Ebay seller becomes first person in UK convicted for bidding on his own items

[illuvcoldplay]

Sigh.

 

It depends on the rules of the auction. If the auction requires sellers sell at the price arrived at, without bidding it up themselves (or starting the auction at that level), then he's broken a rule. But not a law. It's Ebay's issue, not the buyer's problem. The buyer voluntarily traded his money for the item at that price level - the mechanism determining the price shouldn't matter to the buyer.

 

The only reason buyers are complaining is because they see a way to get their money back, or attack a man for making profit in excess of what they would "allow" him to have if they had the righteous guns of the government at their beck and call.

 

 

but certainly it is fraudalent misrepresentation on the sellers part and any buyer will have a legal claim against the buyer themself or ebay and hence that is the reason why ebay is reducing their laibility by ensuring that the seller has received that appropriate penalty for a breach of their contractual agreement.

[Saffire]

Again, I'm going to keep repeating myself because you and Reilly are like children stamping your feet on the ground when mommy refuses to stop for ice cream:

 

The mechanism of price discovery is irrelevant. Either the buyer is willing to pay the price for the item, or not.

 

Fraud can only exist when the item is misrepresented.

 

The only party that has a claim here is Ebay (against the seller), and even then it's Ebay's job to make sure this doesn't happen - not taxpayers'.

[Reilly]

Again, I'm going to keep repeating myself because you and Reilly are like children stamping your feet on the ground when mommy refuses to stop for ice cream:

 

Witty isn't a good look for you.

 

The only party that has a claim here is Ebay (against the seller), and even then it's Ebay's job to make sure this doesn't happen - not taxpayers'.

 

How could e-bay possibly do anything about it? That's the problem. The same way that someone holding a real life auction couldn't possibly be able to monitor every person in a crowd of 100 people or so, it would be even harder to do it on the internet.

 

It's unreasonable to expect e-bay to do anything without getting the law involved. Like I said, all they can do is stop the account, legally they can't do anything else.

 

The only reason you keep repeating yourself is because you're avoiding the things that actually matter.

[Jenjie]

but then the other side of your argument is that the seller either wants to sell his item or he doesn't. if he wants a specific price for it, he either makes it a buy it now sale, or he sells it through the small ads. he doesn't have to use a bidding auction to sell the item.

[busybeeburns]

What is the US equivalent of the UK's Trading Standards?

 

Done a bit of digging and it turns out that this is not a case of fraud but by virtue of fair trading laws were brought in two years ago to bring Britain into line with the European Union. He was prosecuted under:

 

http://www.oft.gov.uk/advice_and_resources/small_businesses/competing/protection (Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008)

 

http://oft.gov.uk/advice_and_resources/small_businesses/advertising/business-protection (Business Protection from Misleading Marketing Regulations 2008)

 

I do not agree that this is fraud because the seller DID intend to dispatch the item once the money had been paid. These were not non-existant goods. However I also don't agree that this wasn't law - it might not be law in the US but the UK legislation is overruled by EU legislation were applicable. As it was in this case.

[illuvcoldplay]

Again, I'm going to keep repeating myself because you and Reilly are like children stamping your feet on the ground when mommy refuses to stop for ice cream:

 

The mechanism of price discovery is irrelevant. Either the buyer is willing to pay the price for the item, or not.

 

Fraud can only exist when the item is misrepresented.

 

The only party that has a claim here is Ebay (against the seller), and even then it's Ebay's job to make sure this doesn't happen - not taxpayers'.

 

ok I hope by you and Riley that you dont mean me because that was the first time I replied to anything you said ... and are you a lawyer or some financial adviser ?.. I am not going down the whole argument road with you but you are wrong. You really do not know what you are talking about.. :D

 

If a buyer were to bring claims againt that seller or ebay then they would have a very high possibility of winning the claim

[Saffire]

OF COURSE there would be a high probability of winning a claim against him.

 

Just like there would be a high probability of the government winning a claim against someone smoking weed, or downloading music.

 

That's not what I'm talking about here.

 

And Reilly, if your argument is that Ebay and the buyers are incapable of determining if a seller has been bidding in his own auction (because of the supposed complexity or impossibility involved in accumulating evidence that would prove it), what makes you think the government could be any better at doing it?

