Power Sellers Unite

nancybusinraleigh · Joined: 20 Feb 2005 Posts: 219 Location: North Carolina

If ebay is the standard bearer for online auctions, which I believe they have established that position, then what has occurred on BidVille is anything but the stated industry standard.

Here is what occured that makes this such a relevant issue to site management concerns that are causing many to leave the site.

About three weeks ago, a member wanted to completely close her selling ID. She emailed BidVille customers service (BVCS) and asked them to completely remove all her credit card information, about me page access etc.

It took more than one email to get this accomplished but indeed was finally done. She was certain of the completion by using the 'search by seller' feature on the site. She could not pull up her ID/about me page. She thought it was completed and over with.

Apparently, a person who knows her as a seller was wanting to recommend her items to another on the BidVille site. She looked up the ID (which had previously brought up no relevant information previously associated with that ID) and found it was there, only no auctions were listed. She contacted the old seller and said she was glad to see she was back on BidVille, but she didn't have anything listed to sell.

The old seller told her no, I'm not back, I didn't reopen my account. She looked into it and sure enough, it was her old ID but it had been slightly altered. Instead of XXXXXXXX (example only), it now read _XXXXXXXX_. And it had all her relevant history there, no auctions, all the feedback was present etc.

She emailed BVCS again and asked them why it was there, altered.

Their reply was "who told you" - yes, you read that right, the concern they had was not why or who, but who told her it had been modified and showed up again!

Two days after that raised several red flags for many people, it was noted by another member that the ID had been altered AGAIN (second time), when that member posted that the ID had been altered again, it was not but a couple hours later, it was found that the ID AGAIN was altered (third time).

Now naturally, it raised much speculation as to who/what/when/how/why this was happening.

Instead of BidVille addressing the many, many questions on this matter that were posted to the BidVille help board, they let it fester all this time.

No further emails were providing any answers to the original owner of the ID.

Today, Bidville finally addressed it when a member posted they were leaving BidVille because of this very strange and unexplained issue.

Here is, finally, the answer BidVille provided in the thread (link provided to view the entire thread) that addressed their 'actions':

Moderator Posted 3/28/2005 11:18:44 AM
We would like to let everybody know that Bidville’s policy in this matter is in conformity with the current industry standard regarding the removal of accounts from our database. Unfortunately, we are unable to remove any accounts completely from our database. We tried to remedy this situation by changing the member`s username. This remedy was unsuccessful and we are sorry for any inconvenience that this may have caused anybody.

Please understand that it would be unfair for us to remove a username completely from our database because that would mean that all the feedback that was left by this username for other Bidville members would be erased along with the username.

However, we are able to make it so accounts are entirely inactive and can not be logged into or accessed whatsoever.

Thank you,

Bidville Customer Service

When further questions were raised in the thread, the moderator made one more post, and then promptly locked the thread.

Moderator Posted 3/28/2005 4:49:26 PM
Bidville takes the utmost measures to ensure that any and all personal information provided to Bidville by its members is properly safeguarded from unauthorized access. We want to reassure our members that Bidville is a secure website and there has never been any documented evidence of any type of ID theft on our site.

Recently the security of our site was questioned due to a deactivated member still having the capability to still view their “about me” page. Bidville Customer Service initially misinterpreted the deactivated member’s request and processed a change to the member’s username as a way to not allow any unauthorized access to the deactivated members’s “about me” page. This change did not effectively comply with the deactivated member’s request as they were still able to access their “about me” page. As a result, Bidville has reprogrammed its system that will not allow a deactivated member or any other member to have any access to the deactivated member’s “about me” page. When a member either by request or circumstance is deactivated, the only mention pertaining to this deactivated member will be this member’s username as noted through the feedback previously left by the deactivated member for other members.

Thank you,

Bidville Customer Service

http://www.bidville.com/community/messages/thread.asp?forum=200&pgnum=1&thread=755442

They obviously don't have a standard, let alone using an 'industry standard' and there was no confusion as stated in the second post by the moderator. It had been done as requested, removed, inaccessable, but for some reason, the BVCS decided to alter the ID once, twice, three times before this finally came out that they were the responsible party for bringing that ID back to 'life' and changing it often.

Now, can anyone tell me if indeed there is an 'industry standard' and if it's not how ebay handles closed ID accounts, what it is??

