Suing Ebay for Price Inflation
When I read about someone suing a company, particularly a successful company, I am usually skeptical about the validity even before I get a chance to look at it. It happens too often that people want to make a quick buck by taking a big company to court, possibly even in a class-action setting where they try and get a bunch of people to jump on board. The lawyers in this country also help drive that trend as they get big paydays.
But after reading this complaint against Ebay, I think the people involved might actually have a gripe.
“…eBay tricks the person offering $100 into paying more. It said the company often sends them a note informing them that while they currently have the highest bid, they should consider upping it in case someone else offers more.”
You wouldn’t think this would be a problem. Your $100 bid is still the lowest, but you are going to give yourself a bit of a safety net by throwing a little more margin in there, say $120 but this is the problem.
“As soon as the person states a higher maximum bid, the suit claimed, eBay declares them the winner. But instead of charging them $100 for the item, it said, it bills them $102.50, even though the second-highest bid remained less than $100. The amount of the inflated charges vary, according to the sale price of the product, the suit claimed.”
I am sure they have this covered in their extensive paperwork and disclaimers at Ebay, but to me that is fundamentally unfair. By changing your top-end range, it shouldn’t change the lower end range of your bid. Also, I realize that $2.50 is not a large sum of money, but again we are talking about millions of transactions a year. Millions of items being sold.
It will be interesting to see how this turns out.
kiddicus maximus Said,
February 25, 2005 @ 5:26 pm
people need jobs.