Class Claims EBay Ad Program Flopped
Class Claims EBay Ad Program Flopped
SAN FRANCISCO (CN) - EBay didn't deliver on its promises to sellers who paid $39.95 for its "Featured Plus!" service that was supposed to bump their ads to the top of a search page, customers say in a federal class action.
Lead plaintiff Custom LED, of New Jersey, says the service was "completely nonfunctional" for certain periods, particularly in the second half of 2011, because of bugs in the program.
But it says eBay continued to promote and charge for the service on its eBay Motors website, even after it acknowledged that "a known bug" had caused the service to stop working.
EBay sold Featured Plus! as a way for sellers to have their items appear in a separate section at the top of the search results page. Priority in search results can dramatically improve the likelihood that a prospective buyer will see an item and purchase it, since it is not unusual to have thousands of matches for a search.
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If a potential buyer searched for "high-intensity headlights" - a product Custom LED has listed for sale and for which it paid the $39.95 Featured Plus! Fee - the company's product listing would be prioritized only if the buyer had begun the search within eBay Motors and had selected the appropriate one of the seven filtering options, according to the complaint.
http://www.courthousenews.com/2012/01/25/43314.htm
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