Sydneytec . They are selling macbook for $1,949.00 and then offering discount. Though the price of this product at apple website is $1699. Check the below links. Hope I am not missing anything. Looks same to me. Can we report this to ebay.
https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Apple-Macbook-Air-13-with-Touch-…
https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/New-Apple-13in-MacBook-Air-1-6GH…
it is unfair, but it happens, and it is dicussed many times on the deals hence the price jacking comments or i'm here for the price jacking comments.
same thing happens if you bought an item for $100 and found the exact item at another dealer for $120.. would you contact the person you bought off and give them an extra $20 because that is the fair thing to do.
i'm not saying its right to price jack.. but it happens… not much they will do if you report it, me thinks.
it is unfair, but it happens, and it is dicussed many times on the deals hence the price jacking comments or i'm here for the price jacking comments.
Upping a price to bolster an items discount is not just unfair, it's illegal as far as the ACCC is concerned.
illegal, it absolutely is… but Ebay doesn't seem to flinch when we report price jacking… the same vendors are still operating. unless ebay removes all of these 'selected seller' or 'select items' promos, don't see it ever stopping,
The sellers are generating money for ebay due to seller fees, penalizing them would be like shooting the goose that lays the golden egg.
Lifehacker wrote an article about the 3rd party seller price jacking antics last year as you can see the sellers themselves just get a little bit of bad press but they don't cop much of a penalty asides from being excluded from a sale.
You just need to be a savvy shopper and be aware of the price jacking, always research prices online / use price comparison tools before you commit to buy,
Upping a price to bolster an items discount is not just unfair, it's illegal as far as the ACCC is concerned.
I used to work at the ACCC, not in enforcement, but I know more than the general public about how the ACCC works and what the ACCC is concerned with.
First of all, let me make it absolutely clear that breaching consumer law is not a criminal matter, it is a civil matter. Therefore, don't say that this is illegal and then bold-type it as well, especially when you're not familiar with the law because it leads to misinformation about what the ACCC and courts can and can't do.
Contravention of ACL can lead to pecuniary penalties, which are fines imposed and collected by CIVIL courts, not criminal courts. This means that the civil standard of proof is used (balance of probabilities), not the criminal standard of proof (beyond reasonable doubt). So no, this is not a criminal matter and will never be a criminal matter.
Anyway, now onto the technical nitty gritty (which is much deeper than many would consider and the primary reason why it's so difficult to go after these eBay price-jackers).
What we're discussing here is known as "two-price comparison advertising" or "was-now pricing" by the ACCC. There's plenty of resources on it (e.g. see https://www.accc.gov.au/publications/advertising-selling/adv…).
It's not in contravention of ACL to increase prices before a sale, what is in contravention of ACL is saying that a product "was" available for a certain price, but was never actually sold at that price. Now given that, let's discuss why it's almost impossible for the ACCC to take any action on eBay regarding this practice.
1) The specific legislation applies to specific prices. For example, to say that something "was $5000, now $2000" or that a specific item is "50% off" rather than general sales. For example, if I have a "10% off storewide" sale and some of the items in the store have their prices raised before the sale, this becomes a very grey area and chances are the strength of the argument would not be strong enough for any fines imposed by the ACCC to actually hold up in court.
2) eBay is a marketplace and marketplaces generally have different rules and regulations. My personal opinion is that the ACL was written when these markets generally did not exist and therefore, just isn't able to cover issues which are not in the traditional buy-seller framework. The information on eBay and other marketplaces can be found here (https://www.accc.gov.au/consumers/online-shopping/ebay-onlin…).
3) It is eBay offering the sales, not the individual businesses. Therefore, it is impossible to pursue this further as you have to be able to decide who you want to take to court. You can't take eBay to court as they are simply offering a sale on products in their marketplace (no different to me standing outside Target and saying I'll give everyone $2 if they shop at Target, for instance). It is also difficult to take the individual retailers as you would have to prove that there is some type of collusion, sure, it may be obvious, but many things that are obvious do not stand up to scrutiny in court.
Basically, the long and short of it is that this is much more complicated than most realise. It is likely that it will never be dealt with by the ACCC because the ACL is currently inadequate for dealing with these types of specific cases outside the traditional buyer-seller framework. That's why the page on eBay and online auctions has a million different caveats and hedges.
