daily basis, all for a $1 fixed price"
Isn't this wrong? If you charge for something, you are not giving it away, right? It seem that it is more like selling for a cheap price that anything else...
-- dnl
I've seen this done on a few other websites as well... wowhead.com (World of Warcraft db) ran a contest where you had to find where 5 different pictures were located on the site. It wasn't the best contest as the name of the file name was the exact same that they used for the caption as the filename for the page. So what people ended up doing was caching the whole site and just doing a quick search for where file name *******.jpg was located at.
The first year it was in business, it was fun and useful.
Now it is so-called "power sellers". Just a bunch of merchants
without a brick and mortar presence.
Let it die the death it deserves and stop posting eBay related
CRAP.
me@localhost:$ python grinch.py -bid_a_buck_on_ebay
1) List a single paperclip
2) Let Bots bid $1
3) ?????
4) Profit!!!!
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
I missed out due to timing (Probably a script beat me) but a proper search, with auto refresh added to page does just fine.
The solution is to put out a lot of fake items (e.g. empty envelope sent by USPS) for $1 as well. The automated script wins thousands of these, bankrupting the Script Kiddies. Moral: Look before you bid.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Whoever came up with this idea should have bothered to put a minimum time limit. Even if someone is super-speedy, it should take at least a half second to click the "bid" button, load the bidding page, and hit submit.
I would have at least set up a new random bid URL for each items so people couldn't just hitting the URL for regular bidding and would need to take the time to download the item page before finding the URL for that item. Plus, after they caught on, that'd reduce the # of false bids on other $1 items.
But then I've done similar myself, although not so scummy, just auto-buying a Wii(at the regular price) from Amazon so I didn't have to stay awake all night for the 5 minute window that it was in stock.
I still feel OK with it, since I didn't check Amazon more frequently than I would have hitting F5 and scalpers are still selling it for a $100 mark up this long after release.
All they had to do is make it so that there was a reasonable minimum bid on the items. I bet no one would be writing scripts to automtically bid the minimum on every item on the site...
I agree with brian0918, unless its stated in the user agreement, there is no "cheating" occuring. They are just smart...
When are dumb business people that come up with these ideas going to be weeded out of the IT industry? eBay is an Internet company and yet they amaze me in how much they do not understand the Internet; the slashdot crowd should be used as consultants to test out stupid ideas like this and at least discover what may be an Achilles heal(the real strength of trolls.) People should should stop shopping there and let them fade into the internet as a relic of the early 2000s.
Since the economy is taking a big dumb, I am betting they are leveraged to the max like lots of other companies and it should be easy to tip them into bankruptcy - hopefully Chapter 7. How many people have gotten screwed by eBay because they are not accountable to those that buy goods in their marketplace? I can name several people that have been screwed by eBay, which is almost equal to as many people as have been touched by cancer in my life - 1 in 3. It is amazing that eBay wants to eat their cake and have it too by creating a marketplace and not protecting their buyers. Needless to say, I don't know anyone that goes to buy stuff on eBay. Why would we if they don't care about their reputation?
just setup lots of auctions with bits of scrap paper for 1$ and set the P&P to $10.
In fact I have a load of junk mail I would like to sell on ebay.
they just couldput in a recaptcha... prevent bot bidding and help digitize books... it's win-win!
I'm the Devil the Windows users warned you about.
This should be easy to catch. Just search the database for users making a few thousand $1 bids per day. Normal users probably won't be doing that level of bidding, especially all at the same price. Of course, then the script writers could make the bids random values between $1 and $2 (eating the extra $1 would be nothing if your prize is really worth a few hundred or thousand dollars). Still, looking for users making a large number of low cost bids should be a warning flag.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
Ebay tried to make things harder for the scripters as time went on. The first few days, the listings were simply text, easily searched by bots (http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=270311657856&ru). They then shifted over to making the entire description an image (http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=270313225226&ru).
I agree with parent. This sound's more like skill and cunning winning out (assuming scripter wrote their own code).
