Some explanation is needed...

[astral276]

You as well as others have stated "I believe", "IMHO", " I think this is what it is". Does anybody in the forums really know?

I actually wrote 'I don't believe'. I deliberately wrote that as I am not privy to what goes on behind eBid Tower's doors and could not state it as a fact. Regardless of that, I have never seen an instance (or could image one) where eBid blocked a user just for the hell of it. You may have a more vivid imagination than I.

You suggested they do it 'as an afterthought'. I am unsure on what you based that assumption.

[adruml]

I actually wrote 'I don't believe'. I deliberately wrote that as I am not privy to what goes on behind eBid Tower's doors and could not state it as a fact. Regardless of that, I have never seen an instance (or could image one) where eBid blocked a user just for the hell of it. You may have a more vivid imagination than I.

You suggested they do it 'as an afterthought'. I am unsure on what you based that assumption.

I actually have a very poor imagination. My personal thoughts are based on logic. If you read the posts in this thread my statements have been made according to what others have posted, nothing more nothing less.
Problems in these forums come up when someone has a different opinion then others and end up humiliated by others.
The forums should not be a place to battle over who has the sharpest wit or who can point out someone is wrong. The idea here is to come together as a group and suggest what everyone feels might help the site.
Tongue lashing and detrimental sarcasm is uncalled for and should have no place in these forums. If someone has made a misrepresented statement then it should be pointed out what the facts truly are without making them feel like an idiot or an outcast.

[adruml]

Incidentely, for tongue lashings and a way to promote anyones wit or sarcasm...Facebook is the place for that, not here.

[astral276]

The forums should not be a place to battle over who has the sharpest wit or...

Sorry, you have lost me. Have you gone off on a tangent or are your comments directed at my reply to you?

[adruml]

Sorry, you have lost me. Have you gone off on a tangent or are your comments directed at my reply to you?

Does it matter here?

[dardonboi]

C'mon guys this isn't going to solve the problem. We all agree there is a problem and that the solution is out there.

I just had to fill out a form for another company. They asked about 20 questions. Some of them were optional. The ones that were absolutely required had a red star beside them. To me this seems like the easiest and quickest solution. If they require a phone number then they need to put a red star beside it and let them know this is not optional. The form is already there and it just would need updated without any changes to any other part of the programs. Of course I have never had to make these kind of changes so I could be wrong.

[emporiumdays]

Well, this morning (around 8:40am here in Australia) (45 minutes ago), I found I'd received the following email....
(It had been sent a little over 7 hours earlier)

Hi Stephen,

Any member from the forums can email support for answers. We consider the forums for the members to exchange healthy views and will try to avoid getting into a direct debate.

Reference:

'Yes, it was because of eBid's emails NOW going into my 'junk' folder, and eventually I discovered this (though admittedly it wasn't even 'on my radar' as a possible problem, and no, I hadn't read eBid's article about Spam problems)....'

We have researched further.You reported via your email system intentionally (at the time) or inadvertently 'marked eBid as spam' on Wed 29 Dec 2010.

Best Wishes
eBid Support Team

[HelenAndGraham]

The quickest easiest way to start would be for eBid to reword, not only the emails sent, but the message that is displayed, when there is any problem with an account.

What this thread has done is show that there is more than one problem that members feel support need to address, but there also seem to be a great many misconceptions as to how registration works, for both buyers & sellers.

Spot on! I completely agree.

As far as I understand it, you join eBid, you are sent the verification email, you click on the link, or paste it into the address bar, & you are a member, & can start bidding or buying. This is, in most cases, instantaneous, so that you don't miss out on bidding for or buying an item that is ending.

The verification of your registration details, as put in the form, are carried out as soon as possible after you have joined. If your postal address, or phone number is missing, contains an error, or is fake, then your account is put on hold until you rectify the problem.

All sounds fine. So why are so many buyers having their online ID struck through shortly after they buy and pay for something? Is this really happening or are they all accounted for as being cheats, scammers and error prone folk offering incorrect addresses - or is it just that some are simply not replying to emails coming from a site they think they've now finished dealing with for the foreseeable future?

If you upgrade your account to seller or seller+, extra verification, ie credit/debit card, or paypal checks are also carried out.

This is obviously sensible and reassuring to buyers and shouldn't stop. I don't think anyone has suggested the registration or verification processes should be eased in any way for eBid sellers of any type.

