To all of you who have responded, graciously or otherwise, to my recent
post about the alleged 'shil bidding' incident I am involved with on
Ebay, I am providing a further clarification but do not wish to
needlessly drag this out or waste valuable FML space which could be
used for more significant posts.
 
I feel no need to defend myself or my actions as my concerns have been
validated by several others as well as the Ebay staff.  Furthermore, I
have made NO references whatsoever toward the CHARACTER OR INTENT of
the seller and/or buyer so therefore neither slander nor maliciousnes
applies.  I have merely presented information about an incident involving
me, the seller, and buyer and I also made it very clear in my previous
post that readers were free to do whatever they wished with the
information I provided AND that I was NOT telling anyone NOT to buy from
this seller.
 
I was told that the buyer in question (fiveloves) had her Ebay account
suspended without any warning whatsoever, causing her bids to be
retracted automatically, and has not received any responses at all yet
from Ebay as to why this happened.  I, on the other hand, have received 4
reponses from Ebay personnel in the past 48 hrs.  so I'm genuinely
confused about the lack of disconnect between Fiveloves and Ebay.
 
I am a responsible and upstanding person and Ebay buyer and I purposely
stopped bidding on the items in question when I knew I had reached my
financial limit and also decided that the bid was higher than what I was
willing to pay.  Now however, because the buyer who forced the price up
so high suddenly had her bids retracted, I am now the highest bidder and
am forced to pay for items I no longer wish to have - with money I have
already allocated toward other things!  (If any of you were in this
position, I'm sure you would share similar concerns!)
 
But I WILL honor MY bids, despite these circumstances, although feel it
is a very unjust that if I ask for a bid retraction, it will reflect
negatively on MY account and make it appear as if I am not a reputable
buyer (which is definitely NOT true and the comments in my Ebay profile
support this!)
 
Below is word-for-word exerpts from the email letter I received from Ebay
personnel, in response to my complaint(s).  Mind you, this is not a
standard generic form letter issued to me to justify their statement of
a 'timely reply' because the letter contains some specific information
about my complaint that a standard form letter could not generate.
 
FROM EBAY: "Thank you for taking the time to write to eBay's Safe Harbor
department.  We have previously been alerted to possible shill bidding
activity and other unethical business practices involving the accounts
listed in your complaint and therefore a further investigation is now
pending.
 
 ... Shill bidding is a serious offense and we assure you that we will
thoroughly examine your report as soon as possible, usually within 24
hours.  Please keep in mind that due to our privacy policy you will not
receive specific details of our actions but will be informed of the
outcome of our decision...
 
 ... Should you have any other questions or concerns, we ask that you
do not contact the accounts listed in your complaint but direct all
inquiries to ebay's Safe Harbor department until the matter is resolved.
 
Regards, The eBay Safe Harbor Team"
[Posted in FML issue 4668]