Deborah Woehr

I’ve been researching the costs for FileMaker Pro 7 for the past month for my Mac. Filemaker has just put out a new upgrade, but the price on the old version is still just as high as the new version. Plus, it isn’t compatible with my setup. It seems that every major software company has adopted Microsoft’s bloodsucking practices. That’s not what has me so upset right now.

I’ve been scouring the Internet in the quest for finding this program at a more reasonable price. One of the places I checked was Ebay. Makes sense, right? A couple of weeks ago, I found an auction that didn’t have a reserve price and zero bids. I decided to watch this item because it was almost up.

The next day, I receive an email from Ebay’s VeRO program, informing me that the listing had been removed for possible copyright/trademark infringement. Okay, I thought. This is a minor disappointment, but life goes on.

I kept looking. When my husband had major difficulty ordering from the major retailers, he suggested I try Ebay. I did and found an auction that had the Buy It Now for $99. I bought it, logged onto my account today, and found the listing gone from my records.

Next, I checked my email. Sure enough, I found a message from the Ebay VeRO department, informing me that the auction was pulled due to a “possible” copyright/trademark infringement. They didn’t bother to give me any real information except a list of policies and links to more information about their policies. The difference between the prior incident and this one is that I’m now out $100 and have to track it down myself. See below.

If you are a bidder and received a notice about a listing you were participating in, please keep in mind that we are unable to provide you with contact information for the seller. Since the listing was removed by eBay, the results are null and void. We do not recommend that you proceed with a transaction for a listing that has been removed early. Doing so would be at your own risk and without eBay insurance coverage or use of the feedback forum.

I received the above excerpt when I wrote to Ebay, explaining my situation. It’s from an autoresponder. In the meantime, I’ve requested a refund from the seller, which I doubt I’ll ever receive. The listing is gone, so I can’t alert other buyers if this was a fraudulent sale. I’ve kept the emails from both Ebay and the seller to dispute with PayPal. I’m hoping they can resolve the matter, if it comes down to that.

What upsets me the most is that this guy told me that this was the third time that Ebay has revoked his auctions without explanation. Why was this guy allowed to continue posting auctions if they were having all these problems with him? I wrote to Ebay a second time, asking them to require sellers to list the serial number for any software that they sell. That way, we can call the manufacturer to see if the program is legit and not a pirated copy.