 

You don't really even have a position on this other than "Oh that's RUDE! If I were the buyer, I would want the police to hurt the seller!"

 

It's Ebay's job to figure out a way to stop this, so they can continue to attract customers. But we should have no sympathy for the buyers because they voluntarily made a trade.

[Cobalt]

It's Ebay's job to figure out a way to stop this, so they can continue to attract customers. But we should have no sympathy for the buyers because they voluntarily made a trade.

 

Once again, as everyone has been mentioning in this entire thread, eBay can only close down an account and stop them from selling and buying. That's it. They don't really have any other legal ways to do shit.

 

Dude, I don't know what your point is here, or whether it's completely going over my head. But they seriously cannot do much else.

[Reilly]

I knew you were going to go down the 'it's e-bay's problem not mine' route. You seem to have such simple solutions to society's complex problems so I thought this would be an easy one for you.

 

Like Cobbie just said, and what I've been saying, there's nothing e-bay can do to stop it.

 

And Reilly, if your argument is that Ebay and the buyers are incapable of determining if a seller has been bidding in his own auction (because of the supposed complexity or impossibility involved in accumulating evidence that would prove it), what makes you think the government could be any better at doing it?

 

This was annoying to read, had to choke it down. Are you honestly telling me that you think e-bay has the same resources and rights to do background checks on a person, as the government and police?

 

What I meant was that it's very difficult for e-bay, who only have the right to look at IP no's for clues, have small chance of finding a person who's bidding on their own auction, because by your standpoint, it's e-bays problem to stop it, so as all they can legally do it close down an account, they'd have to discover the person was acting illegally- instantly, to stop it from happening. That's a big ask.

 

The government and police have the right to do a lot more then just look at IP no's, and more importantly, can actually do something to stop an auctioneer repeat offending. Like I keep saying, all e-bay can do is close the account, so then the auctioneer can just start all over again. Just like the way that if an auctioneer can bump their item up to their desired price, and the only thing that can go wrong is that nobody can afford it and they just start over again, there's no risk involved.

 

Like Jenjie said, if a seller wants to put a price on an item they can just put it up for sale, they know exactly what they are doing by putting it up for auction and then bumping the price up more and more.

[Saffire]

You seem to have such simple solutions to society's complex problems so I thought this would be an easy one for you.

 

So I guess your idea of a nuanced solution is: DUHR, THE GUBERMINT SHUD FIX IT.

 

Real deep thinking there, Sherlock.

 

Once again, as everyone has been mentioning in this entire thread, eBay can only close down an account and stop them from selling and buying. That's it. They don't really have any other legal ways to do shit.

 

Dude, I don't know what your point is here, or whether it's completely going over my head. But they seriously cannot do much else.

 

Say specifically what you want them to do. Don't just say "shit". I want to hear EXACTLY what you want them to do to the seller. Detail it for me.

[Reilly]

So I guess your idea of a nuanced solution is: DUHR, THE GUBERMINT SHUD FIX IT.

 

Real deep thinking there, Sherlock.

 

And your solution is: DUHR. I DUN HAVE UN

[Saffire]

I don't know how to build a car. I don't know how to make a computer processor.

 

But I sure as hell don't want to hand those jobs over to police who barely have a high-school education.

 

Similarly, this is a technical problem with Ebay, not a crime.

[Black Rose]

Seller A is selling product T to bidder B, 'bidder C' comes in on the action and pushes the price for the auction up so that bidder B has paid more for the product, being ebay he/she can't back out of the deal as it's a contract. What would B think if he found out that bidder C was a dummy account for the seller to push the price up?

[Saffire]

double post

[Saffire]

'bidder C' comes in on the action and pushes the price for the auction up so that bidder B has paid more for the product

 

Nobody forced bidder B to pay more - it was his choice to bid higher after bidder C made a bid.

[mc_squared]

Nobody forced bidder B to pay more - it was his choice to bid higher after bidder C made a bid.

 

You do have a point there. If you always stick to your "limit" with respect to any article, nothing untoward can happen.

