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27 replies

Slippery Auctionsniper adds sales text under your name with InstaMail "service"

G Guest
This feature has some undocumented qualities. Mainly, that sales copy text appears without your permission. Niether does it show up in the "example" of the Instamail message. This sales copy text appears to portray Auctionsniper users in the role of agent of Auctionsniper, as our signatures and home contact details are bookending the sales copy.

I never gave Auctionsniper my permission to use me as a sales agent. Nor am I being compensated for it. However, by vendors are believing this from the emails sent in my name.

I do think Auctionsniper is a valuable service, but not at the expense of my reputation. Sliding in unannounced text into emails signed by myself is an abuse of trust, pure and simple, and should be ceased immediately by Auctionsniper's managment. This is an administrative issue, as Instamail is a clever service that I expect in my royalty payments I pay with each snipe.

Is Auctionsniper so desparate that it needs these revenues generated from slippery practices? I should hope not. And I would suggest that anyone who would take the time to examine how effective these emails are with vendors would either:

1) find that the sales are so miniscule they dwarf any risk of defection of the core registered membership base, or

2) see an opportunity to offer members a cut through a reseller program where a cut is passed on as well as incentivising registered members to promote the more positive aspects of Auctionsniper.

I have passed my comments on to the President/CEO of AUctionsniper as well as the Officer in Charge of Data Protection, but the only reply was from a support agent Michael W. who simpathetically replied:

"I don't like it either."

Well put Michael.

Any other registered members have any thoughts on this?

shamangroup
Original Post

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S shamangroup (Guest)
Thanks for your advice, Steve, but I have reviewed the Modify Account section and find that's exactly where the sneakiness of Auctionsniper lies.

You see, if you examine the "example" text of the Instamail letter, there is none of the sales copy in that "example". However, the actual letters sent to your transaction partners contain two paragraphs of financial incentives from Auctionsniper to get your transactional partners to join in.

Auctionsniper does not ask permission to do this, nor do they tell you they are doing it, and they are signing your name to their words.

I find it an outrageous practice that will certainly lead to trouble. For me, I've already had complaints, not from using Auctionsniper, but from soliciting business for Auctionsniper from my vendors. Come on, your reputation is at stake!

I cannot imagine any Auctionsniper user is satisfied with this, yes, slippery behaviour.


Jeff Manning
shamangroupuk

shamangroup
S Steve (Guest)
Yeah, I see what you mean, Jeff. I unchecked that option from the get-go, so it never occurred to me to look at the sample letter. There's no indication that what will actually go out will also contain a statement about Auction Sniper.

I don't mind plugging AS; it's a great service. But if it's something that irritates other folks on eBay, and especially if it also gets you in dutch with the eBay "police" by listing the AS URL, then maybe it's not a good idea.
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S shamangroup (Guest)
If you compare, here's the text that Auctionsniper adds:


"I used AuctionSniper.com to win this item. As a seller, you can
earn $5 for every new user that you refer. Simply paste these
lines into your end of auction emails, and click this link for
more details: http://www.auctionsniper.com/seller/

Snipe eBay and win more auctions. Use what others are using to
beat you! Unattended, last second, auction sniping. It's as easy as
bidding on eBay, and we do the rest. Free trial.
http://www.auctionsniper.com/?from=shamangroupuk@yahoo.com"

What really gets me is that this is not disclosed and is included written in the first person in a letter signed by me (or any other user). It would really simple to eliminate this from the Instamail function, which I think is a valuable service - but I was really shocked that it was used unknowingly to flog product.

shamangroup
J jayolson (Guest)
quote:
Why is it that after 66 views only one person has responded to this issue?

Because most of us are smart enough to figure out that if you dont like the feature to simply turn it off.

Maybe it does suck that the advertising is there but these guys have to make money and get new customers. The only way I can see them doing that is by word of mouth and emails such as that.

I figure more customers and such means a better service and lower fees to me. Maybe you could offer to pay a fee to use the instamail feature without advertising or something.
S shamangroup (Guest)
OK, Steve said the same thing - turn it off.

But the real issue is the deception.

Why hide the fact that this sales copy will appear?

