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.