ebay

From: Stephen Dauphin <ai705_at_osfn.org>
Date: Tue Oct 27 21:59:04 1998

On Thu, 29 Oct 1998, Uncle Roger wrote:

> At 11:57 AM 10/26/98 -0700, you wrote:
> >4. Finally, to avoid heartache from being sniped, don't assume you have
> > a thing until you get the notification you won. Until you get that,
> > the thing isn't yours.
>
> I once bid on an item and saw the "auction has closed" screen. Then, ebay
> decided that because a problem came up shortly after the auction closed,
> they would reset all the auctions (even the ones not affected) to close one
> day later. Imagine my surprise when I checked MyEbay and saw the auction
> was open again!

Roger,

Do you have a time frame for this? I remember it happening once and I
believe it was prior to their major server change the middle of
August 1997.

Sometime during that summer, they got an infusion of venture capital and
made major hardware (distributed over multiple cpus) and software
changes. Near the end of August they started the new auction numbering
system of incrementing from 1. (the old system was a random three
letter/4 digit code)

I am not shilling for Ebay. In fact defending them now versus 2 years ago
is like cheering Bill Gates circa 1992 as opposed to 1981.

I realize you are relating an anecdote, however, there is the
implication that a single anomaly from at least 14 or 15 months ago
qualifies as an expectation it is going to happen again.

If your memory of the event is different from mine, please post the
details.


                                               -- Stephen Dauphin
Received on Tue Oct 27 1998 - 21:59:04 GMT