Web Site Bids to Protect Online Auction Buyers

As the Internet auction economy proliferates via Web sites such as EBay, Amazon.com and hundreds of lesser-known venues, consumers have dived in--only to suffer from serious buyer’s remorse in some cases. Service outages, fraud or simply high prices have left a sour aftertaste for many users.

Beginning today AuctionWatch.com (https://www.auctionwatch.com),a San Bruno, Calif.-based company, will post a free tool kit to help consumers navigate the auction universe and avoid its pitfalls. The site will offer a beginner’s guide to online auctions and a tip sheet on avoiding scams--such as a failure to deliver the promised goods to the buyer, which the Federal Trade Commission has noted as one problem plaguing the fledgling online industry.