posted on September 23, 2001 08:21:13 AM new
The web space where my pictures are stored is down right now, but since I have auctions ending this morning and I don't want them to end with no pictures, I uploaded the photos to a different server and planned to revise the auctions which don't yet have bids. And what do I find but the big, ugly message:
You are not allowed to update an item's information within the last 12 hours of a listing.
What the...?!?!?!
Does anyone know why this is? I don't recall that "rule" being in place before. Is there a good reason for it, or is it just an inexplicable whim of eBay's?
posted on September 23, 2001 08:52:29 AM new
I believe it's related to the policy of no bid retractions during the last 12 hours of bids that were placed more than 12 hours ago.
If the seller were allowed to make changes in the last 12 hours, then a bidder could complain that they needed to make a retraction in the last 12 hours because the seller materially changed the listing.
The intention of these rules are to prevent auction manipulation, where a bidder places a low bid then an artifically high bid with another ID, then retracts the high bid within the last 12 hours, leaving the lower bid standing.
Although, I don't understand why bidders are still allowed to place a bid within 12 hours of ending and are able to retract that bid.
I had this happen to me when I sold a Pipeline 50 router on eBay. The second bid was placed very early (10 day auction) and was over the value of the router, so no one else would even look. Then the last day they retracted the high bid, leaving their way-under-value bid standing. I proved to eBay that both of the bidders were the same person -- they used 2 different email addresses, but I gave eBay proof that both were forwarded to the same email address. They said they didn't see anything out of order except that I was using my business partner's eBay ID (I wasn't registered).
In my case, the 12-hour rule wouldn't have helped any because the guy retracted the high bid on the last day. It effectively turned the auction into a 1 day auction, except that I caught it and canceled it.
posted on September 23, 2001 09:27:26 AM new
Thanks, Jim, for the great explanation. That does make sense. Too bad eBay couldn't have the 12-hour rule apply only to auctions with bids, though.
Strangely, I was able to "add information" to three of the five auctions in question (all ending within 12 hours), but wasn't able to add to the other two. I got the error message about the 12-hour window again for those two, even though I was adding and not revising. It didn't matter whether the auctions had bids or not... it looks like that's another new eBay bug.
Luckily, it appears that DNS for my web space is down and not the web space itself, so the auction photos I'd referenced by IP address still appeared.
