Anyway, the auction started at half a million. World news organizations followed the auction, conveniently driving up the bid and eBay’s profits. The price meandered up and ended (sniper-free) at $4,602,100.00 and then something all too familiar happened. Two days after bidding ended the seller received this message from her Japanese winner:
'I am awfully sorry but I need to cancel this because of the paying problem,'Ah yes, the old “paying problem” as in, “Oh shit, I didn’t realize I actually had to pay.”
Now the news feeds have started reporting this act of Cod-Bagery and people around the world are stunned that eBay provides sellers no recourse against deadbeat bidders. How can it be?
So I got this idea. If you can’t beat Cod-Bags, why not join them? What would happen if all our readers formed a cod-bag flash mob? Rather than meeting in some public place dressed like Pac-Man or Mario, we would create clandestine buyer accounts and use them to win high-profile eBay auctions and then Cod-Bag out on them? I’m talking every date with a celebrity, every Bond car, and every pair of Kim Kardashian’s panties… We bid, we win, we flake! Of coarse I am not suggesting anyone go out and do it. Wink, wink. But what if? Ebay wants to give buyers all the power. Why not use it to bring them down. It wouldn’t take too many more high-profile Cod-Bags for them to be forced into action. Popular opinion would eventually drive them to modify their obscenely biased policy.
Ebay has since revoked the bidder’s account. Odd, they never yanked any of the Cod-Bags that stiffed me. I wonder where the cut-off is. $4 Million? $4.5? An opening monologue on Leno? I wonder. I wonder how many times they would need to be in the news before they made it policy to revoke all Cod-Bags who bid and bail.
Wanna find out?
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4 comments:
That actually sounds like fun, but why not all get a bunch of random handles like Mario 1-200 or Pacman 1-200.. That way the world can blame atari and nintendo for teaching people that pushing the reset button makes it all go away :)
I am with you! Why not Account COGBAG 1-100?
After all, EBAY has become just another ONLINE SHOP for the most part. Ever try to find a real auction anymore?
The truth is that EBAY loves the publicity, but you are perfectly right that an avalanche of flakes would affect their credibility.
I am in. Let's get em!
Here is the latest message received from a non-paying buyer that clicked a Buy It Now on a $2500 bedroom set. I bet this person clicked 10-12 Buy It Nows from various furniture sellers today. Did she think that her Buy It Now was a request to bring the furniture to her home for a little look see. She could just line the bedroom sets up in her front yard and make a decision. Sure, let me load it up and drive it across the country for your decision making pleasure.
"You don't actually axpect me to buy someting with out seeing it. I cant possible make a decision. I am just shopping around. You cant charge me for something I have not seen or have."
4CrazyVons,
That's one for the record books. Even if you've never used E-bay, the term 'Buy It Now' should be self explanatory to anyone that can read.
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