Hear me out. We pay athletes way too much money because they have skills that a supposedly worth that much (my bias is probably obvious). Here is some skill "players" taking advantage of scripting to get some rewards.
This isn't gaming the system like sniping or similar. It has no direct impact on most people (maybe if you were forced to pay fees on a $1 item you put for auction and had the script bid)..I'm not out anything unless I honestly believed I was going to beat out the million other people looking for the prize.
Seems somewhat like "Real Genius" with scripts instead of post cards. Well my opinion anyway..and..I'm not much of an eBayer so I could be missing the point (prefer craigslist)
I love the sound of distortion in the morning -- webcommando
The problem with buying on Craigslist is that you have to be careful where you go and who you buy from and who you sell to.
I've had good experiences selling some items, but I'm always REAL wary of prospective buyers who email you one-line questions like "Where do you live?" It's too easy to have it become a burglars' shopping service, or even if they buy something not terribly expensive, they get a chance to case your house. Buying is a whole other risk category; wandering into a strange house/neighborhood for a deal with a few hundred dollars in your pocket can be risky. There have been several stories about people getting robbed in the local news media.
Personally, my stuff for sale I've kept in the garage and only let the buyers in there and not into the rest of my house. I also holster up my Glock in case something weird were to happen, and I would certainly do the same if I went to buy something.
I'm sure the robberies are more the exception than the rule and if you don't assume there's a great deal on expensive items in the ghetto you won't have problems, but it still gets risky.
Use a CAPTCHA. End of scripted bids, scripted sniping, and anything else that removes the human element from the process.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
Those look like analogue stations. In 2009, they'll disappear, whiteband or no whiteband.
Sounds to me more like the guy who made his living playing a game at Chuck E Cheese. You know the one with the slots that you use a plunger to push the prize out? Sorry I can't find a link and I have NO clue how to find that page again. anyway he had a similar machine in his Dad's store and got to play it for free any time he wanted. He figured out that the expensive prize was always in the exact same slot wherever he went and figured out how using muscle memory to hit that slot dead perfect every time. So now he cleans out the slot at Chuck E Cheese,bars,etc from one side of the country to another and sells the prizes.
So just like that guy it sounds like these script guys found a legal weak spot in the system and used their brains to exploit it to their advantage. Since in any endeavor where large sums of money can be had for little risk there will ALWAYS be someone looking for the weak spots to give them an edge(Like you pointed out with "Real Genius") the only one with the problem is eBay for not bothering to think things through.
I just wish a new place would come along and kick eBay's ass. I used to love shopping on eBay but they have become such a BS scam, with eBay often screwing both sides to boot, that I closed my account and haven't bothered to go back in over 3 years. And I know that I am far from alone. Talking to my friends they have all decided to avoid eBay like the clap simply because they got burnt one too many times either as a buyer or a seller and all they got from eBay was "tough shit", so like me they simply won't go near the place. Just too much risk with too little chance of reward.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
The problem is that chargebacks are too easy to do and often favor buyers.
This is one problem that's not very easy to solve. I think the best you could do is use a camcorder and record a video of you shipping and mailing your items. In your case, you would also need a video of opening up the package.
Of course this is a PITA but for high value items, it would be worth it. There's also the satisfaction of fucking over a scammer.
eBay can list 100 million pennies for sale, each with a reserve price of $1. By the end of the contest, the script kiddies get a bill for $1 million.
Welcome to my friends list. "legal asshole" meet your consul in the form of "But I'm not hurting anyone" and backup singer "They're a big company. They deserve it". Seen on tour with "I'm not with them but I secretly agree".
Shai Schticks:"You don't make peace with friends, you make peace with enemies"
"But cheaters came up with a clever way of winning deals on an automated basis by continuously running scripts to bid on items for $1."
I'd like to think that I'm not a dumbass -- but how is this cheating? Isn't laissez-faire capitalism the point of eBay? In a free market, the cunning are the victors. Plain and simple.
