Don't be stupid on Trademe...

[Coyote]

...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 The Auction ended up being withdrawn by trademe.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/a...sp?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

[bugjuice]

that's a bit wank of TM.. out of all the stupid auctions, they start banning people who bid..

altho may be they're sick of the p/t auctions and this is the only way they can think of deterring it

[Coyote]

Here's a good example of something you shouldn't bid on: http://www.trademe.co.nz/Antiques-co...n-42299080.htm

[bugjuice]

nob .

[SPORK]

The main point of this is that TM don't want to lose the revenue from the big sellers. If they stopped their accounts TM would be the ones loosing out. So it's better just to stomp down on the little guys that aren't earning them much money.

Hell, it's what I'd do...

[Kornholio]

Lol did anyone see the pair of U2 tickets on auction, were fetching around $300 bucks and there were a few people bidding then someone put in a bid of $10,000 doh....he might have won that auction...............

[avgas]

Trademe are jerks - i have a rating over 100 and im not gonna top up my account with them now.
The guys at Zillion are a little more relaxed.

[froggyfrenchman]

i banned myself from that site... Everytime i go to it, i buy useless stuff i really dont need! Last time i went there was the pocketbike. lesson learned.

Pretty stink that they disabled your account, good luck sorting it out

[Highlander]

Heard on the radio about these Tickets selling for thousands. thought to myself Why would you pay thousands to see U2 play in Daukland?
For that kinda dosh you could pick just about any of their concerts worldwide.

[Karma]

similar thing happened in the UK when people put up LiveAid tickets... everyone bid 10,000,000.00 at Sir Geldofs request, and then all got banned.

[crashe]

You can contact them...
Its somewhere either on the home page.... or at the bottom of a page...
it says "Contact Us" click on the Contact Us... and from there you can send them a email.... they will read your email...

But send a nice email to them... not a shitty one....
cos if you want to get back in.... dont get too angry with them.

[Sniper]

They are bastards, I topped up my account with $45 and even after sending them an account statement, they still say that I haven't paid them

[Coyote]

You can contact them...
Its somewhere either on the home page.... or at the bottom of a page...
it says "Contact Us" click on the Contact Us... and from there you can send them a email.... they will read your email...

But send a nice email to them... not a shitty one....
cos if you want to get back in.... dont get too angry with them.

Go to 'Contact Us' and you'll find what my problem is. It's just and automatic answering thing based on the FAQ, if there is an email address, I haven't seen it yet http://www.trademe.co.nz/structure/h...se_subject.asp

My options are 1) wait and hope I get re-enabled, the 24 hour mark is coming up soon 2) Phone them up at $1.99 a minute and wait 5 minutes untill they get to me (as is what happened when my Dad phoned them up asking why did they take money out of our account but didn't pay off our trademe debt)

[bugjuice]

it's why I keep my account low. at the moment, I have 2¢ on my account. I have one auction going. If it wins, then I'll top up the account, but only just to the minimum I can get away with

[Coyote]

There was no money on the account fortunately, but the account was Address Verified so I became a Authentic member (allowing you to ask questions). So chances are if I start up a new account and verify that one I'll get hassled about my last account and they will probably get rid of that account as they'll think I'll be trying to bid on my own auctions.

Plus there's the 10 bucks I spent to get it verified