We know that ebay, when an account is suspended or closed, all the pertinent feedback remains, but there is no other access, no Me page access, etc. So I do not understand those replies by BVCS that they use the industry standard.

Any ideas folks?

nancybusinraleigh · Joined: 20 Feb 2005 Posts: 219 Location: North Carolina

Connected to this issue is the fact that when anyone posts about it or their feelings about the issue at hand which was addressed on the board by BV themselves, this is typical of the response (thread link included in post on Help board)

While the thread is no longer found in the cafe, it is still a live link in the post I made to BV help board. Hmmmm, that's another oddity I suppose.

Message Center : Bidville Help : Thread gone sour

This topic has page : 1
nancybusinraleigh Posted 3/28/2005 9:12:06 PM
Please note the following post contained in the thread link given below.

I believe you`ve stated that this type of post is against TOS. Thank you.

http://www.bidville.com/community/messages/thread.asp?forum=200&pgnum=2&thread=755594

This topic has page : 1

nancybusinraleigh · Joined: 20 Feb 2005 Posts: 219 Location: North Carolina

Another Bidville oddity has occurred.

The post I put in BidVille help forum went "poof" - it's not there anymore. No reply, just gone, disappeared.

I feel like I'm part of a remake of Alice in Wonderland falling into Rabbit's Hole or something :shock:

Havaauction · Joined: 24 Feb 2005 Posts: 212 Location: Lake Havasu City

Nancy, Strange!!
They can make that disappear but not an ID!!! :shock:

We are NEW to BV and have a problem. Again an oddity?

I thought we would put a few things up the other day on BV.... just because I wasn't doing well on iOffer and a few others and wanted our stuff out there!

WELL.... beings I was new, we had many questions... get this...
I 'emailed' and asked probably 5 or 6 'seperate' questions, they emailed me the answers within a few hours!

They told me to download the Express Loader.
I downloaded the program and it said to restart, did that and when the computer came back up, it crashed....

We have 3 online computers so I emailed from our other computer, same ID same email address, let them know what happened and my computer was down, no online at all...... and Guess What?

It has been 3 days and haven't heard a word back from them, no offerings of help, what I may have done wrong, try this, uninstall... Nothing. 8)

P.S. I worked on it for a day and finally got it back up.... :P

nancybusinraleigh · Joined: 20 Feb 2005 Posts: 219 Location: North Carolina

Hava - I don't know what to tell you other than my personal belief.

I don't honestly believe there are any true IT employees there. In fact, if you'll notice, all the help board questions lately are being answered by "moderator" - and the technical questions that USED to be answered there are no longer done so.

The same replies from help, if at all, are "we've sent you an email on this concern" or something along those lines as well as "we've notified our technical staff" .

A help board isn't a 'help' board if posting a question that no doubt others are experiencing here and there is not answered there. It's cause for many more to ask the same questions over and over again because the answer isn't there for the community to see :roll:

So.......while there seems to be an ever increasing number of concerns that are of a technical site operations basis, the underlying issues of manipulating data (store counts) and altering closed account ID's, the one that bothers me most is the manipulations that are just not kosher to any site I have ever been on.

I really have a picture in my head of the all and powerful OZ standing behind the curtain pulling levers and making noises but has no power at all. Not a pretty picture for a business site :!:

WESTX · Joined: 18 Mar 2005 Posts: 15 Location: NC

Hava,

Sorry to hear that bv's express loader claimed your computer as another victim.
I have heard this countless times since they came out with it.
:wink:

Hi Nancy!

What kills me about bv's responses is they can't keep their story straight and actually told on themselves in their last response.
I guess when lying is part of ones everyday business operations it just comes naturally after awhile.
One would think by now they would have gotten a little better at it.
:?

Sadville.....
8)

nancybusinraleigh · Joined: 20 Feb 2005 Posts: 219 Location: North Carolina

Yup, West, I believe you're right :D

But for the life of me, to operate a site so poorly for so long there can only be a couple reasons for it.

1. Trolling in hopes of drawing interest of a buyer through acquisition
2. Lining their pockets by playing with the stock (tracking insider transactions and WHO is doing them and watching the stock rise and fall accordingly)

Bizarre is the only word I can call it.

