In some ebay auctions it states: UPC was removed

[Arvid Løvik]

......what does that mean?

Regards
Arvid

 

[Bert Hyman]

.....what does that mean?

The UPC (Universal Product Code) mark on the box, often used for
proof-of-purchase and rebates, has been removed by the seller.

 

[Scott en Aztlán]

.....what does that mean?

It means they bought an item with a mail-in rebate, got the rebate,
and are now selling the item.

 

[Jeff Hansman]

Which, by the way, is perfectly legal. There's nothing in law that says you
have to keep an item you receive a rebate for, or that an item for which a
rebate has been received cannot be sold.

 

[Scott en Aztlán]

Which, by the way, is perfectly legal.

If someone said otherwise, I must have missed it.

 

[Bill]

Which, by the way, is perfectly legal. There's nothing in law that says you
have to keep an item you receive a rebate for, or that an item for which a
rebate has been received cannot be sold.

Actually, on some Circuit City rebates I have submitted it
states "By submitting this form, you certify that the above
items are for personal use only and are not for resale". That
would mean that if they found that you were selling it, they
could reject the rebate.

Bill

 

[Scott en Aztlán]

Actually, on some Circuit City rebates I have submitted it
states "By submitting this form, you certify that the above
items are for personal use only and are not for resale". That
would mean that if they found that you were selling it, they
could reject the rebate.

So hold onto the item until the rebate check clears, THEN list it on
eBay.

 

[Karl Pollak]

x-no-archive: yes

So hold onto the item until the rebate check clears, THEN list it on
eBay.

Are you boys saying that the rebates are so large that they outweigh the
cut in price you have to take on eBay, or that you can get a price on eBay
that comes very close to what the guy would have had to [ay for the same
product in the store, except that if he went and bought it in the store, he
would not have to pay extra for shipping and packing?

I don't frequent eBay too much (does it show?) but some of the prices I
have seen there are absolutely ridiculous. The truly amazing part is that
people actually do bid on those overpriced items with no apparent regard to
the article's real resale value.

 

[Bill]

Are you boys saying that the rebates are so large that they outweigh the
cut in price you have to take on eBay, or that you can get a price on eBay
that comes very close to what the guy would have had to [ay for the same
product in the store, except that if he went and bought it in the store, he
would not have to pay extra for shipping and packing?

Much of the stuff you see the "UPC has been removed" phrase for
was purchased for free (or close to it) after rebate, so the
selling price is often almost pure profit. I see the GPS group
is getting this, I guess in that case the items were NOT free
after rebate :-(.

While people may hate rebates, the fact that there are so many
people selling the free after rebate stuff that the stores need
a way to limit the number of pieces someone can obtain. Now, I
assume the larger sellers have multiple addresses they can use
for rebates, so it's not working particularly well in limiting
them from getting stock. But imagine what it would be like if
they could just take a case of them for free.

BTW, when Amazon was doing their own rebates, you didn't have to
send in the UPC. And Staples now has "Easy Rebates" where you
register online and don't have to mail ANYTHING. So less of
these things that are being resold will have their UPC missing.

Bill

 

[Scott en Aztlán]

x-no-archive: yes


Are you boys saying that the rebates are so large that they outweigh the
cut in price you have to take on eBay

What "cut in price?"

People on eBay often pay ridiculously high prices. I don't know
whether it's that they get caught up in the heat of the bidding, or
they need to "win" an item they have bid on at any cost, or if it's
just simple ignorance about what things cost, but I see items sell all
the for higher prices than they are available for elsewhere. In fact,
I use this information when setting my maximum bid; I end up losing
the item to some overexuberant bidder quite often (and then I go and
buy the item from the cheapest regular source). Other times the
seller's opening bid is already higher than the price of the item; in
these cases I don't even bid, bu others do and once again end up
paying too much.

This is why some people can make a living selling junk on eBay.

I don't frequent eBay too much (does it show?) but some of the prices I
have seen there are absolutely ridiculous. The truly amazing part is that
people actually do bid on those overpriced items with no apparent regard to
the article's real resale value.

See? You know exactly what I'm talking about!

 

[Ivor Jones]

[snip]

People on eBay often pay ridiculously high prices. I don't know
whether it's that they get caught up in the heat of the bidding, or
they need to "win" an item they have bid on at any cost, or if it's
just simple ignorance about what things cost, but I see items sell
all the for higher prices than they are available for elsewhere. In
fact, I use this information when setting my maximum bid; I end up
losing the item to some overexuberant bidder quite often (and then
I go and buy the item from the cheapest regular source). Other
times the seller's opening bid is already higher than the price of
the item; in these cases I don't even bid, bu others do and once
again end up paying too much.

