uBid invites businesses to offer their products on its web site
for sale by on-line bidding. Normally, the third party business
will state the quantity of any item available and the minimum bid
level acceptable.
According to Brian Murphy, the Ohio lawyer acting for the
bidders, 306 people placed bids of between $53 and $353 for a batch
of 959 Pentium III 733MHz computers which uBid was offering on its
site, some bidders wanting more than one computer. After the
auction closed, the bidders were advised by e-mail that they had
the winning bids and that the orders were being sent to a supplier
for delivery. However, a few days later, uBid sent each bidder an
e-mail saying that their orders were now cancelled and offered each
of them a $50 voucher, redeemable against a purchase on its web
site.
Murphy believes that uBid must honour its acceptance of his
clients’ bids or award the sum of the difference between the
amounts bid and the amount each bidder would have to pay to buy the
computers elsewhere.
However, uBid argues that it is not responsible because the
items were posted on the site for sale by a third party business
and that that business made an error when entering the offer: the
'minimum bid' figure was transposed with the 'quantity for sale'
figure.
Surprisingly, the auction site, uBid.com, does not provide any
terms and conditions for users. Accordingly, uBid might find it
difficult to win the case.
