penguins_dont_fly is a Volunteer Community Mentor
Respectfully, I think it's a terrible idea.
I make a lot of online purchases that are a one-time or first time purchase from that site. As buyer, there's no way I'm going through some verification process in order to give my business to a seller. There's simply too many other options.
Other problems...
- who pays for eBay employees to make (guessing) about a million worldwide phone calls?
- this would take time. If this is a solution for an auction, it's going to eliminate more legitimate bids than bogus bids that may be prevented.
- how many buyers would just go elsewhere rather than get verified for a site they've never used before?
- how does this address (presumably) the biggest source of "problem" bids...compromised accounts?
It's a solution that could potentially save thousands of dollars. Unfortunately, it would cost millions in lost sales and increased operating costs.
There's an existing solution for sellers who experience this.
Option 3...sell FP, IPR.
@arands wrote:But this would only apply to an eBay user that had just registered for the first time very recently and has never bought anything.
You move into a new neighborhood
You go grocery shopping in a new (to you) store
You load up your cart and go to the cash register.
"I'm sorry, you cannot shop here, we have never seen you before"
You want to try a new restaurant.
"Please give us all of your personal information and credit card info before we can seat you. We have to run a credit check to make sure that you can pay the bill"
Your car breaks down on a road trip ... sorry ... the parts store won't help you.
You want to buy flowers for a friend in the hospital ... Established buyers only, go away.
New buyers are the lifeblood of any retail endeavor. No sane venue will discourage new buyers.
If you are having problems with non-payment, list Fixed Price with Immediate Payment Required.
@arands wrote:But this would only apply to an eBay user that had just registered for the first time very recently and has never bought anything. It wouldn't matter if you had never bought from that specific store. And if it was enabled by default I would agree. But this would be a seller tool that the seller can optionally enable if they are experiencing this problem frequently. For the average eBay user, they wouldn't ever run into this. Only sellers that have this setting enabled. There is already a similar setting but it only applies to buyers that have already bought from you. The only change would be that this then applies to buyers before they have bought from you if the seller so wishes.
Maybe the extra verification is too difficult to implement. My thinking was that it would provide a way for new users who have never bought anything to not have to worry if a seller has this setting enabled. But in all likelihood, most seller's probably won't have it enabled. So simply giving them the option to request a seller add them to a whitelist would be sufficient. Similar to the blacklist that the seller already has.
I understand that. Regardless of whether the website is eBay or one of millions of others, I'm not going through a verification process to make a purchase....I'll simply move the the next (more convenient site) and purchase there. I'm unwilling to jump through a hoop for a $50 purchase so the seller can feel protected from something. I imagine most other potential buyers would feel the same.
It's about cost/benefit and scale. The cost in terms of dollars to implement and the lost sales from new buyers who don't want to play vs the cost of the perceived problem. To me, it looks like installing cameras and hiring a FT security guard to combat the $100 worth of thefts annually at the penny candy counter.
@chapeau-noir wrote:This is all predicated on the belief that 'bots' are actually bidding. I seriously don't believe this is happening.
And then there's that.
