Auction Request Going Dark

Due to two users who felt the need to publicly post that ePN had told them to stop using Auction Request, we expect ePN to make the public announcement that Auction Request (and any other third-party feed) is no longer allowed. To date, we still have not been contacted directly by eBay, and the only indications that we are running afoul of their terms is via three users who were audited by ePN in recent weeks:

— The first user never contacted us; he cancelled his Auction Request account and then posted on the ePN forum that Auction Request was now banned.

— The second user did contact us, and we told him that removal of link cloaking (rover links going to auctionrequest.com instead of rover.ebay.com) may have been the root of the problem. He told ePN that his links had been changed to remove Auction Request (which was the truth), and they were apparently fine with that; his usage of us continues.

— The third user contacted us and said he told ePN he was using Auction Request, and ePN repeated the boilerplate response that Auction Request is not allowed. We advised him to discontinue using us, and to re-enable his feeds after a month or two. He did not respond, and instead decided to post on the ePN forum, which will now force ePN to declare a public policy on the matter.

Our guess is that the central issue in all this was the link cloaking, which has been discussed at length. But "Auction Request" is a bad word at ePN right now, and it's a lot easier to just declare that we're "banned" rather than work with us on a solution that benefits everybody.

Therefore, in light of all this, we took a few steps today:

— The Auction Request home page now just displays a message that the service has been discontinued

— No new users will be accepted

— Our service, for the meantime, will continue. This obviously is subject to change at any time. If we do decide to shut down completely, all yearly subscriptions will be refunded at a pro-rated amount of time left

— As a current subscribed user, you can access a new (hidden) front page: https://www.auctionrequest.com/welcome-to-auction-request-2/

Moving forward, this is the deal:

— Yes, this is scary, and if you want out, we'll refund any yearly subscription with a pro-rated amount at your request, no questions asked. Whether monthly or yearly, it's best to cancel your subscription yourself within PayPal for this.

— If you receive income from ePN that is separate from the RSS feeds, you will need to weigh the risk of continuing with us versus cancelling and thus salvaging your other income streams. If Auction Request represents the entirety of your ePN income, you really have nothing to lose by continuing; whether Auction Request is shut down or your ePN account is terminated, the end result will be the same. Do not count on getting a warning from ePN that you need to stop using Auction Request, as the previous three users did. Since we assume it will shortly be a public policy, they can and will terminate you immediately if they suspect you're in violation. ePN is somewhat famous for such heavyhandedness.

— With that said, we do not believe eBay is able to detect that you're using Auction Request to get your feeds (unless you tell them!), as your rover links now look identical to the ePN Link Generator ones. Indeed, the 2nd user mentioned above is proof-positive that ePN is oblivious that he did not stop using us.

— If you post anything regarding Auction Request on the ePN forum, your account with us will be terminated. Zero tolerance policy on this. In order for our service to continue, eBay cannot suspect that we're still serving feeds, or they will come after us with legal action.

— If/when you are audited by ePN (they do this periodically on everyone, so it eventually will happen), avoid any mention of Auction Request. One of the standard questions they ask is "describe how you generate traffic for eBay". You're manually posting auctions and you obtained your rover links via the ePN Link Generator tool. If you state you are using Auction Request, your ePN account will be terminated by eBay, possibly now with no warning.

As an aside, ePN never originally approved the Auction Request business model; we didn't approach ePN. There was absolutely zero chance that they would permit a service to replicate the RSS feeds that they were in the process of shutting down. While they certainly were aware we existed – we advertised on the ePN forum! – the higher-ups most likely took a blind eye, because the actual impact to their servers continues to be negligible, and we're also keeping several hundred ePN afffiliate users in the program (which benefits everyone). While we can argue the merits of this, the point is that eBay – and ePN – have been on a very public crusade to slowly chip away at their own business model and userbase for years now, with head-scratching business decisions and reductions/eliminations of affiliate commissions. Auction Request was an attempt to salvage the affiliate program for hundreds of users from eBay's own idiocy. Their idiocy may have caught up to us.

If you have any questions, concerns, or just want to vent, please reach us at [email protected]. If you decide to cancel your service, we thank you for your support these past few months. If you decide to continue, we wish all of us the best of luck in surviving this.

Regards,

Scott & Rhys