Ebay sales listing and the letter of the law at B&B

kevdogg329 said:

I don't understand why someone would share a link to a live auction, especially if it is an item they are interested in. To me it seems foolish to get competition on a auction, as I would rather pay less for the item. Only thing I can think of is if they are the seller, or know the seller, they are trying to gouge the buyer, (which is not a gentlemen thing to do in any way shape or form).

That is my understanding as to why B&B does not allow linking to live auctions, and I completely agree to the reasoning, and am thankful for the Mods and others enforcing the TOU of the board.

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It is even more nefarious than that... The competition reduction aspect is a side benefit to the membership, but the reason it is in the TOS is to prevent the auction poster from shilling his auction here.

As to why people do it? Many times it is purely innocent... "Is this a good price?" "How much is this worth?" "I bought one just like this for xx.xx, did I get a good deal?" etc....

snowman said:

"Doing what is legal is not the same thing as doing what is right."
+1

"What you are asking is like asking a reporter to hold on to the news for a week before reporting it. I want to print it while its hot. "
Why?
What do you have to gain from "reporting" on a sale immediately and what do you have to lose by waiting a couple days? I guess I just don't see the issue either way. On the other hand, I may be a bit strange in that I just don't care if someone under paid or over paid on eBay for an item. When I am bidding for something on eBay I do some research, then post a bid I am willing to pay. If I get the item great, if I lose the item, oh well. I guess what I'm asking is why do you have a need to report eBay transactions here first before anyone else reports it?

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Many times it is not even about the price. Perhaps it is something fairly rare, and it happened to come up in conversation, and the poster happened to be watching the auction and had ready access to the link/pics.
Half of the images in my attachments archive are the result of web or local hard drive searches to answer a request from another user.

cb91710 said:

We had one member who took it so far as to complain that ANY ebay links were against the TOS because even BIN auctions, as well as closed auctions, contained links to live auctions, and a nefarious B&B member could search ebay for BIN and closed auctions that linked his item in the "other items like this one" section"

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That was me and a while back, not sure exactly when. I was thinking out loud and looking out for others and trying to keep it fair.

Points were made and brought up and I realize my questioning BIN auctions was meritless and will admit it. And just to be clear it wasn't anyone or anything specific I was worried about people buying it was just something I had noticed. And if it's one thing people will do, it's find a loophole and take advantage of it, so I wanted my concerns heard even if they went nowhere.

I choose not to link any auctions both closed and BIN now as I don't do much ebaying for shaving items anyway .

I think that perhaps one could just look at the intent of the poster.
If he is trying to advertise a razor for no good reason then the post gets removed.
If it is something special, That contributes to the general conversation here at B&B then we leave it.

one cut said:

I think that perhaps one could just look at the intent of the poster.
If he is trying to advertise a razor for no good reason then the post gets removed.
If it is something special, That contributes to the general conversation here at B&B then we leave it.

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Problem is you can't always tell.

Sometimes someone will "innocently" post a link to their own auction. The innocent once tend to be very up-front.
The problem is, the shill is going to be underhanded and post it in a context of it being a "favor" to the membership, when it is his auction. When called on it, the response is a whining "That wasn't MY auction"...
A post history search comes up empty because they are a newer user, or maybe because they were smart enough to delete their old posts after the auctions closed but before the edit/delete window closed (72 hours?)....

There are always ways to game the system, but the B&B membership is pretty good about reporting violations, so those who do don't generally last long.

I would make the linking to a on going auction a exception to the rule, at the moderators discretion.
The primary reason for the link is not the auction itself but something the poster wants to show us.
a hilariously overpriced razor, a very rare razor we may not have seen yet, a inaccurate description worth mocking.

I am thinking that the intent of the rule supersedes the letter of the law.

The weasels in Washington play the what can we get away with, and how can we use the letter of the law to our benefit every day, and we see and live with the results.

So I vote for common sense, and Good Judgment. Its not perfect but its not worse than the "no tolerance letter of the law"

am I at this late age a anarchist now ?

I don't believe you will ever see Live Auctions allowed.

Some people don't have common sense. They can't even get people to follow the rules now and people are always posting live auctions or hinting at them.

luvmysuper said:

The issue was that another member saw an auction he just completed mentioned in Glenn's thread, and had a concern that someone might try to "back-door" him.

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Which one of the reasons that I dislike eBay threads in general. Rant follows.

Do we really need the information being offered up in eBay threads? I know certain razors are expensive, I don't need to be reminded. If I want to gauge price on a razor, I run a completed item search on eBay, or better yet, the BST. If I want to see what others have bought, I just look at one of the many "what are you waiting for to arrive?" threads on B&B. No need for eBay "reporting."

But what I really don't like seeing are the "some guy just paid $300 for a Red Tip" threads, where people pile on and comment on the bidder's apparent lack of good sense (I have been guilty, mea culpa).

But I know people will continue to post them, so I will choose to not read them.

Now if you will excuse me, some kid is standing on my lawn.

one cut said:

I would make the linking to a on going auction a exception to the rule, at the moderators discretion.
The primary reason for the link is not the auction itself but something the poster wants to show us.
a hilariously overpriced razor, a very rare razor we may not have seen yet, a inaccurate description worth mocking.

I am thinking that the intent of the rule supersedes the letter of the law.

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I disagree. While we do see the occasional "Look at this price" link, I have seen more that are a user blatantly posting a link to his own auction rather than the BST in clear violation of the TOS.
Given the number of outright violations, how many of the "look at this" posts are actually people shilling their own auctions?