Word: auctioner
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Then, while the case was winding through the appeals process, the patent office in 2005 issued "initial" rejections of all three patents. Woolston, who is appealing the rejections, says eBay's infringements and dominance of online auctions virtually killed off his auction site, MercExchange, and says nothing less than an injunction will satisfy him. "We want the injunction so eBay's power sellers come to our site," he maintains. You can imagine eBay's view of that position. The case is so important that eBay has hired big-name lobbyists in Washington, such as the Ashcroft Group, a lobbying shop...
...cost-conscious brides are doing these days. She shopped for her wedding dress on eBay. And she found it: a beautiful Monique Lhuillier design that was lacy and sophisticated and everything she had hoped for. Smith started bidding. And hoping. And bidding again. At the end of the auction, unfortunately, her bid of $2,400 wasn't high enough to meet the seller's hidden reserve price. That meant the dress didn't sell. Smith was disappointed. Until she received a message from the seller--or, rather, someone she thought was the seller--agreeing to accept her bid but asking...
Smith isn't the only person to have been burned in an Internet auction--not by far. According to the list of top consumer complaints to the Federal Trade Commission for 2005, released in January, Internet-related scams accounted for 46%, or 316,000, of all fraud gripes last year. And the percentage of Internet frauds with "wire transfer" as the reported payment method more than tripled from...
...like to buy things on eBay and other online auction sites, as I do, here's what you need to know to protect yourself...
COMPARE PRICES. Look at recent auctions of similar items. If you see that the same thing sold for about the same dollar amount, you can generally expect that to be the market price. Buyers who don't compare prices risk overpaying or--like Smith--getting taken. Some crafty sellers use friends and associates to get a bidding frenzy started and then let you know--after the auction has closed--that the other bidders have defaulted and you can get the item for your "bargain" bid in the middle of the range. In that case, of course, your bargain...