If you then start to list very expensive items, or items in certain categories, further verification documents are requested. Obviously some members feel this extra verification is unwarranted.

eBid would be mad to ease their registration or verification standards for any seller whatever value of goods they are selling. So far as I can see, the only consideration anyone is asking for in this thread, is the treatment and consideration being applied to BUYERS. Please correct me if I'm wrong but strict verification of sellers isn't an issue to Madelaine, 0ctavia or anyone else is it?

The only way I can see around this, is instead of allowing you to list those sort of items & then putting the account on hold whilst requesting the extra verification documentation, is to bar all new sellers from listing certain types of items, until they have provided the documents.

I thought we were talking about the registration and verification of buyers? Buyers don't list anything. This thread has nothing to do with eBid's treatment of sellers except that many of them would like their new buyers to be treated nicely and not barred without good reason.

Clearly Octavia's solution, to allow non registered (casual or guest) buyers limited accounts, with no bidding, no feedback, no buddypoints, a cap on the number of items they can buy, or the amount they can spend, resulting in a checkout system, with probably instant payment being required, is welcomed by some, while many others feel, buyer registration, offers at least some measure of seller protection.

Basically I agree with 0ctavia but, personally I find this all a bit too complex and cumbersome. In reality I see no good reason for a buyer to register or verify at all if they don't want to. I stress BUYERS and do NOT mean sellers. I'd be curious to hear what threat people think unregistered people who cannot post anything on the eBid website actually pose? After all there must be thousands of them on the eBid site posting nothing all the time!

I suspect the point of view depends to a very great extent on whether you believe that the payment processors, ie paypal, google checkout, pppay, & the soon to be integrated moneybookers, are totally inviolate or not.
If this were to be introduced, I truly believe there will need to be an opt-out for those sellers who choose not to participate.

I completely agree with this paragraph. Plainly people have different opinions and an opt out overcomes any potential problem created. Personally I trust Paypal's verification more than I do many websites but accept others may not.

Much has been said about B&M shops not putting barriers in the way of buyers this is true, you can walk into any Sainsbury's or Tescos, & buy, no problem, but you CANNOT, buy from their websites without registering first. Registering on Tesco's doesn't mean that you can buy from Sainsbury's without registering there as well.

Now the confusion arises that must be cleared up if people are going to get their heads round this. In a traditional, simple sale there are two parties, a seller and a buyer. However, in some circumstances a third party gets involved. This, for example, could be a broker or a venue like eBid. Let's make sure we compare apples with apples and oranges with oranges. Nobody buys anything from eBid here. They buy from the sellers and eBid is a third party. When you go to Sainsburys website they need to collect the payment from you via a merchant account and they are the SELLER. Obviously they need to collect information from you. Where in this process of shopping on Tescos or Sainsburys website do you ALSO share your information with any third party in addition to the SELLER?

Registering at Amazon, isn't only only about buying from them, but buying from their marketplace sellers too, so why is/should eBid be any different?

Amazon is a major retailer in its own right that predates their marketplace. They are the SELLER in the majority of transactions and not a third party like eBid. Apples and oranges.

Octavia's solution, would not solve the problems with missing emails to both buyers & sellers, the only way I can see around that, is a website based messaging system.

I agree with this last point.

This thread started because of the issue surrounding emails apparently not getting delivered/answered causing buyers to get strike throughs.

I think everyone agrees this is not a good state of affairs. Any site sending bulk email where the titles and contents are often similar will find their mail falls increasinlgy foul of spam traps and there is nothing eBid can do to change ISP or recipients mail settings.

In my opinion eBid only needs to look at how other websites deal with unverified email addresses following registration to solve this quite easily. They don't need to strike through IDs and ruin someones online ID in public, they do not need to risk insulting anyone with authoritarian threats and suggestions of severe consequences. When they next log on to eBid they see a screen that simply says "Sorry, before proceeding, we are waiting for you to verify your email address. If our email is not in your inbox please check your spam folder or press this button to have another email sent to you". No drama, no tears, no strike throughs, no dented egos and it has worked on numerous websites for many years. Put simply, eBid can stop them doing anything until they verify but they don't need to threaten them or publicly deface their ID in public. This is probably the quickest and easiest fix to the email problem Madelaine and 0ctavia are so wound up about.

