BenBagBag

I didn’t mean an intentional joke.

I hear, you meant a lack of credibility that a fake bid might help overcome.

Listen, I do agree with your comment earlier about fake bids being not ehrlich – and I personally believe it’s also ossur al pi Choshen Mishpot because of hilchos ono’oh – but because the seller is an unknown commodity and we are discussing all sorts of possibilities from his being a practical joker to a faker, I believe that it’s also important to discuss the business angle. On that my personal take as you know is that oiber chochmos are not kedai. Who knows how the seller sees it?

if there are zero bids, it looks line a joke; showing a bid makes it look more real.

There is only one poster on here that seems to believe that the whole thing is a joke, that poster thinks that the bid is fake too. Which I believe suggests why it makes sense to focus on those who will not think it’s a joke and not lose them at the expense of people who won’t believe no matter what happens.

BBB: I generally do not use eBay and I wondering if the bidding ad for the “bentching at the shas-a-thon” states that it may only be bid on by jews? Declining a bid is different then outright excluding groups of people (even if the item up for auction does not apply to them).

Religion by definition only applies to its members and limiting religious observances to its members is not discriminatory in any way, it’s normal, accepted, fully legal under Secular law, an everyday part of American life and protected by the Constitution.

First off ZD, respect where it’s due. If you have sold millions of dollars on eBay you have a lot of practical experience that I do not. However, what’s key here is to have a clear understanding of terms.

You can always make your own terms, However those terms cannot be against ebay rules

for example you cannot say, I only accept cash (ebay rules only allow paypal for shipped items)

The word cannot is true in the sense that as eBay write:

Make sure your listing follows these guidelines. If it doesn’t, it may be removed, and you may be subject to a range of other actions, including limits of your buying and selling privileges and suspension of your account.

So, your cash example is a very useful one. Contractually if an auction concludes with a commitment to pay Cash only then legally that’s binding. However, if the parties actually complete the transaction that way they are subject to eBay countermeasures as described.

Obviously, your point about following rules is well made. Even if something’s legally binding as far as Contract law that won’t automatically protect the user from eBay sanctions for breaking policy. So, it’s clearly necessary to know eBay rules.

And you cannot say JEWS ONLY, discrimnation is against ebay rules

By the sound of it your experience is entirely with secular transactions and so you automatically assume that any differentiation would be discriminatory.

You have never for example sold the bentsching for the Daf Hayomi siyum Hashas at Atime’s Shas-a-thon (auctioned off on ebay). Refusing that to a non-Jew is not discrimination at all, even though it was not mentioned in any Terms and Conditions – it’s obviously a religious observance and obviously governed by religious rules that’s basic common sense and it’s the law too.

Dispute resolution , eBay is very specific about dispute resolutions, you have to accept their eBay resolution service.

Ebay’s dispute resolution has an option of professional arbitration. Professional arbitrators honor civil law which requires honoring all legally binding Contractual Terms. When those terms include arbitration clauses the professional arbitrator will honor them as will all Civil Courts by ruling that the parties to the contract have to get arbitration per their contract – in this case with a Beis Din.

Firstly, you said that it would not complete. So my question is what will you say if you end up being wrong.

No, I didn’t. Apushatayid did. We are both skeptical about this, but for different reasons.

I don’t think someone outbidding is a risk, I think it’s the desired outcome. The siyum will be made, and they’ll net about $8k.

I just don’t know if the current bid is legit.

You are right that you didn’t say that DaasYochid. You responded to my comment to aposhutayid and I didn’t realize. Yes, unlike aposhutayid who suggested that it’s all bogus you believe that it’s a genuine auction and are only skeptical on the bid.

While there’s no way to know with certainty from the outside whether any bid is genuine, the risk for the seller is very real. He could lose a buyer who might have taken it at the minimum bid – thinking he has a good deal getting it at opening bid but who would have no interest at all into getting into a bidding war.

I personally would not go that route if this were my auction – to me that’s being an oiber-chochom.

What will you say if the auction does complete tomorrow?

I would not know if it was legit, or if the “buyer” and seller will agree to back out, with no negative consequences for trying to get someone to outbid the “buyer”.

Firstly, you said that it would not complete. So my question is what will you say if you end up being wrong.

Secondly, as explained before allowing the auction to go through is a massive risk for a seller who might end up with a highest bidder who is genuine. Why would any rational person take such a risk? It would be both a big avla and a risk of losing $750.

ZD, what happens if a buyer asks to be released from his commitment and the seller agrees? Do either of them suffer any consequences?

One question is persuading eBay to refund. eBay say clearly that they do not automatically credit final fees just because a transaction did not complete. They have a process for getting the credit and the best way to guarantee a credit is to follow that process.

I am not sure what the full context of the question is but, as mentioned above, it’s not obvious how to guarantee that a non-co-operating bidder does not win, if that were to happen that would ruin any collusion between seller and a friendly buyer.

