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."

Comments

Time to offload some crap

[hansamurai]

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.

Re:Time to offload some crap

[theaveng]

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.

Re:Time to offload some crap

[theaveng]

P.S.

And of course with Ebay's "brilliant" idea to not let sellers give buyers negative feedback, there's no way for us to warn other sellers about these deadbeat non-paying bidders. Yippee.

Re:Time to offload some crap

[nizo]

Your life won't be complete until you augment your iPhone with a new postcard! Bidding starts at only $1!!

Re:Time to offload some crap

[xgr3gx]

Oooh! Scam the scammers!
Sell a bunch of worthless crap for $1 and charge $8 shipping.
Assuming you can get the script to automatically pay with paypal, I'll be selling all of the pennies in my change jar for $9 each!

Re:Time to offload some crap

[tlhIngan]

Really? You can't leave negative feedback for buyers?

What is the point of feedback?

Because a good chunk of sellers won't leave feedback until the buyers leave them positive feedback. It became a tit-for-tat system, where sellers could get 100% feedback ratings because buyers who got scammed refused to leave neutral or negative feedback. There were even lawsuits threatened (and maybe even launched) because sellers took negative feedback as libel.

Buyers have few recourses if scammed by a bad seller. Sellers who have a non-paying bidder though, should file a complaint with eBay (who is supposed to refund all fees due, and mark the buyer, I don't know if this happens).

Feedback is supposed to rate the trustworthiness of buyers and (especially) sellers. It's a bit more important for a seller because buyers use that to determine if they should bid since once payment is sent, recourse is limited. Pretty much the worst that can happen for a seller who has a bad buyer is they don't pay. (Of course, there is the issue with sellers claiming they didn't receive it or it was damaged, which is why there's tracking information and insurance, all of which a seller can mandate).

I will agree though that eBay's system is horribly screwed up (as a buyer). Some sellers have gone to use the (neg) in the comments to mean negative feedback. A system where feedback is kept hidden until both parties have sent it in (keeping tit-for-tat at bay) would work better.

Re:Time to offload some crap

[Mister Whirly]

Too expensive. I plan on selling individual toothpicks for $1 - and saying "winner must pick up item in person". I like a profit of $1 per item.

Re:Time to offload some crap

[Poruchik]

As a seller, now I have no recourse against a bad buyer. Ebay does not refund ALL fees, just the final value fee, which is a percentage of the final price that the buyer pays. I lose the insertion fee (which would be refunded if an item is relisted, but not for multiple item auctions) and any and all listing upgrade fees that are substantial. So in essense, it is GOOD for Ebay to have non paying buyers, as they get double the fees if the item has to be relisted.

Re:Time to offload some crap

[theaveng]

So now we have a solution where buyers can blackmail sellers with comments like, "Give me free shipping or I'll leave a negative on your account," and of course ebay won't do anything to stop the buyers from this blackmail.

>>>Buyers have few recourses if scammed by a bad seller.

Bullshit. I'm a buyer and I have LOTS of recourse for protecting myself:
- threaten to neg seller if he does not do the right thing (not very effective)
- file paypal complaint (you almost always win)
- file credit card chargeback (you win 100%)
- court lawsuit

The real problem is: Who protects the sellers? I had a buyer return an EMPTY envelope to me, and then she filed a credit chargeback to reverse $80 out of my account while she kept the PSP handheld. There was nothing I could do to stop this scam, or any future scams. It's the buyers who are best-protected, and the sellers who are most vulnerable.

Re:Time to offload some crap

[bev_tech_rob]

Here is a quote from the MSNBC article about the same issue...pretty funny :P

"This is picture I took of my cat with my Cannon Powershot Camera after she overheard that people where using scripting to purchase HOLIDAY DOORBUSTERS items on eBay. Not responsible for poor scripting techniques."

Re:Time to offload some crap

[sukotto]

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.

Re:Time to offload some crap

[BlueNoteMKVI]

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.

Re:The internet is full of assholes...

[orthancstone]

When griefing gets boring in online games, take it to the next best place: Ebay!

eBay

[olddotter]

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

Re:eBay

[cwAllenPoole]

s/eBay/Microsoft/ The basic problem though is monopoly. Once an organization reaches critical mass, it has the ability to simply dwarf the competition. Look at how long it has taken to get Firefox to reach its current position, and alternate OS's still haven't managed to even dent the mega-corps. Fortunately things are never quite that bad on the internet, but the fundamental issues are the same.

Re:eBay

[timholman]

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.