Did they really expect folks to waste two entire weeks searching the world's worst flea market for their picayune door prizes? Furthermore, when a punk kid can outwit your marketing promotion of the year with a few lines of code, maybe it's time to rethink your strategy.
Not a Jew
Comment removed based on user account deletion
That would be some case to explain to the postal inspector why all the postcards you bought arrived used with a canceled stamp while the auction says you paid for a postcard.
You can't initiate a digital connection when our birds squack our signals all over your reception. Digital is so lossy, it's more a gimick and a way for FCC to move from the non-contract unlicensed analog to the implicit contract privileged and overregulated Digital that has all their New World Order anti first-amendment that the original public didn't suffer under with analog signal technologies in the old guard.
Smart people didn't go to high school; most not even public school. They go to the library under guidance and challenge of a prepaid tutor. Anyways...Use registered mail on a parcel to the postal station (general delivery) and U.S. Customs declaration on an invitation to pickup the parcel at the street address where the buyer wanted title to hold. It doesn't matter if they are in same country or even town; unlimited commercial liability is international mail, and documenting the exchange is alot more thorough and respectful without compeling residence and limited liability "doing business here" statute bullshit that a tranfer between a man and man tends to trespass upon.
Making your own documentation is just as well predictable bias and unsightly procedure as to portray the act of packaging your property into your box and merely dropping it in any colorable mailslot without an officer/clerk. Get someone of expert witness, experienced, and qualified to make the presentment on your behalf; some of them can be found employed by USPS, but it's kind of hard to pay them to WORK FOR YOU without becoming a customer under their legislated disabilities overlayed upon a person they always expose to income taxation despite being an equal exchange without profit and without gain. USPS really has the majority of idiots employed, in my precise opinion; none but the oldest from prior 1964 actually read the postal bulletins of the original office and department and fewer and fewer actually know the intent of the legistlated enactments in their scope and the difference between a U.S. Territory or State of the U.S as opposed to an American province. They apply whatever code they can just to increase revenue, even if it means to declare you are a resident from Washington D.C. residing in your state; like you were born out of a testtube.
I swear, none of you have an ounce of entrepreneurial wit to your character. Feedback is a bogus and proprietary feature that improves perception and builds confidence in advertising and marketing.
If you are looking to dedicate a title to property for trade/exchange (not sale/resale that eBay impels everyone into to assist provokation of increased revenue ghosted to IRS), then describe every function in the title and not the image and accessory. If it arrives to the same accuracy as to the title of property that was traded currency towards, then all hands on deck shove-off already. If nothing matching that title has arrived, even if a parcel containing property that doesn't match, then market it return-to-sender and tampered-property-before-delivery. Use registered mail and U.S. Customs declarations, don't use the ZIP Code functions of Certified Mail, Insured Mail, and all that other cruft that required the cognizance of the corporation United States inside the federal zone facilitated by the ZIP+4 product for a postal customer. Postal customers have no rights in commerce; a postal patron, pursuant to reservations preserved in the Civil Rights Act, trumps all bullshit that limited liability tries to steal into the equation of an out-of-state and international transfer of title to property.
It is difficult to uphold your rights today. Employees of USPS are not expert witness; they fuck everything up and tamper with mail as any criminal would. I'ld trust my mail more to a thief if I chose anyone but whom I trained myself, but all I can do is treat the matter as though USPS agrees to buy the property and pay fines if they so much as allow one of their retards violate the matter out of their position of trust.
Time to clean out all those air guitars I was holding on to, and damn, I had so many too. Guess $1's not a bad profit for them though.
This sounds alot to what happened to the online sales of tickets for AC/DC in Belgium (and i suppose other places too), whom were almost impossible to buy through the ticketsales websites due to overload (the overload actually started the day before the sales even opened), and the backlash even prompted investigations by the department of commerce (since the tickets popped up on lots of black market sites). Basicly, online sales of limited items opens a large, *VERY LARGE* window for abuse, especially if the items will only go up in value & the costs of a botnet is cheap enough.