Coyote
5th December 2005, 17:37
...unless you're a big spender/seller
Just a warning to everyone, don't bid on a joke auction unless you've got a lot of positive feedback (those who can't read don't need to read the rest).
Earlier today there were a few stupid auctions based around the U2 concert tickets. The first one was for a blue pen. In its description it said 'don't but U2 tickets on trademe off the scalpers, there’s another concert. Now selling a brand new blue pen'. The blue pen was only to make the auction valid, and anyone searching for U2 tickets ended up seeing this message. This was quite a laugh and I watched it as it turned into a heated bidding war. The Auction ended up being withdrawn by trademe.
Then there was another auction: http://www.trademe.co.nz/structure/auction_detail.asp?id=42273357
I watched this for a while and so was a friend of mine. My friend then started pestering me to bid on the auction as a joke as he didn't have an account and I was going to get outbid and the auction would get closed anyway (like the pen one did). I didn't because I knew something would happen (cause of my inherited paranoia) but I still got pestered and eventually was convinced there would be no problem and it would be a laugh so I bid on it, oh blessed peer pressure.
A minute later I was outbid of course, followed by several more bids, it was a laugh (looking back at it now I can't see why it was) and there was no problem. Roughly 10 minutes later the seller withdrew the auction and that was the last of that.
Then a while later my friend looked at my account profile and noticed my account had been disabled. He then looked at the other people’s accounts and noticed a few others have also been disabled whilst others hadn't. We then noticed the accounts with heaps of feedback had not been disabled, whilst the small timers like me had been (the exception being the guy with 20 feedback points) and the seller hadn't had his account disabled.
I immediately become furious, one with my stupidity to be convinced to bid on the auction, two with why did I get disabled whilst others and THE SELLER didn't. If anyone was to get in trouble, surely it would be the seller, not those bidding on it, am I right?
Now there’s nothing I can really do. They have no email and the help link is only a FAQ page and doesn't cover disabled accounts. But I can phone them... at $1.99 a minute. Now when I try to log in I get a message saying my account has not been enabled.
Lesson learned and now I know to never do it again
By the way, yes I was stupid, I'm well aware of that, no 'well that was stupid' replies to this thread or face red rep
Just a warning to everyone, don't bid on a joke auction unless you've got a lot of positive feedback (those who can't read don't need to read the rest).
Earlier today there were a few stupid auctions based around the U2 concert tickets. The first one was for a blue pen. In its description it said 'don't but U2 tickets on trademe off the scalpers, there’s another concert. Now selling a brand new blue pen'. The blue pen was only to make the auction valid, and anyone searching for U2 tickets ended up seeing this message. This was quite a laugh and I watched it as it turned into a heated bidding war. The Auction ended up being withdrawn by trademe.
Then there was another auction: http://www.trademe.co.nz/structure/auction_detail.asp?id=42273357
I watched this for a while and so was a friend of mine. My friend then started pestering me to bid on the auction as a joke as he didn't have an account and I was going to get outbid and the auction would get closed anyway (like the pen one did). I didn't because I knew something would happen (cause of my inherited paranoia) but I still got pestered and eventually was convinced there would be no problem and it would be a laugh so I bid on it, oh blessed peer pressure.
A minute later I was outbid of course, followed by several more bids, it was a laugh (looking back at it now I can't see why it was) and there was no problem. Roughly 10 minutes later the seller withdrew the auction and that was the last of that.
Then a while later my friend looked at my account profile and noticed my account had been disabled. He then looked at the other people’s accounts and noticed a few others have also been disabled whilst others hadn't. We then noticed the accounts with heaps of feedback had not been disabled, whilst the small timers like me had been (the exception being the guy with 20 feedback points) and the seller hadn't had his account disabled.
I immediately become furious, one with my stupidity to be convinced to bid on the auction, two with why did I get disabled whilst others and THE SELLER didn't. If anyone was to get in trouble, surely it would be the seller, not those bidding on it, am I right?
Now there’s nothing I can really do. They have no email and the help link is only a FAQ page and doesn't cover disabled accounts. But I can phone them... at $1.99 a minute. Now when I try to log in I get a message saying my account has not been enabled.
Lesson learned and now I know to never do it again
By the way, yes I was stupid, I'm well aware of that, no 'well that was stupid' replies to this thread or face red rep