Moreover, I think it's worth considering that the ACCC has very limited resources and enforcement is only a very small part of what the ACCC does. Issuing fines and going to court is a hugely expensive process, so it has to be in the public interest for it to be pursued. There are breaches of the ACL every day, the ACCC has to pick its fish to fry really.
Thanks for your input so in a nutshell merchants are more than aware of the so called grey area . So using the risk/reward equation have no problems pushing limits knowing enforcement is highly unlikely .
Thanks for your input so in a nutshell merchants are more than aware of the so called grey area . So using the risk/reward equation have no problems pushing limits knowing enforcement is highly unlikely .
Basically yes. Since this is a civil matter, the ACL is nothing more than a "guideline on how you should act", and if you read through the documents that I linked before, this is always made clear. Everything is written with a bunch of caveats and hedges and it's always that "you should do this", or "you should not do that". There's very few examples of penalties and all that's said of breaches is that "fines might, may, maybe, not likely apply, maybe" - this really shows how much these things are open to interpretation.
Like with any other civil wrong, you have to always think about whether it's worth taking to court. Would you sue your neighbour for throwing dog poop over the fence? Probably not. It's the same idea here - the ACCC is funded by tax dollars and at some point, you have to beg the question of whether you'd rather spend those tax dollars pursuing small-time eBay resellers in court or testing kids toys to make sure they won't kill anyone.
Excuse me do you mind not schooling me, just a bit? lmao
Is Sydneytec the cut down "strictly strictly online" arm of Wireless1 ?
The invoice styling is exactly the same, but there is no street address or phone number for SydneyTec
A lot of them look at the final price after code discount and fiddle around till they get there desired price which if smart is just beating there closest rival .
Reporting to Ebay is water of a ducks back this happening's lol .
Geez that is hard to read:
*'til
*their
*their
*off
No idea what the end of the last sentence is supposed to mean.
I stand corrected.
@djkelly69 My bad .
First suggestion is get a life .
Second to think about is not everybody great at grammar ( is there big bucks to made in the field lol ) .
Other are blessed in other fields such as mathematics where the future is more rosy and $$$$$$$ flows more freely :)
Just dont buy from the price jacker
Yeah Sydneytec No ones likes a dirty bump jacker!
I'd rather ACCC sue eBay and co than sue MSY. The toothless tiger (ACCC) can pick on the MSY kitten but they cower in the presence of the massive woolly mammoth eBay.
Weak.
You have no idea what you are talking about. I used to work at the ACCC - I'm not offended you call them weak (they could be better on a bunch of things), but unfortunately there's something called "due process" around here. Many of these cases get clogged up in the courts and become so drawn out that you have to pick your battles. I don't think you realise the time and expense it takes to pursue these cases - you have to hire in special investigators, witnesses, experts to provide evidence…etc. It becomes a very expensive and time consuming process especially when it's a case where you don't have much chances of success in the first place.
The ACCC does not write the ACL, nor does it have any say. If you think that this sort of behaviour is unacceptable then you need to petition your local federal MP to pass new competition legislation which builds on the ACL to address the online marketplaces where the ACL is wholly inadequate. With clearer rules, the ACCC will have much greater chances of success with pursuing these cases and it'll make pursuing them much more worthwhile.
You probably don't have any idea what the ACCC does, but enforcement of the ACL is only a small part of the operations of the ACCC. If you think that the ACCC is somehow "afraid" of eBay or the small-time retailers on there, don't worry, they've taken on much bigger fish and fried them in court. Plenty of merger and acquisition transactions between companies with much more presence in Australia than eBay have been blocked, for instance.
The MSY case is not really comparable either. That is a cut and dry case where there was really no chance that MSY would try to challenge that in court. Of course, they didn't and accepted the fine because they knew they were in the wrong.
why are sellers so unwholesome ??? if eBay's subsidising the discount, why do they feel so greedy and selfish to increase the price ? like you ain't losing anything ??
I'm sure whoever's price-jacking would want a good discount themselves too ? people are insane…
The are selling you things, so they want a profit, not a discount. eBay doesn't subsidise the whole discount.
No profit = not viable = no longer in business. That's not insanity, that's survival.
It's not illegal to sell above RRP.
It IS illegal to price-jack to then 'offer' a discount to your customers, but eBay is notorious for ignoring this.