Price Gouging Auction

[holsteinatlanta]

I have a question about price gouging.  I have an item that I listed as a 3 day auction.  I think the retail price is say $29.99 before covid.  I listed it at $39.99 three day auction.  Well it got bid up to $81!  So there are losing bids of $80, $75, $70.  Now I wouldn't ordinary list this item at 80 and never expected it to go this high or get bids at all.  So what is price gouging?  The bidder ran the price up 

Now it turns out I have 12  more of the item.  I offered it to the winning bidder for $81 each, then told him that the next lowest bid is $75 so he can have 12 more at $75 each.  (Is that gouging) btw my item is a package of 12 other sellers have just one for $20  and getting it. That may  be gouging. 

Please tell me how to proceed.  Do you thing the ebay support reps can answer the question or will the lange barrier be a problem

[mrdutch1001]

Knowingly listing a product for which eBay has banned = consequences. A lesson to be learned here> obey the rules!

It matters not whether listed at 1c or $10.00 eBay, has restricted the listing of said product and sellers such as yourself are not entitled to list said product at this time.

Most of the sellers complaining about having their listings removed are those sellers who just recently started listing those items; the items were never part of their normal regular selling routine, which means yes that indeed can be interpreted as taking advantage of the crisis, listing it because it is perceived as a "needed" product and can potentially fetch a good price.

Just because other sellers have not yet been caught and/or sellers feel they should be able to list using lower prices and/or disguising their listings in an attempt to circumvent the ban does not right the wrong.

If eBay has given approval to certain sellers to sell these products, that is eBay's right; and eBay does not have to justify their actions.  This is their site, their rules. Whether or not it is fair/doesn't seem fair to sellers; this is eBay's decision.

eBay has stated:

"we are proactively selecting a limited number of sellers to provide certain types of inventory and there is not currently an application process for becoming approved to sell these items."

[cynthealee2]

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@dealwix wrote:

Those states are not going after sellers of TOILET PAPER. Get REAL. 

Price Gouging has historically referred to items such as fuel, food and shelter. There has @never been a Price Gouging prosecution for Toilet paper. You can not die if you do not have TP to wipe your  Bloody Bum..

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@dealwix 

I never said they WERE.

I have stated over and over again that the AG's of the various states don't care if it was an AUCTION or not, it only matters what the end price is.  That simply stating "I started the auction at a low price and the buyer ran up the end price" was not flying with the AG's.  That's ALL I have said.

I have also stated that they are going after eBay, Amazon and a few others for price gouging.  I also stated that if you think eBay won't keep a list of those they have pulled and hand that list over when asked for it I have land in FL I'd like to sell you.

Do I think each state is going to personally go to every single seller on eBay that has had a listing pulled over Price gouging?  No...

Do I think it'll be that hard to write up fines for the ones the states (as each state has different things on their list for price gouging) and mass mail them out once this is over... nope not that hard at all.  Then those people will either have to go to court (wasting time, and money) to either fight the fine or pay the fines.  

The POTENTIAL is there, so is the anger and the frustration from the people towards their governments and it would look good in a news story during an election year.  "look your government went after the nasty people that cleared your local grocery shelves to make a profit in our time of need"... the LEGALITY of it would / or could take years to figure out.

I also think that if a person continually tries to list things eBay has said not to that eBay WILL ban that seller, and if it's bad enough that eBay has to pay some fine over it they will hang those sellers out to dry along with them.

I do not think it's worth the POTENTIAL trouble to do these stupid things when there are other things that can be sold and are selling like hotcakes that don't get anywhere near the trouble issues attached to them:

Crafts

Hobbies

Puzzles

Gardening

Home Repair

Books

Movies

Games

Things the kids can do indoors or their backyards

Anything to fight cabin fever

[treasures-4less]

Happens all the time. EBAY is an Auction site. You don't know what the seller purchased the item(s) for before listing. There's lots of people who buy and then resell from Ebay. If you want to make sure you don't get overcharged then go to a Retail store.  It's a free country your not forced to buy anything from Ebay

[mesodude]

"Happens all the time. EBAY is an Auction site."

Actually eBay isn't just an auction site and you know that. Regardless, it doesn't change the fact that auctioning a scarce essential item to the highest bidder during a pandemic is price-gouging. No matter what you WANT eBay to be, that is one fact around which you cannot step.

"You don't know what the seller purchased the item(s) for before listing."

I don't care what they spent or where they got it. I'm just explaining why you don't understand the concept of price-gouging laws.

"There's lots of people who buy and then resell from Ebay."

Irrelevant.

"If you want to make sure you don't get overcharged then go to a Retail store. It's a free country your not forced to buy anything from Ebay"

I don't need to go anywhere. You're the one who wants to use a pandemic (where millions of people are sick and tens of thousand have died) as an opportunity make as much profit as you can off of items that would ordinarily cost way less. It's not allowed on eBay. Maybe you should go find some site that will allow you to price-gouge in peace rather than coming up with outrageous excuses for breaking the law?

[computeraidllc]

The problem is state law. It doesn't matter if it is auction or not. The state looks at the final price. If it goes more than 10% more than what it was before a declaration was made then it would be called price gouging and the seller is breaking the law as well as eBay itself.

[computeraidllc]

It depends on state statue. Price gouging is state statue. Some states only make it food, water and medicine. Some make it everything. Some make it somewhere in between. It is a wild west because now eBay is required to collect tax in almost all the states that have sales tax.

[drykerr]

Sounds like a seller. What keeps a friend of a seller driving up an auction price??