Is a seller allowed to do this? Advice please.

Hintza

Sssssss wrote: »

both examples you have given are against the law so yes I would report them, don't see how that helps a multi national corporation.

Let him who is without sin cast the first stone.

Bromley86

Never understood that one. So if we see someone getting stabbed then we shouldn't get involved just because we cheated on someone last year?

Hintza

Bromley86 wrote: »

Never understood that one. So if we see someone getting stabbed then we shouldn't get involved just because we cheated on someone last year?

No the point is we have all parked illegally etc at sometime in our lives. Your example is just silly.

ArmitageShanks

Sssssss wrote: »

both examples you have given are against the law so yes I would report them, don't see how that helps a multi national corporation.

Reporting someone for a parking infringement; do you work for TFL or are you a labour activist? Your level of nit picking is synonymous of some power hungry snooping spying busy body 11 years of new labour have created.

Marty_J

Sssssss wrote: »

both examples you have given are against the law so yes I would report them

Alas, unlike yourself, we're only frail imperfect humans.

don't see how that helps a multi national corporation.

You will note, I'm sure, the two different paragraphs in my reply.

The first relates to general snooping and busybodiness. The second relates to specific snooping and busybodiness on eBay.

Bromley86 wrote: »

Never understood that one. So if we see someone getting stabbed then we shouldn't get involved just because we cheated on someone last year?

If you yourself stabbed people, you couldn't really complain when others did it. And protecting someone from being stabbed is hardly condemning someone.

The fact is, everyone breaks the law sometimes. There's not a single driver in the world, who through will or by accident, hasn't driven over the speed limit for instance.

I assume whenever Sssssss does it, they drive straight to the nearest police station and turn themselves in. If not, perhaps we should report them for breaking the law. Their heinous illegal actions should not be tolerated by law-abiding citizens and are to be condemned by all right thinking people.

Bromley86

You're right about speed limits. Next time you're on the motorway try to spot someone doing 70 or less. If you find one, look for the police car.

That just illustrates Sssssss' point though. If you don't enforce laws then you create a society in which laws are regularly broken. Of course, the other side is that if you create silly laws (and sticking with the speed limit vein, sub-limits like 20 or 50 might be an example), then you encourage the majority to break them. Combine the two and you get an average (car) motorway speed that's well above 80.

Just for the record, I'm a 90 person, so I'm a perfect example of an otherwise law-abiding person (I'd probably pass Hintza's parking test) who breaks laws when they can get away with them. If those cameras on the M25 worked, you can bet I'd be doing 77 all the way.

Hintza. It was meant to be silly - it's just the opposite side of the coin.

Marty_J

I have no problems with laws, rules, and the enforcement thereof. If you're caught doing something wrong, it's tough luck as far as I'm concerned.

What I have a problem with is self-appointed eBay police.

Such people should really hope none of their auctions ever come up here for whatever reason. I'm sure someone could find something to report them for if they really applied themselves.

Time2Go_25

Sadly, there are plenty of people with no life, who spend their days looking through Ebay for listings that might breach one of their policies, they then come on hear to announce what they have found in the hope of getting some priase.

For anyone to compare breaking the law of the land to bending a few Ebay rules is just daft.

ceanothus

Naive? Not a description that' s usually applied to me. Brainwashed by Ebay? Certainly not.

Just a seller on Ebay who tries to stick by the rules. A clean selling account with no policy breaches is worth more financially to me than chancing it with offsite links and web advertising, it's as simple as that.

Of course Ebay aren't altruistic, only a really naive person would believe that. Ebay are in it for the fees, and are smart enough to create a user policed site that encourages busybodying and malicious reporting along with valid reporting. The important thing being that Ebay don't have to spend an awful lot to police their own site and can trot out rubbish about 'community' and 'only a venue' whenever it suits the argument. That's life folks, their site and their rules.

What it doesn't change is that every seller taking buyers away from the site is removing your potential customer if you are a seller. I pay a fee for one reason only - to put my product in front of as many people as possible.

Now as a matter of interest, I pay for Adwords to promote my own site, so if my website appears on Ebay at all it's as a paid for 'sponsored link' at the bottom of the listings. For the record, those sponsored links are very effective at
a) taking customers offsite and
b) converting to purchase

There's a decent probability that once a customer goes offsite by following a specific link from a product they were interested enough to click on, they find what they want (usually a bit cheaper as the seller can make better margins on their own site than on Ebay), pays up and is gone. So all the legit sellers who are not directing traffic offsite can kiss goodbye to their custom for that shopping trip.

If you're a seller and you're happy with that scenario, fine. I'm not. I would not, for example, rent a shop in the high street, and be happy if a competitor was stood in my shop doorway directing customers to their shop over the road. Would you?

See, it just comes down to numbers, £'s and pence, nothing personal and no high ideals. So some of the comments in this thread come over as pretty patronising, and so far off the mark it's almost amusing :-)

Marty_J

ceanothus wrote: »

Naive? Not a description that' s usually applied to me. Brainwashed by Ebay? Certainly not.

Just a seller on Ebay who tries to stick by the rules. A clean selling account with no policy breaches is worth more financially to me than chancing it with offsite links and web advertising, it's as simple as that.

Of course Ebay aren't altruistic, only a really naive person would believe that. Ebay are in it for the fees, and are smart enough to create a user policed site that encourages busybodying and malicious reporting along with valid reporting. The important thing being that Ebay don't have to spend an awful lot to police their own site and can trot out rubbish about 'community' and 'only a venue' whenever it suits the argument. That's life folks, their site and their rules.

What it doesn't change is that every seller taking buyers away from the site is removing your potential customer if you are a seller. I pay a fee for one reason only - to put my product in front of as many people as possible.

Now as a matter of interest, I pay for Adwords to promote my own site, so if my website appears on Ebay at all it's as a paid for 'sponsored link' at the bottom of the listings. For the record, those sponsored links are very effective at
a) taking customers offsite and
b) converting to purchase

There's a decent probability that once a customer goes offsite by following a specific link from a product they were interested enough to click on, they find what they want (usually a bit cheaper as the seller can make better margins on their own site than on Ebay), pays up and is gone. So all the legit sellers who are not directing traffic offsite can kiss goodbye to their custom for that shopping trip.

If you're a seller and you're happy with that scenario, fine. I'm not. I would not, for example, rent a shop in the high street, and be happy if a competitor was stood in my shop doorway directing customers to their shop over the road. Would you?

See, it just comes down to numbers, £'s and pence, nothing personal and no high ideals. So some of the comments in this thread come over as pretty patronising, and so far off the mark it's almost amusing :-)

So just to be clear:

1. You possibly have links on eBay directing people off eBay;

2. You believe people should not have links on eBay directing people off eBay.

Seems a tad inconsistent.