There have been several items where I have stopped bidding once a certain amount was reached.;)

[Black Rose]

Nobody forced bidder B to pay more - it was his choice to bid higher after bidder C made a bid.

 

if bidder B insert a max bid it would bid automatically until it hit the max bid

[busybeeburns]

Similarly, this is a technical problem with Ebay, not a crime.

Maybe not where you live but like I posted earlier, it broke two UK laws!

[Cobalt]

Say specifically what you want them to do. Don't just say "shit". I want to hear EXACTLY what you want them to do to the seller. Detail it for me.

 

Don't really have any other legal ways to do shit = don't really have any other legal ways to do anything major

[illuvcoldplay]

Maybe not where you live but like I posted earlier, it broke two UK laws!

 

 

exactly!!!!

 

it has to be fradulent misrepsensation to the buyer and a breach or the contracrual agreement between ebay and seller who could make them vicariously liable even in circumstances where they were not the ones who actually committed the fraudulent offence

[Saffire]

I mean... you can spout all sorts of legal mumbo jumbo and make anything sound horrible.

 

My point is that it shouldn't be illegal. What he did wasn't evil or stepping on anybody's toes. He just exploited a flaw in Ebay's system.

 

One solution would be for the items put up for auction to be placed "in escrow" until the auction is over - so they are rented out to Ebay until a time when the auction is over, and Ebay is contractually required to give the sale proceeds to the previous owner.

[Reilly]

:wreck:

 

Are you fucking joking?! Then why did you write this in the first place?

 

What's wrong with this? I honestly don't see a crime here.

 

And then continued talking about the legality of it, when you should've been talking about whether it's theoretically correct. Thanks for a big waste of everyone's time trying to get it into your head that it is illegal, apparently that isn't the issue now.

 

OK, so should it be illegal? Yes, I still certainly think so.

 

You're still ignoring a big point that I and others have brought up, why can't the seller just put said item up for sale at a certain price?

 

And since this has become hypothetical, why do you keep mentioning e-bay as if it's the only source of auctioning in the world. You can say it's a "flaw" in e-bay's system but it's a flaw in any auction's system and it can be exposed, the question is, can anything be done to 'prevent' it? No.

 

All that can be done is to stop the offenders from doing it again, without the aid of the law- in the real world they can ban them from coming back (Though there's still nothing to stop people to send others on their behalf to make their profits) and on e-bay they can simply get another username or IP address.

 

Your "in escrow" system was at least a suggestion, but it kindof pissed me off that you didn't think it through, possibly on purpose, if e-bay put the item up for auction all the seller has to do is search for it. You aren't getting around any problem there.

[Saffire]

Reilly, if you want me to be an expert on British law, then you should say so up front. But surprise! I'm not.

 

And no, you can't prevent this. Just like you can't prevent your future wife from gaining 40 pounds after you marry her.

 

What you're advocating here isn't a method of prevention. It's a method for revenge. And that's cool, if you want to go beat up a person who kept you from getting a good deal. It's kinda weird and sociopathic. But cool.

 

Wait, no. It's freakish.

[illuvcoldplay]

I mean... you can spout all sorts of legal mumbo jumbo and make anything sound horrible.

 

My point is that it shouldn't be illegal. What he did wasn't evil or stepping on anybody's toes. He just exploited a flaw in Ebay's system.

 

One solution would be for the items put up for auction to be placed "in escrow" until the auction is over - so they are rented out to Ebay until a time when the auction is over, and Ebay is contractually required to give the sale proceeds to the previous owner.

 

 

Safire its not legal mumbo jambo

 

Ebay is seen as in a position of trust by providing services for buyers and if they know of an offence to be going on and fail to remedy it then they will have accepted the criminal act and would be (vicariously liable) meaning liable even though they did not actually commit the offence which is just as bad in terms of consequences and penalties they will incur.

Thats why offenders who are caught have to be dealt with as this could cause them a lawsuit which could result in a heavy fine.

[Reilly]

My future wife gaining 40 pounds? You come out with the oddest analogies, seek help.

 

But again I'll say it, and make this post short so you can finally answer the question; why can't the auctioneer just put the item up for sale?