eBay vrs42?

[Roger Merchberger]

Rumor has it that vrs may have mentioned these words:
>From: "Roger Merchberger" <zmerch at 30below.com>
> >car,
> > which Ford sold in good conscience and received a fair price for, as
>*they*
> > offered the 1/2 off clearance sale.[1]
> >
> > No foul there.
>
>So next time, I suggest they walk into the dealership together, and just
>demand the car for scrap value.

And the Ford dealership has every right to deny that sale. Last I checked, 
that's called 'dickering' --> at least in my neck of the woods, and is by 
no means illegal.

The Ford dealership, if hungry enough for the sale, may choose to sell the 
item lower than their "best advertised price" or they may not -- it's their 
choice. The buyers have the choice of not buying the Ford for the best 
price the salesman can come up with at that time. 3 months later the price 
may change, or someone else may have bought it by then.

You've provided a straw-man argument.

=-=-=  =-=-=

Amongst other things, my company sells computers. We make damn fine 
computers, too. We also back our damn fine computers with some damn fine 
service. Due to that, we can't come close to Dell's price on their 
now-shitty products, and now utterly horrible support.

Therefore, every time someone brings us a sheet saying "This is what I can 
get from Dell" we effectively choose not to sell a computer, as we choose 
not to sell crap, and we can't come close to Dell's price otherwise. (Hell, 
due to their buying power, I don't think we could come close if we *did* 
choose to sell crap!)

We've chosen to sell some damn nice computers at some *very low* margins to 
get the sale, but we've never chosen to sell crap for cheap, or good stuff 
below our cost. We can't survive that way.

Dell has their business model, we have ours. That's business.

=-=-=  =-=-=

> > >And I think that eBay has been pretty clear about it, from what I have
> > >seen of their history on user complaints.

[[ As an aside -- if it was that clear, this discussion would be moot... ;-) ]]

> > I didn't agree to eBay's user complaints, I agreed to their User
>Agreement.
> > If eBay was unclear in that document, then they need to amend or edit that
> > document, then I need to *agree* to that document. As a user of their
> > services, I can either agree to their amended user agreement, or I can
>stop
> > the service. (or I suppose, I could contact my lawyer and open legal
>action
> > to have them remove that section of the document if I felt it was illegal,
> > but that would be 1) costly and quite possibly 2) pointless. However, I
> > would have to do that before I agreed to it, else I would be bound by the
> > new agreement until it was rescinded.)
> >
> > Until then I did not agree to what's in their user complaints section, and
> > cannot be bound by it. And as currently listed in the user agreement,
> > collusion to *not pay* is not sufficiently covered, (IMHO, but IANAL) only
> > shilling.
>
>You may feel that way, but the complaints that have gone before are
>effectively the "case law" with respect to interpretation of the user
>agreement.

Huh? Case law is only what shows up on the lawyer's books... not in 
(essentially) a blog run by the company.

In this case, 'case law' is what I agreed to in the licensing, and nothing 
more. If it can be interpreted multiple ways, then eBay's lawyers didn't 
sufficiently cover eBay's butt, and they need to revise the user agreement 
to remove the ambiguity. Once removed, I have the right to no longer agree 
to the user agreement, and no longer use the service.

In the user complaints section, eBay has every right to say: "This is what 
_we_ feel said passage means" and their customers have every right to say 
"This is how we interpreted said passage..." Until eBay modifies their user 
agreement, however, it is *not* "case law."

Laterz,
Roger "Merch" Merchberger

--
Roger "Merch" Merchberger  --  SysAdmin, Iceberg Computers
  _±±_                          zmerch at 30below.com
(©||®)  If at first you don't succeed, nuclear warhead
  _)(_   disarmament should *not* be your first career choice.