Re: Follow up on Tenagra's Grand Experiment

From: Craig Snyder <csnyder_at_fallon.com>
Date: Wed 12 Jan 2000 16:56:58 -0600

CLIFF KURTZMAN WROTE:
> The person whom made the winning bid had registered on
> eBay back in November indicating a name and company
> which, in fact, was a credible buyer of the domain at
> the $10M price. But we nonetheless very quickly we
> became quite suspicious of the winning bid as the
> e-mail address associated with the buyer was not
> consistent with the name and company indicated.
> Further, we received no responses to our e-mails to
> that address. We eventually determined that the
> winning bid, and in fact likely all the bids, were "not
> sincere."

I found your description of your experience on eBay
eerily similar to ours. We do the web site and
advertising for BMW USA and sold the idea to sell the
very first production X5 Sports Activity Vehicle on
eBay. All proceeds were donated to the Susan G. Komen
Breast Cancer Foundation.

We also had huge publicity and a large number of false
bids. We had bids over $1 million that were
definitely bogus. As it turns out, the winning bid was
$159,000 (for a $57,000 vehicle).

So eBay certainly has experienced the requirements for
validation, but obviously chooses to not implement the
needed solutions for high-end auctions.

In their defense, eBay ended up contracting with a
third party to verify the bids, but the negative
publicity could certainly have rained down upon them
had the final bid been bogus sticking BMW or eBay with
potential commitment to a high-profile charity.

It seems online auctions are still not as comfortable
and cozy as they would make out and can be tricky when
done to gain publicity.

Regards
----
Craig Snyder
Interactive Producer
Tel: 612/321-2642, Email: csnyder_at_fallon.com




Received on Wed Jan 12 2000 - 16:56:58 CST