posted on January 11, 2001 09:14:52 PM new
I was pleased to see eBay was offering a Free Listing Day again in December. The announcement gave it as "starting at midnight (12/20/00) and ending at midnight (12/21/00). I read this as meaning it was all day on the 21st. "WRONG!" says eBay when I asked why they charged me listing fees for 65 auctions. They explained that they meant midnight as morning, not night and the free day was the 20th!
I don't understand. Everyone (but me???) knows midnight is night, not morning! How far off am I? I would love to know if anyone else out there misunderstood this to mean free listing day was on the 21st all day till midnight that night!
I can't even get them to answer my rebuttal email. The eBay customer service people have always upheld high standards and been absolutely super in the past.
I'd love to hear from you if you:
(1) understand midnight as night - meaning free day was the 21st
(2) missed the free listing day because of it
(3) have any other suggestions on how to get eBay to honor the ambiguous situation their "midnight" word created.
posted on January 12, 2001 05:44:46 AM new
Hello Kathy,
You were victimized by eBay's failure to avert a common misunderstanding.
The free listing day was the 20th.
Many folks were confused and in retrospect I think eBay should probably announce the times of free listing days as beginning at 12:00 AM and ending at 11:59 PM (both times on the same date).
posted on January 12, 2001 10:50:09 AM new
Thanks for the info. However, that's not what this webpage says in defining "time of day":
http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/iso-time.html
Also, eBay another responder said eBay apologized and refunder her fees because of the misunderstanding. I just haven't been successful in getting them to refund mine. Probably because hers was only a dollar or two and mine was about $75.
posted on January 12, 2001 02:09:44 PM newbeandizzy: I agree with you. I consider midnight to be the end of the night, not the beginning of the morning. I've heard plenty of people say things like, "It starts at midnight tonight.", I've never heard anyone say, "It starts at midnight this morning."
Luckily, I listed on the correct date. I listed about 800 auctions. Boy, would I have been PO'd if I got the date wrong.
I brought this point up in another thread. Their announcement was poorly written. It's no longer on the announcement board, but here's a portion I listed in my thread.
This is a portion of the announcement posted on Ebay at 6:54PM 12/19. As a thank you for conducting your business on our site, eBay will be hosting a free listing day beginning at midnight PST tonight (12/20/00) and ending at midnight PST tomorrow (12/21/00.)
As you can see, they use midnight as the morning when they say that it runs from midnight 12/20/00 to midnight 12/21/00. Yet, they also say "beginning at midnight PST tonight."
I don't understand why they didn't just say, "Free Listing Day is Dec 20 from 00:00:00 PST to 23:59:59 PST. The cynic in me thinks Ebay made a nice profit from this confusion.
posted on January 12, 2001 02:19:46 PM new
If someone was born at the stroke of midnight on New Year's Eve would they be born on Dec 31st or Jan 1st????---
Me--I would say they were born on Dec 31st--they had to be born 12:00.01 to be born on Jan 1st.
So 12 Midnight Dec 20th would be the night of the 20th leading into the 21st--and the Free Listing day would end 12 Midnight on the 21st.
Why did most people get it right for the 20th then?? I donna know--!!!
posted on January 12, 2001 10:41:13 PM new
For codasaurus:
I did send the link to eBay, 6 days ago. That's when they quit responding. Funny,
they refunded the listing fees for someone
else who thought the same thing I did....hmmm...
