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In regard to an associate bidding - I have little doubt that
Bruce's associate's bidding was meant for himself and not otherwise intended to
advance any ulterior agenda. However, having only been made aware of this
now, bidders can only wonder what better knowledge and information Phillip
might have had being an associate than they have had?
In dealings where there is a fiscal interest among some
parties different than others, there should be no possible way for anyone to be
advantaged unless all other participants agree to that or that there really is
no advantage. There certainly could be an appearance that fairness was
not the same across the board, even moreso, when the bidding was "removed" to
another mode, whatever ebay suggested.
This element of the complaint by ebay was partly facilitated
by ebay so shouldn't necessarily have been any of the basis for
deregistration. Nevertheless, all parties seemed to have made lapses
of judgment. Surely Phillip could have exercised his collecting via other means
(everything comes up sometime on ebay) or other bidders should have been told
and given the option to bid or not, or voice an opinion. Bruce has extolled his reputation for fairness and bidders have been
asked to accept that proper judgment was applied in this matter and
otherwise - and maybe nothing bad happened vis-a-vis other bidders;
but bidders don't know for sure and have no way to determine that
beneficence prevailed, though they might have faith it was based on
what else he has demonstrated.
Having practiced law for 25 years, the one thing that must be
understood by all counsel when considering whether to act for parties with
possibly contending interests is: if it looks like it might be a
conflict of interest, it actually IS, until it is not. To paraphrase the
legal maxim about how to proceed: not only must fairness be done among the
parties, it must be seen to be done.
Hopefully, this particular matter should be something that can
be resolved by Bruce and his customers.
Craig
Vancouver
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Wednesday, April 06, 2005 2:46
PM
Subject: [MOPO] Bruce's Explanation of
The Situation with eBay
Since Bruce is no longer a member of MOPO I am taking it upon
myself
to foward this message from him , which he just sent to his
newsletter
subscribers, to this list:
"This is Bruce
Hershenson. This morning (April 6th), without
warning, eBay closed
all of my 1,500+ newly listed items, and called
me to
tell me I was
about to be "indefinitely suspended from eBay". I asked
if I
could
have an hour to appeal this decision to eBay, and was told
that
was
impossible.
Thirty minutes later all the auctions were closed and my
account
now
reads "not a registered user". This after 160,000+ sales in
five
years, with 110,000 positive feedbacks (against only 12
negatives,
likely
an eBay
record!).
I called eBay
and was told that I had been indefinitely
suspended
because I had
"repeatedly violated their rules" (selling items that
were in
their VERO
program, selling items not allowed, such as a "Mein Kampf"
movie
poster,
etc) and that they believed they had located a second account
that
I was
using to place bids on my items, and that this, combined with
my
many
past offenses, was why I was being "indefinitely suspended from
eBay".
Let me explain
about the second account. My main computer
expert
is Phillip Wages
and he is a poster collector. When Phillip started
working for me
four years ago, he started bidding on a few of my
items, to
add to his
collection.
This worked
out fine for a few months, until eBay called me
and
told me he could not
bid on my items using his own name. The person
explained that what
mattered was the appearance of impropriety. I
asked
what would be
the difference if Phillip had a friend bid on items for
him,
and the
person said that would be fine, as long as he wasn't bidding
through his
own account.
Phillip began
to bid with a friend's account. Over the next
couple of years he
purchased items on this account for his collection.
He
also used this
account to place some bids for people who did not
register
for our major
auctions in time, giving those who had missed
registering the
chance to
bid.
I feel that this
bidding on Phillip's part was sanctioned by
eBay,
given that they said
he could bid through a friend's account and
he
did.
As to the
"numerous other violations" the eBay employee
cited,
they were all minor
items where I unknowingly violated one of their
many
confusing rules,
and in every case I chose to let eBay end the auction
rather that contest
their ruling, even though I believed it to be
incorrect
in almost all
cases, for I might well have spent hours writing many
e-mails
to get
them to allow me to sell a five or ten dollar item. But
now
they
are saying those "violations" make me a "repeat offender", so
maybe I
should have fought each and every one of
them.
Somehow eBay has now
decided that Phillip's bidding was in
violation of their policy (even
though he bid via the method their
employee
suggested) and the "numerous
other violations" (commonplace among all
high
volume sellers) were never
an issue at all, until they served eBay's
need
to now suspend me
indefinitely.
I can't help
but feel that this ruling on eBay's part is
directly
connected to my
public criticism of some of their methods for the past
two
years.
The past month I have posted to a "super-PowerSellers" eBay
discussion
board, and I wonder if my candid posts there are not
directly
the reason
for my "indefinitely suspension from
eBay"!
Perhaps this is a
blessing in disguise. I have made it clear
that
I have long wanted
to sell somewhere other that eBay. Maybe this is
the
time to make
this move. I am considering three
options:
1) I can appeal
to eBay and see if they will reverse
their
unfair
action.
2) I can begin selling on another auction site, just as I did
from
1990
to 2000 with Christie's and Howard
Lowery.
3) I can invest in
auction software and auction from my
own
site.
I will take a
few days and decide which course of action to
follow. In the
meantime, I want to thank the hundreds of you who have
already contacted me
voicing your support (news travels fast!). Many
of
you have asked
what you can do to help, and honestly, right now there
is
nothing that
needs be done. I firmly believe this is a momentary
glitch in
the
big scheme of things, and that ultimately everything will
surely
work
out for the
best.
Of course I will
e-mail you again once I have more news to
report!
Bruce
Hershenson"
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