If this were a tag line at the end of the email, and I could control the copy to my vendor partners, and it were disclosed, I really wouldn't mind.

But that's not how Auctionsniper behaves and I don't want Auctionsniper to become another PayPal.

Can anyone tell me if they're comfortable with Instamail with this feature?

Can anyone from Auctionsniper tell me why they offer a feature that has all forum participants recommending it be turned off?

shamangroup
C Chatter163 (Guest)
>>Why is it that after 66 views only one person has responded to this issue?<<

Maybe the other 65 are more tired of the same member posting the same sentiments again and again, ad nauseum, in so many different folders?

Maybe they have long ago forgotten about any valid point he may once have had and can now only bring themselves to ignore him, in hopes that he will be cured of his almost neurotic habit of repeating himself?
S star_trkr (Guest)
Shamangroup: Unfortunately, those of us who have been around for a long time, have learned the hard way, that it really doesn't do any good to complain about certain things. Particularly since Adam Roth (the founder of AS) left in June. That's when all the major changes took place on this site, and the quality of customer service went down hill. Now, when loyal long-time customers present legitimate issues/problems, they get accusations of incompetence from Sara instead of real customer service. Just take a look at some of the previous threads posted here.

Don't be too hard on the others for their support of Steve. Steve is just another experienced AS sniper who gives of his own time and experience to those less knowledgable. He is well liked, especially since he's so much nicer, kinder, more patient and MUCH more professional than Sara.

I don't like the instamail feature either. And I especially don't like that the sample they give is really nothing like the actual email that is sent. But I have no confidence that AS will ever change it -- no matter how many complaints are posted. So I just don't use it.
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S shamangroup (Guest)
Again, no discussion of the issue.

Auctionsniper misleads it's members and writes words in their best customers mouths and nobody cares?

Would you let your lawyer or accountant get away with this type of behaviour?

Of course not. So why should we let Auctionsniper?

Is there nobody that uses this forum for a real discussion of real issues?

I think that Auctionsniper deceiving it's customers is a very real issue. That's why I've posted it several times. So as many people as possible know about it and feel outraged enough to open cases and pressure Auctionsniper into doing the right thing.

Auctionsniper writes words in it's members emails. This is wrong. It couldn't possibly be clearer. And everyone's upset that I'm not an Auctionsniper cheerleader, not that Auctionsniper is behaving deceitfully.

Where are the sensible people who understand the issue here?

shamangroup
S star_trkr (Guest)
Shamangroup (and everyone else): I hope you get a chance to read this before Sara deletes this post again.

You asked me if there were any other surprises you should be on the look out for. I answered not of the kind you were refering to.

I also went to tell you how great AS is when it's working properly. I've won many, many auctions because of AS. And I've told a number of people about AS. I said that the best advice I could give you or anybody was to give AS a fair try and to come to own conclusions.

This is the typical over-reaction you can expect from her. In the last case I filed with technical support, I specifically expressed my displeasure with her accusatory responses to customers and lack of common courtesy and professionalism and decent customer service. The response I got was "Yeah, Sara's way out there." So even her co-workers know how she is.

If Sara can control her anger and typical over-reactions and leave this post alone, then I may stick around. But it seems her goal is to drive away as many long-time loyal customers as she can. I think she's forgotten it's the customers who make her paycheck possible.

Frown

[This message was edited by Sniper Sara B. on December 10, 2002 at 01:29 PM.]
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S snipersarabAuctionSniper Support
We will add mention in the example text for instamail that the email will include a promotion of our service.

If enough people are interested we could add the ability to remove the promotional text at a cost of 25 cents per instamail. We have few ways to attract new customers and that's one of them, so we cant just take it out. If we take it out we need to get new customers elsewhere which means expensive, mostly ineffective advertising which is expensive. We monitor all signups and how they came to signup.
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S shamangroup (Guest)
I must applaud Auctionsniper for doing the right thing by committing to disclose the promotional copy in the Instamail feature. This shows that there are people at Auctionsniper who care about our concerns.

And thank you for tolerating a bit of constructive dissent by allowing me back into the Forum.

shamangroup
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