Archive of UserLand's first discussion group, started October 5, 1998.
Re: scriptingNews outline for 9/11/2000
Author: Chaz Larson Posted: 9/11/2000; 1:15:32 PM Topic: scriptingNews outline for 9/11/2000 Msg #: 21187 (In response to 21185) Prev/Next: 21186 / 21188
Does that mean that the $10 million bid is not for real?Quite possibly it isn't. To place a bid on eBay, all you need to "commit" to is having an email account on a POP server, basically. You can't register using an email address on Yahoo or similar services.
I just created an email account using Apple's iTools using a false name and the address of a restaurant in Boston. I then went over to eBay and registered for an account using that email addy and the same mailing address.
Once you have an eBay ID, all you need do is type a number into a web form and hit "submit".
When someone bids $10 million how commited are they?
Not very, in my opinion. First, there's really no assurance that a given bidder is who they say they are or is even a real person.
Once an auction closes, eBay takes a selling fee from the seller [using the credit card that the seller is required to provide] and then leaves it up to the seller and buyer to coordinate the consummation of the actual transaction. eBay doesn't get directly involved in making sure the buyer pays or that the seller deliver, generally. They do have arbitration and escrow and other fraud-resistant services available, but if the high bidder is some user whose only contact information is an email address that goes unanswered and the address and phone number of a restaurant in Boston, who are you going to enter into arbitration with?
Meanwhile eBay has the selling fee. You can apply to have that selling fee refunded in the event that the buyer doesn't come through [among other things], but that's an application for refund.
I really don't know how eBay would handle a real [edited after reading Lawrence's post] auction with a $120,000 selling fee, like this one. I don't imagine any seller is going to have a credit card with $120,000 in available credit.
The eBay feedback rating is the primary way of gauging the integrity of buyers and sellers. For example, my feedback rating of 156 indicates that I've gotten "thumbs up" from at least 156 other eBay users, and the lack of any negative feedback in there shows I've never gotten a "thumbs down" from anyone.
A feedback rating of 0 indicates that the user hasn't received any "thumbs up". Or that they've received equal numbers of thumbs-up and thumbs-down. Most likely it indicates a new user with no history. The user might be a fine, upstanding young man. They're equally likely to be a non-existent email address. That's why I won't risk much money buying from a zero.
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