racoma.com.phJ. Angelo Racoma on technology, economics, writing, problogging, and getting things done

Last September, I wrote about how crappy local auction site Bidshot’s word filtering was, to the extent that even words that include any word that spells out any number, such as phone (one) or network (two), the spelled-out number would be truncated and replaced with Xs or not displayed at all.

So you can imagine you’re selling your mobile phone and it would display in the description as cellph for sale, or cellphxXx for sale. Or your network router would be nerk router or nexXxrk router!

Just yesterday afternoon, I successfully sold an item through auction and I just realized how crappy the service has become. You don’t get adequate notifications on how to get in touch with the winning bidder (or the seller) after a successful bidding (or outright purchase, if it’s the case). The site forces you to transact through SMS, which I believe shouldn’t be the case with online auction sites!

I got the following message through my mobile:

BIDSHOT: Hi (username), your Ad (ad title) has been bought by (username)

And then another message:

BIDSHOT: You can now leave feedback to (username) for Ad (ad title) by replying BIDSHOT FEEDBACK (username)/(item code)/(FEEDBACK) to 2954 …

I got this via email:

Hi (username),

Greetings! You have successfully sold (item code) (item title).

Pls. do not reply to this email message. If you want to contact the seller you may refer and reply to the SMS message you received after you bought the item.

You may now also leave feedback to the person you’ve dealt with.
You have two options:
a. via SMS send BIDSHOT FEEDBACK (username)/(item)/(feedback) to 2954.
b. Via Web,(link here)

Best regards,
Bidshot Customer Support

This is downright stupid. I am a user who has access to web and email. Why don’t they let me contact the winning bidder over email or the web? Why is their first option always SMS? Do I really have to go through their SMS system to transact? I guess I’d rather go to eBay.ph (where I do have an account). Bidshot has good brand recognition here in the country. But if things go on as it is, then people might be better off elsewhere.

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