This is why some people can make a living selling junk on eBay.

Golden rule No.1 for buying on eBay - decide on your *maximum* bid, i.e.
the *total* you are willing to pay for the item, taking into account
postage costs, and bid it *once* as late in the auction as you can.

Then you'll either (a) be laughing that you got the item for well below
what you were willing to pay for it or (b) laughing that some other idiot
paid way over the odds.

Never get in to a bidding war, or you'll either lose to a sniper or end up
as in (b) above.


Ivor

 

[Scott en Aztlán]

Golden rule No.1 for buying on eBay - decide on your *maximum* bid, i.e.
the *total* you are willing to pay for the item, taking into account
postage costs, and bid it *once* as late in the auction as you can.

Golden Rule #1 for selling on eBay: You can count on people to ignore
GR #1 for Buying. There will always be someone who will bid $X
early on, be outbid by another bidder, and come back and bid $Y, and
maybe even $Z if there's enough time. These BTW are the people who
*hate* bid snipers - for those of you who don't know, bid snipers are
the people who wait until the last 10 seconds before the end of the
auction and submit a (usually winning) bid; the auction ends before
the unclear-on-the-concept bidders can react and submit another bid,
so they get all pissed off because they lost the item. If these morons
would only bid their maximum in the first place, they'd win a lot more
auctions.

What really boggles my mind, however, is that there are sellers out
there who will CANCEL a sniper's bid. This is totally irrational - why
would you cancel the highest bid and award the item you're selling to
someone who submitted a *lower* bid? It makes no sense at all to me...

God, I *love* eBay! It's a bizarre subculture all unto itself!!

 

[Angus]

Actually, on some Circuit City rebates I have submitted it
states "By submitting this form, you certify that the above
items are for personal use only and are not for resale". That
would mean that if they found that you were selling it, they
could reject the rebate.

Bill

All that paragraph means is that you are buying it for your personal use and
you are not a registered reseller, or retail outlet. It is not meant to
imply that you can't sell something that you own.

 

[News Reader]

Which, by the way, is perfectly legal. There's nothing in law that says you
have to keep an item you receive a rebate for, or that an item for which a
rebate has been received cannot be sold.

Try selling a mcafee viruscan product on ebay. I had a retail boxed
version of their professional 6.0 product (cd, manual, box,
everything) up on ebay and mcafee had it pulled. My listing said that
it was all original, but they said "you can't resell it." And, I had
bought in on an ebay auction! Don't buy mcafee stuff!!!

 

[Dan Lanciani]

| What really boggles my mind, however, is that there are sellers out
| there who will CANCEL a sniper's bid. This is totally irrational - why
| would you cancel the highest bid and award the item you're selling to
| someone who submitted a *lower* bid? It makes no sense at all to me...

Are you sure that they did in fact sell the item to a lower bidder? And
that that bidder was not a shill? I've noticed that sellers have various
strategies for getting out of an auction when they believe that the price
isn't high enough. Sometimes they cancel all bids and end the auction early
seconds before the scheduled end. These sellers do not like snipers either.
A late bid can screw up their strategy, especially if it is the only bid and
they were expecting the auction to end normally. (It doesn't look good to
cancel too many auctions.) If they are not going to sell the item at all,
eliminating the high bidder at least reduces the fee they will have to pay
to eBay.

I once went through this process twice with the same seller/item. The first
time there were multiple bids so he cancelled all the bids and ended the
auction shortly before it was scheduled to end. He gave "error is description"
as the reason for ending the auction early. (Funny how he noticed at the
last minute.) The item was soon relisted. This time mine was the only bid
(made at the last second) and I "won." Within a few minutes I received an
email from the seller saying that he had made a mistake and the item wasn't
available for sale. (Funny how he just noticed.) The third time he listed
the item I didn't bother bidding.

This is my one real complaint about eBay. They make a point that a winning
bid creates a binding contract, but in practice sellers are allowed to treat
that contract as binding on the buyer only. It seems to me that if there
were really a binding contract then the seller would be obligated to supply
the promised item even if it turned out he didn't have it in stock--at least
for the case of a commodity item that he could buy. For a non-commodity
item he might well be liable for the difference in price between what the
buyer bid and what the buyer had to pay to acquire the item elsewhere.

| God, I *love* eBay! It's a bizarre subculture all unto itself!!