Gothicina is also correct that this thread has broadend out in to other areas while searching for answers and this is possibly confusing the issues.

So, email verification routines aside, will people please, please, please see that their buyers should not be constantly referred to as potential threats. Why on earth is anyone selling online if this is their belief? As a seller you are asking these people to send you money and TRUST YOU to send the goods. The whole P2P model works because there has to be mutual trust and respect between the two parties, buyers and sellers. Yes there are bad buyers out there but there are just as many bad sellers too, if not more.

Assuming we recognise the importance of buyers and the respect they deserve it is worth bearing in mind that an unregistered BUYER visiting eBid need never be allowed to post anything on the eBid website whatsoever and therefore could not do any damage. All an unregistered BUYER could do, if eBid allowed it, is push a Paypal "buy now" button and send an eBid SELLER some cash! How threatening is that?

As eBid is today any unregistered SURFERS can view any sales page they like but they cannot buy or sell. So all I am saying is eBid could allow these people to BUY ONLY by sending the sellers some cash using a trusted payment processor who has already verified their ID. This creates a traditional sale consisting of two parties, a buyer and seller and the seller is given the information they need to send the goods by Paypal. Why does the third party in this arrangement, eBid the venue, need to verify the buyer at all? All they need to worry about is getting the seller to pay any fees due to them after the sale. This is why I suggested making sales to unregistered buyers a privilege of seller+ status as they have already paid eBid for "free(ish)" sales

Hopefully a good experience for an unregistered BUYER will mean they will return again and again. Maybe they will start to see some benefit from registering or maybe even consider eBid as a venue to start selling at instead of somewhere else.

Just to make it clear. An unregistered buyer still has an IP that eBid can check, log and track. eBid can still place cookies on an unregistered buyer's machine. An unregistered buyer cannot infect everyone with nasty viruses any more easily than an unregistered surfer who can already access all the same pages. An unregistered buyer can still be directed to various national sites, or blocked, according to their IP. An unregistered buyer using Paypal does not represent any more threat to any seller on eBid than another buyer who has registered on eBid and buys using Paypal. Unregistered buyers can still click adsense adverts and earn eBid some money.

I don't think Gazza and Mark will disagree with my views as much as some others might. I'm sure they would have noted it when eBay enabled unregistered buyers and, after all, the guys apparently already view the risks associated with sellers and buyers differently as evidenced by the "buyer only" eBid sites where sellers are not allowed to operate from. So I'm confident this is a subject they will have already looked at long before now and I look forward to hopefully hearing their views.

[emporiumdays]

In my opinion eBid only needs to look at how other websites deal with unverified email addresses following registration to solve this quite easily. They don't need to strike through IDs and ruin someones online ID in public, they do not need to risk insulting anyone with authoritarian threats and suggestions of severe consequences. When they next log on to eBid they see a screen that simply says "Sorry, before proceeding, we are waiting for you to verify your email address. If our email is not in your inbox please check your spam folder or press this button to have another email sent to you". No drama, no tears, no strike throughs, no dented egos and it has worked on numerous websites for many years. Put simply, eBid can stop them doing anything until they verify but they don't need to threaten them or publicly deface their ID in public. This is probably the quickest and easiest fix to the email problem Madelaine and 0ctavia are so wound up about.

Now something like that sounds good to me.....

[Gothicina]

This is obviously sensible and reassuring to buyers and shouldn't stop. I don't think anyone has suggested the registration or verification processes should be eased in any way for eBid sellers of any type.

eBid would be mad to ease their registration or verification standards for any seller whatever value of goods they are selling. So far as I can see, the only consideration anyone is asking for in this thread, is the treatment and consideration being applied to BUYERS. Please correct me if I'm wrong but strict verification of sellers isn't an issue to Madelaine, 0ctavia or anyone else is it?
I thought we were talking about the registration and verification of buyers? Buyers don't list anything. This thread has nothing to do with eBid's treatment of sellers except that many of them would like their new buyers to be treated nicely and not barred without good reason.

No neither Octavia or Madeline, mentioned it, but at least one poster on this thread did, & he is not the only new member to do so recently, he was extremely unhappy at the way his account was held until he supplied the requested extra documentation.
At the end of the day be he a buyer, seller or both, his, concerns should also be addressed, and as they were mentioned on this thread, it made perfect sense to me to answer him as well as everyone else who posted here.