If a buyer doesnt pay, the eBay fees will be waved

If a buyer complains that the seller won’t deliver the final fees are not waived. So, if this auction completes there is a very real possibility that a genuine bidder will win and then complain that the seller would not deliver leaving the seller stuck with the final fee.

Additionally, is this what two genuine eBay users with a long positive purchase history want to do using their genuine user names?

apushatayid, thank you for helping me get the word out. I understand your thinking but you overlook a couple of things.

“the guy posting it is a long time eBay member with 100% positive feedback and unlikely to be playing any games”

As a buyer, not a seller.

Buyers don’t want to ruin their reputation either and a cancelled auction will get a negative review.

“Plus the bidder on the auction is also a member with a 100% history”

Yes, 100% of this users bids, have been with this seller, for this item.

No, that’s 100% of their recent auction bids. You are ignoring that this bidder has 100% feedback on their purchases – so we’re dealing with someone who has had a real presence and positive transaction history and not a new user with 0 feedback.

“and so while it’s easy to throw around anonymous comments on this thread”

It is just as easy to be anonymopus on ebay when you are not actually buying anything.

It might be anonymous in the sense that it’s not information available to the general public but there are real personal consequences about entering into a legal contract by bidding on eBay.

“it’s something else entirely to bid $9,700.”

not when you know you have zero to lose when you are the seller and bidder, or are in cahoots with the seller and you know you are not on the hook for 97 cents, let alone 9700 dollars.

You are completely overlooking the fact that if this auction completes which we will see in less than 24 hours then the seller will have to pay eBay the final fee of 10% up to $750 (in this case $750) and the only way to get that back is to persuade eBay that there was a legitimate reason to back out on the deal.

“That’s putting one’s money where one’s mouth is – or in my opinion smart money.”

Or, in my opinion, a great practical joke.

The seller cannot be in cahoots with the whole world. What’s to stop a serious person from, Brooklyn, Far Rockaway or maybe Lakewood who feels that this is a great cause and is really excited to bid, then goes on and wins only to be told that it’s all a joke?

Aside from the terrible avla involved in such a thing, eBay will certainly not waive the $750 final fee and the buyer will almost certainly leave very negative feedback.

In the real world this would not be funny at all and so if you ask me if this auction completes which we will know in less than 24 hours you can be sure it’s no joke.

Unless you mean that they will know that he opened an account on the CR to plug his eBay solicitation pretending to be an uninvolved person. I can live with that.

If that were what happened here I could live with that too. What I won’t do is be second-guessed and interrogated. That doesn’t work for me. Maybe I’m being difficult, but right now that’s all I am prepared to do.

If you’re not, I don’t know why you can’t just come out and say, “I’m not the father”.

Maybe I’m too proud, maybe I’m just human, but to tell it like it is DaasYochid I don’t want to be interrogated.

DaasYochid:

BenBagBag, you aren't by any chance the father, are you?

That would be something to have a son who has finished Shas multiple times and is about to finish it in a year. It would also be something to be able to come off with a stunt like that eBay auction.

I actually saw the listing, was moved by what the father had written in the aftermath of the criticism he got (it’s since been updated and changed and sanitized) and so I decided to come on here to do my bit to help get out the word because I am not in the league of actually being able to bid on that auction.

tizke l’mitzvos

Gamanit:

1) Sponsoring an activity is not intangible in the way that selling heaven is

2) Neither is being guest of honor at a seudas siyum and being able to invite up to 25 guests

Before I posted here I read the entire listing on eBay and because it was long I only referred to it in my first post.

Having read the whole thing it’s not so hard to see their thinking and therefore why eBay is a more natural fit.

But firstly, aside from what they actually posted, I would not be at all surprised if the son who is finishing Shas doesn’t want to announce it to the whole world and there is no anonymity on GoFundMe.

Secondly, having read the listing in detail, if we take the father at his word in his Update, as much as this was not obvious to the commenters who wrote before knowing the full story, as much as it is very common to sell the zchus of learning – it’s done the whole time by every Yeshiva and Kollel who sell sponsorships le’iluy neshomo etc., as he explained they did not want to sell Torah Study itself to avoid commercializing – and so they decided to focus more on selling the zchus of the celebration of the Siyum and include the zchus of the learning on the side. Although they could have done that on GoFundMe too, it’s also clear from the original auction listing that it’s more personal when it’s an exclusive one-to-one match, one sponsor to one mesayem and especially so when they both celebrate together – which would not work at all on GoFundMe which is crowd-funding.

It seems to me that what they are offering is a unique niche, but I am not sure whether they’ll find any takers. The father, for his part wrote that he believes that someone, somewhere will be interested and giving detailed suggestions in the listing he suggested how anyone can take no more than a few minutes to get a share in the mitzva at no cost by helping to spread the word.