I once noticed an auction for a small lot of unidentified DEC flip chips.
(These are small logic building blocks that Digital Equipment used through
at least the 70's.) There was a lot of bidding and the price reached a
level that seemed absurd to me. After the auction ended I sent email to
the ~5 runners up to tell them that I have hundreds of flip chips and I
would be happy to give them any specific modules that they needed if I
had them. (This was back when it was easy to get a user's email address.)
Only one bothered to answer, and it was to say "no thanks."

Dan Lanciani
ddl@danlan.*com

 

[Angus]

Try selling a mcafee viruscan product on ebay. I had a retail boxed
version of their professional 6.0 product (cd, manual, box,
everything) up on ebay and mcafee had it pulled. My listing said that
it was all original, but they said "you can't resell it." And, I had
bought in on an ebay auction! Don't buy mcafee stuff!!!

The same goes for AutoDesk products (AutoCAD), or at least it used to be
that way. Once you bought the product the license agreement stated that you
were not allowed to sell it.

 

[Scott en Aztlán]

| What really boggles my mind, however, is that there are sellers out
| there who will CANCEL a sniper's bid. This is totally irrational - why
| would you cancel the highest bid and award the item you're selling to
| someone who submitted a *lower* bid? It makes no sense at all to me...

Are you sure that they did in fact sell the item to a lower bidder?

No - I've only heard about this secondhand.

If they are not going to sell the item at all,
eliminating the high bidder at least reduces the fee they will have to pay
to eBay.

Oh, the games people play...

I once went through this process twice with the same seller/item. The first
time there were multiple bids so he cancelled all the bids and ended the
auction shortly before it was scheduled to end. He gave "error is description"
as the reason for ending the auction early. (Funny how he noticed at the
last minute.) The item was soon relisted. This time mine was the only bid
(made at the last second) and I "won." Within a few minutes I received an
email from the seller saying that he had made a mistake and the item wasn't
available for sale. (Funny how he just noticed.) The third time he listed
the item I didn't bother bidding.

I would have sniped on it again, just to piss him off.

This is my one real complaint about eBay. They make a point that a winning
bid creates a binding contract, but in practice sellers are allowed to treat
that contract as binding on the buyer only.

Another reason why it's good to be a SELLER on eBay.

I once noticed an auction for a small lot of unidentified DEC flip chips.
(These are small logic building blocks that Digital Equipment used through
at least the 70's.) There was a lot of bidding and the price reached a
level that seemed absurd to me. After the auction ended I sent email to
the ~5 runners up to tell them that I have hundreds of flip chips and I
would be happy to give them any specific modules that they needed if I
had them. (This was back when it was easy to get a user's email address.)
Only one bothered to answer, and it was to say "no thanks."

They know that it's naughty to conduct business outside of eBay, and
that anyone who contacts them via email to sell them similar items
when they lose an auction has to be a scammer.

 

[Diogenes]

You buy a software program, install it with the provided code, burn a
"back-up copy" for event of need to re-install later, then box up the
original, manuals, code, etc., and all, and list it on ebay. Wow! If
that were legal we could all pass around a used copy forever, always
getting back the used value price from the next buyer, and only be out
s&h. Your "never buy anything from...whoever" comment is a laugh.
You never intended to buy anything anyway. You knowingly intended to
steal a software program from the company using ebay as your shill.
Are you really surprised the company was spending the money to watch
ebay for these illegal sales? If they offered you the job to watch
for these illegal listings you would take it and enjoy it, I suspect.

 

[Karl Pollak]

x-no-archive: yes

You buy a software program, install it with the provided code, burn a
"back-up copy" for event of need to re-install later, then box up the
original, manuals, code, etc., and all, and list it on ebay. Wow! If
that were legal we could all pass around a used copy forever, always
getting back the used value price from the next buyer, and only be out
s&h. Your "never buy anything from...whoever" comment is a laugh.

That's a nice scenario. Here's the problem:
The software company CAN NOT stop you you from selling the disk and
documentation. They can try to prevent you from using their product after
you have sold the original copies and it can go after you for trying to
sell illegitimate copies.

Of course both alternatives are very difficult to achieve which is
precisely the reason why they are trying to scare people into not
re-selling the original software.

Tell me why should I not be allowed to re-sell the stuff when I find that
their product is no longer of any use to me or does not do for me what I
expected it to? Should I be stuck with a lemon or useless expensive disk
only because the company that sold it to me considers me to be a thief for
buying it in the first place?

Is that how you want to be treated by your suppliers?

 

[Angus]

I assume you are replying to the same person I replied to because most of
your statements don't apply to me.

If I buy software, make a copy then sell the original I have the pirated
copy not the person who bought the original.

Software companies that prohibit reselling software are not stopping piracy
they are just trying to boost sales.