Hi, Alex!

Well, since the name of this forum is called "Discuss This", here's something to discuss:

Alex recently interfered with someone's ebay auction by contacting the top bidder (which he did not know), which caused the top bidder to withdraw the bid. This, in turn, cost the seller money.

The item in question was a camera that had been modified by the seller about a year ago, and a message on Hostboard was posted at that time about the difficulties involved in the modification (normal fare; all modifications are difficult). The final modification was successful, even though the seller never posted a follow up on Hostboard stating such. The seller recently put that camera on ebay in the aformentioned auction, clearly indicating that the camera had been modified and that it worked fine. Alex spotted the auction, recognized the seller (as one of a group that Alex blames for him getting "booted" from TWO different forums), and used the opportunity to seek revenge by contacting the top bidder. Alex, knowing that the long forgotten post had not been updated by the seller, sent the bidder a link to the post in a successful attempt to de-rail the auction by instilling doubt about the honesty of the seller and the functionality of the camera. As a result, the bidder withdrew the top bid and the seller lost money.

Alex thought he would never get caught but the bidder clearly identified Alex as the one sending the link as a warning. Alex sees nothing wrong in what he did and blames the seller for not updating his old Hostboard post about the condition of the camera, ignoring the fact that there is nothing in the ebay rules that says someone is required to state the condition of their item on Hostboard prior to listing it in an ebay auction. Not only is there no logical connection between Hostboard and ebay (the bidder would never have seen the old post if Alex had not sent the link) the fact is that the condition of the camera WAS updated by virtue of the ebay ad that CLEARLY indicated the camera worked fine. Alex purposely chose to ignore that information and contacted the top bidder, anyway.

I think that Alex had no ethical right contacting the bidder and interfering with someone else's ebay auction.

What do you think?

Cheers.