Ann · Joined: 06 Mar 2005 Posts: 143

You know, BV sounds a lot like ePier. Have any of you been there? I was going to try it out and went to explore. I registered, but after initially getting in, I couldn't get back in and had to reregister. Couldn't get back in again. Both times it says I haven't used the email they sent to activate my account, but they sent no email. Like I said, I did get in at first. So anyways, I went to their chat boards. Just a lot of people complaining amongst themselves wishing they could get CS help. Lots of the typical BV posts - people asking each other if they ever made a sale yet - where are the buyers, a lot of NPB, etc. Lots of site probs. No CS. YET, they have 150,000 items up! Go figure!

How the he** do sites like BV and epier get all of these items up, have so many registered users, and NO CS?

Ann

nancybusinraleigh · Joined: 20 Feb 2005 Posts: 219 Location: North Carolina

Hi Ann!

Well, let's look at it another way. I know on Bidville, they aren't being honest on one of their front page stats, the store count numbers. I counted every store listed on different dates, and compared it to the front page stat number they gave as the number of stores they currently had.

The were 'overexaggerating' by 120 stores - a huge percentage of 'exaggeration' considering the actual count was only 519!

So just because they say they have all these listings etc doesn't necessarily mean they truly do. And it depends on how they calculate items listed.

On Bidville, if you have a dutch auction with 10,000 of the same, the number on the front page stats jumps 10,000 when you list it. People have done it just to see if that's what they do :roll:

So.........statistics be damned I say - especially on smaller sites.

And if you take time to look at the 'successful' sellers on these sights by clicking through their feedback auction #'s you generally find they are trading card sellers :wink:

A little hard to show true success that way :lol:

Havaauction · Joined: 24 Feb 2005 Posts: 212 Location: Lake Havasu City

I went to ePier.... :roll:
I tried a completed item search and it was only showing active items. I searched for 'comforter'. When I did a search for sheets or sheet sets, it again didn't show completed.

Weird.
Also I noticed you can't see if items have bids on them or not!
I want to see that for sure, that say's if they are getting the buyers!

nancybusinraleigh · Joined: 20 Feb 2005 Posts: 219 Location: North Carolina

I have to say I never even checked out iPier and it's silly, the reason I didn't was because of the name :lol:

I mean, it sounded like Pier One Imports to me :lol: I know that's silly, but it's got to be a little more 'relevant' to me to attract me.

From what I'm reading, it's probably a good thing I didn't bother.

Havaauction · Joined: 24 Feb 2005 Posts: 212 Location: Lake Havasu City

Actually...... Now don't slam me, I am about to say a BAD word... :wink:
It is really easy to get around, and reminds me of 'feEbay'....SLAP.... ok I slapped myself.... :cry:

And yes, MANY items up for sale, but show me the Bids...
I like the look, guess cuz it is so familiar!

Ann · Joined: 06 Mar 2005 Posts: 143

Yes, I've noticed ePier's item sorter doesn't work, esp if you are sorting by completed items. lol Wonder why?

I have a feeling that on the sites that are free to list, that people put up items and let them sit there for years waiting for a bid. All adds up after a while. They are probably counting any item that ever WAS up for sale there, and the registered members..... well..... now we know that you can never really "unregister" at Bidville....look at Nancy....she is now FOUR registered users at BV! lol

Ann

goldreaper.rr · Joined: 25 Feb 2005 Posts: 1228

Hi Nancy! Just wanted you to know I have read your Thread here!
Thank you for once more bringing to light, what I for years
tried to say and no one would listen to me. :cry:
They are as sub-standard, and dishonest as can be.
I forget where I read, Oh! Hava! Yes! I lost my computer to them also!
More than 4 times.
I believe once all see through the Loving Cheerleaders! and
they must be getting something under the table; Lord knows
what! The trued auctioners will move on, to the more legit sites.
I tried in other threads here on PS to explain that this Auction site
called Bidville is as underhanded as can be!
Nancy the more you dig the more you will see what all I have
stated was fact.
Thank You for sharing it!
The Missing Bidville Link
Sincerely,
Goldreaper.rr

Havaauction · Joined: 24 Feb 2005 Posts: 212 Location: Lake Havasu City

Funny because...or strange... I am the "Computer Nurse of Havasu"
I repair, tutor, teach, virus removal, setup, format....
And we signed up for many auction sites to sell, and our computer crashes...!!! From ONE download... hmmmmm... and someone else say's they have heard it from more than one....huh.. huh..

OMG....from downloading an 'Express Loader' from BV.?? HUH...