posted on January 30, 2001 06:38:31 AM new
I have never had any trouble with bidders from Germany until recently. First of all I could not contact the bidder. My email was rejected, I filed NPB and he responded with please send me an invoice. I did and he never paid. I received credit on my $400 sale but I am steamed about it. I went to look up his bid history and I got the following response.
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Not possible
German privacy laws do not allow us to pass on information involving bidders from Germany. If you want to find all auctions this user has bid on, please contact the user directly by email.
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I do not generally leave negative feedback but in this case I want to.
It is funny, when something has gone wrong on my end (seller) I still get positive feedback. When I left negative for a true deadbeat, I got it back.
posted on January 30, 2001 07:08:30 AM new
Hi, Jeanine - It IS frustrating to run up against that privacy policy! I wonder if anyone has ever put a statement in their TOS like "members whose feedback is not accessible to me must contact me and provide references before bidding". I have had few bidders where it was a factor, but if I were selling high-dollar items, and got a lot of bidders from places like Germany (where their feedback is private), I might consider such a statement under my terms for international bidders.
posted on January 30, 2001 12:44:36 PM newKudzurose: But that could be considered discriminatory against those bidders. The only way it would work is if you required references from ALL your bidders.
posted on January 30, 2001 12:53:21 PM new
I don't think that it would be unfair discrimination if you were asking for "references" or additional information from bidders who have private feedback. What would be unfair would be to expect someone to do business with a person having private feedback and not being allowed to verify their reputation.
posted on January 30, 2001 01:10:23 PM newSharkbaby: I'm in Germany and my FB is up there for all to see. What isn't there is anything having to do with personal information.
posted on January 30, 2001 01:26:19 PM new
Oh, sorry. From the posts above I must have misunderstood the situation. I thought that they were saying that no one could see the feedback on the German site. OOPS!
