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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."
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.
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.
You read my mind. I have a few items left-over from last Christmas that didn't sell even when marked down to 0.01 so maybe they'll sell now this year to one of these script-kiddies.
DRAWBACK: A lot of these script-kiddies are probably deadbeat non-payers as well. Surely they are not going to buy 10,000 items that they won last week for a dollar each. Instead they'll just refuse to pay and leave sellers to eat the losses in Ebay fees.
FOX NEWS.com should be BANNED from television and internet. Have the Congress take it over and give us Truespeak.
World is full of Assholes ... And Assholes use the law to continue to be assholes.
Everyone knows an asshole. You know, the guy/gal who sits on the fence of the law, skirting around the edges, being an asshole and taking every advantage to be one.
We all know we want to punch the asshole in the face, because they definitely deserve it, but we also know that the Asshole will sue and so we don't.
We're in the age of the "legal asshole", the asshole that never breaks any law, but abuses the gray areas simply because they can.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
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.
How is this ripping off eBay? They were going to sell this item at $1 anyway. If anyone's being ripped off, it's the other eBay users who now realistically have zero chance (as opposed to a miniscule chance) of getting lucky and scoring a nice holiday bonus.
I agree with brian0918, unless its stated in the user agreement, there is no "cheating" occuring. They are just smart...
The perfect compromise would be that sellers CAN leave feedback, but they must leave feedback BEFORE the buyer can. Once I give a seller my money, they have everything they need to give me feedback, and they know everything that they and other sellers need to know about me, that I pay on time. I should feel free to leave any feedback I feel appropriate for a seller without worrying that they will leave me negative retaliatory feedback.
In many places that is still against the law, even if you could get the Asshole to agree to such an invasion. Not getting permission first is definitely a bad idea, and illegal in most jurisdictions.
ON an asside note, most bad laws are written because some Asshole did something that wasn't against the law. So they write a law to make it illegal so we can "legally" punch them in the face (ie jail or fine).
You'll see this everytime someone says ... "There ought to be a law". No, there shouldn't be a law, we should be allowed to punch assholes for being assholes.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Some people are already doing that as a way of revenge against the scripters.....a woman was selling pictures of her cat for $1 each by putting DOOR BUSTERS in the picture description.....sold quite a few according to one article.....nice.....
You're messin' with my Zen Thing, man.....
Buyers have no incentive to pay anymore, but you always pay to list the item.
Feedback has been removed so shill bidding is easy.
Why waste any more of your time? Donate anything reasonably nice to the Salvation Army or Goodwill or Freecycle and throw the rest away.
Free yourself from your "stuff"
Give up on those "penny here, dollar there" items and go spend the time you save doing something fun.
Come play free flash games on Kongregate!
I disagree. I sold some used motorcycle parts a few years ago, clearly stating in the auction that the parts were used and taking very close-up detailed pictures of the parts. Despite that, one buyer left me negative feedback because the item was "scratched." I can think of a dozen other hypothetical situations where I would want to leave negative feedback for a buyer, most involving the buyer not reading the auction or trying to scam a refund after the fact for some BS reason. If a customer is consistently an idiot then he deserves a bad rating so sellers can stay away from him. In the past, eBay would threaten to disable accounts with very poor feedback (I don't know if they ever did). That could save a lot of people a lot of grief.
That's not to say that there aren't dishonest sellers out there. Those sellers deserve negative feedback. Regardless, without any accountability for the buyer, sellers can easily get screwed over.
"The reality is that advertising ... saves customers money."
Amazing, that must be why pharmaceuticals are so inexpensive.
Increased market share reduces cost to the consumer? Where is the maximum on the curve, because clearly a perfect monopoly does not result in the lowest cost to the consumer, since it can charge whatever it wants. Your comment got modded funny, but maybe for the wrong reason.
...the future crusty old bastards are already drinking the Kool-Aid.
Unless you live in a fucking ghetto, I don't think this concern is justified. It wouldn't be very smart to rob someone right outside your own house, particularly when the victim has your address. As far as burglars: unless you are selling drugs on Craigslist, I really doubt anything you put on there will interest them. Burglars are opportunistic, and will pick a house that looks like an easy target. They won't spend months researching Craigslist.
You need to be a little less paranoid. Not sure what it is with gun nuts, but you guys are very much out of touch with reality.
The seller is still able to mark an item as not being paid for, which affects a user's eBay rating.
S.D.Rycroft http://www.simon.rycroft.name