The problem is that eBay quit being an auction site a long time ago, and now has become the world's biggest flea market. There's nothing necessarily wrong with that; I often will buy some inexpensive item from a "Buy It Now" power seller, but I gave up on actually bidding for items a long time ago. Between the scammers and the snipers, it's not worth the hassle. The power sellers are now eBay's true customer base, and that's who they cater to.

Nowadays I find that Craigslist typically provides a better selection of high-end merchandise, plus you deal with local sellers and buyers without the overhead. The real problem, I think, is that the online auction business model is slowly becoming obsolete - otherwise, you'd see legitimate competitors taking over the market segment that eBay has turned its back on.

Now _this_ is unfair

[Andr T.]

From TFA:

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!

Cheaters?

[forand]

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.

Re:Cheaters?

[brian0918]

The two are similar in no way, and sticking them next to eachother in the same post does nothing to make them similar. One is a violation of the rights of another - taking their property without their permission. The other, at best, may be a violation of some end user agreement, resulting in the termination of the user's account, but no rights are being violated. eBay is selling the stuff for $1, and people found a way to find the stuff and buy it. The transaction is made with both parties acting voluntarily. Where's the problem?

Too bad.

[Jeheto]

It seems Ebay's advertising CEO's have trumped it's techinicians, as is inevitable in all companies.

Re:The internet is full of assholes...

[Archangel Michael]

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.

Re:The internet is full of assholes...

[kiwimate]

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.

Re:The internet is full of assholes...

[DRue]

/me hurridly begins posting his "ebook" on ebay for $1 each.

Re:The internet is full of assholes...

[jhRisk]

More assholes need to get fucked.

Re:The internet is full of assholes...

[bberens]

By using that logic no company should ever advertise because it raises the base cost of doing business... which is bad for their customers. The reality is that advertising increases market share which generally lowers the per transaction cost and saves customers money. If we all thought your way there'd be no such thing as marketing. Wait.. maybe you're on to something...

They Tried (but mostly failed)

[Anonymous Coward]

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).

Re:The internet is full of assholes...

[TheLink]

Maybe it's time to sell my set of foldable[1] air guitars. They're still in mint condition since I rarely play them.

[1] Folds up and fits nicely in an envelope. Cool eh?

Re:The internet is full of assholes...

[paeanblack]

If the automated scripts are just placing a $1 bid on everything they find, it sounds like a good time to ebay the contents of my penny jar...individually.

Re:The internet is full of assholes...

[Technician]

If the automated scripts are just placing a $1 bid on everything they find, it sounds like a good time to ebay the contents of my penny jar...individually.

I was thinking more along the lines of state quarters, plus S&H and insurance. Maybe the next sale will be a money maker as the script kiddies find their liability for their purchases mount. If they relesed quarters at 1500 items to each sale item, it would kill the profitability of the scripts and the problem would go away.

Re:The internet is full of assholes...

[Archangel Michael]

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.

Re:The internet is full of assholes...

[coopaq]

Buyers have no incentive to pay anymore, but you always pay to list the item.

Feedback has been removed so shill bidding is easy.

Re:The internet is full of assholes...

[Rary]

It's not just assholes that the world is full of.

See, there's three kinds of people: dicks, pussies, and assholes. Pussies think everyone can get along, and dicks just want to fuck all the time without thinking it through. But then you got your assholes, Chuck. And all the assholes want is to shit all over everything! So, pussies may get mad at dicks once in a while, because pussies get fucked by dicks. But dicks also fuck assholes, Chuck. And if they didn't fuck the assholes, you know what you'd get? You'd get your dick and your pussy all covered in shit!

Re:Craigslist

[alienw]

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 internet is full of backup singers.

[Ostracus]

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".

Re:The internet is full of assholes...

[iamhassi]

"How is this ripping off eBay?"

Well... by cheating on the contest, it's hurting eBay customers, which could be interpreted as "ripping off" eBay, because they may lose money on this.

However these scripts aren't doing anything ebay wasn't already designed to do. Here's the $1 Corvette auction. Says "Holiday Doorbusters" in text in the auction and it's a $1 auction, so anyone with half a brain could search all auction text for "Holiday Doorbusters" and narrow the search to only auctions that are $1. You can do this manually within the search tools provided by eBay, and that functionality on ebay has been available for many years. Dozens of programs existed for the past few years that can automatically search titles and auctions for keywords and limit it to under a certain price. I have one I use that I know has been around since at least 2003, and I'm sure eBay knows these programs exist.

So if anything eBay did this to themselves and encouraged the "cheating" by making it so simple to do. If they really wanted people to search ebay for great deals they should have made the whole page an image, that would have prevented searching at least.