eBay Says: Hey Old Lady, You Are No Warren Buffett…WTF?!?

Written by John Comments
Last Updated August 27, 2009

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Well, it has been just a couple of days since the an eBay bidder from Japan won the Marilyn Monroe burial plot for $4.6 million. And now that bidder has backed OUT!

Beverly Hills widow Elsie Poncher, whose dead husband was laid to rest in the crypt directly above Monroe, put her beloved’s valuable vault on the block Aug. 14 to help pay off the $1.6 million mortgage on her home.

Bidding started at $500,000 and shot to $4.6 million in three days. Everything seemed to be going so well, until the widow’s rep sent an invoice to the winning bidder Monday.

"I am awfully sorry, but I need to cancel this because of the paying problem," the unidentified bidder said in an email, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Well, if that was not bad enough, just to add insult to injury…eBay decides to tell the 80 year-old widow that she is no Warren Buffett either!

Read the full eBay response below and watch this VIDEO!!! Your boy, ColderICE has a few select words for this entire incident.

BIDDING ON EBAY: A SOMETIMES ODD BUT ALWAYS SERIOUS BUSINESS

Long time readers of Ink know that I tend to stay away from individual auctions or specific sales in the eBay Marketplace, focusing more on trends in the industry and news coming out of the company as a whole. However yesterday, two auctions that were unusual enough to capture the attention of national and international media came to a close. On the surface, it was just a normal Tuesday in the eBay Marketplace.

What made the day standout was not the similarities between the (pardon the pun) cradle to the grave auctions. Sadly, what stood out was the fact that people bid on items for which they had no intention of buying. Something that undermines the very integrity of the marketplace.

eBay has no tolerance for this sort of behavior (the two high bidders in these auctions have been banned – for life – from eBay) and because placing a bid enters someone into a legal, binding contract, the consequences might not end there.

One of the bidders may have even lost his job over the matter, and both may also face suit from the sellers for breach of contract. If you are a seller and you ever find yourself in a similar situation, please report the bidder here: http://resolutioncenter.ebay.com/ so that eBay can take appropriate action.

eBay prefers to be able to work with sellers in advance of a high profile listing in order to best ensure a successful outcome (FYI… selling a crypt above Marilyn Monroe’s that currently houses your late husband qualifies as high profile). They have done this numerous times in the past, the most obvious example being the annual charity auction for lunch with Warren Buffet. In those auctions, eBay has helped to raise millions of dollars for worthy causes with nary a hiccup, because they have been able to work with the sellers in these auctions to pre-approve all bidders.

What most sellers don’t know is that eBay can offer you the same sort of assistance it offers to Mr. Buffet. In the future, if sellers are interested in listing items considered to be high-profile and/or likely to garner media interest, we suggest the following process:

1) Complete a request at http://news.ebay.com/media-request.cfm. Include specifics about the item, timing, and contact information. Upon reviewing the request, eBay will determine the level of support and contact you within 3 business days.

2) If warranted a high-profile listing, eBay will work with you to create the listing in compliance with policy and implement a pre-approved bidding process to ensure only legitimate bids are placed on your auction.

Cheers,
RBH

TEW

Right. eBay contact anyone besides Warren Buffett - with a personalized e-mail - within 3 days. RBH certainly has never used the eBay e-mail/help system!

I am with you - there have been so many policies moved aside here that I can not even count! What about the old, and tired, we can not tell you the outcome of an investigation. Well, I guess they CAN (these bidders are banned for life) when the media is involved. And since WHEN does eBay care about non-paying bidders? Apparently the do - when the media is involved.

And finally, of course they blame the seller. We are bad, bad, bad. I am sure they'd rather do without us.

Truth

Ebay is a mess from the sellers standpoint. None paying bidders is only the beginning of Ebays problem.Theft and fraud supported by forced Paypal thru credit card chargeback is the biggest scam right now.Buyer buys item with Paypal ,gets item,makes claim with credit card that item wasn't correct,throws a rock or what ever in box sends it back to poor seller,Paypal gives credit card $$$ back,Paypal does not pay poor seller........Seller takes complete loss.In my case $1500 loss.Then throw on top the DSR game which is a onesided joke where the buyer can only leave feedback? These are the same buyers that steal and don't pay!And just for kicks leaves you all 1's on your DSR rating out of 5 and kills all the sellers hard work.Then the Ebay $FEES$, then the forced Paypal $FEES$,Free shipping $FEES$,Then all the time and work,answering question,fighting chargebacks,shipping,packing.....I can go on and on.Its a losing game from any small sellers stand point.Remember when everyone was chanting..."I got it at Ebay",You havn't heard that since John Donahoe and his disruptive innovation took over.This is all "NOISE" right John?

Cliff Aliperti

Cool video, John, haven't seen a long one like this in awhile.

I think the solution to this is pretty simple on eBay's end, multiple potential solutions in fact:

1) At $X just let a vetting process for bidders kick in. $1 million, okay, bid hits $1 eBay gets in contact w/bidder to make sure they're legit.

2) Better, though more intrusive--bidder bids X% higher than they've ever bid before, same process kicks in, eBay gets on the phone, emails bidder for more info, etc.

What we DON'T want is for bidders to need to become pre-approved--that's a move which would lead to the site's death. Bidding, or registering to bid, needs to be easy. I often wonder how many potential bidders backed out in the past when going to bid on eBay Live auction and hitting the screen requesting more information--I bet it was a lot, because even I retreated sometimes and my only issue was a matter of time.

I didn't get the impression that eBay came down as hard on the seller as you did, though as I commented on the video I do think their response was a scatter shot laying blame everywhere but on themselves.

This is ironic in that many of the changes made in the past year and a half have led to an increase of such behavior--eBay was never going to feel that to any degree in their pocketbooks, but some bad PR, well that's another story.

So good.

What I fail to understand is RBH's definition of a "high profile auction"?????

Okay, the MM auction, I can see that as high profile, but the baby naming auction? As an outsider I'd figure that'd go for about 100 bucks, so whose to know--where is the line drawn? Obviously it's drawn at the bottom line, the dollar amounts ... and so, see again 2 potential solutions above.

Thanks for the thought-provoking vid,
Cliff