Author Topic: eBay for Dummies  (Read 4105 times)

Bean

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eBay for Dummies
« on: July 28, 2016, 11:08:40 AM »
As a purchaser of less than a handful of items on eBay, I jumped in on an auction for a Onewheel (nib) yesterday and got the second highest bid. 

But, this morning I got an email from the seller offering to sell me the board at the high-bid because the "winner backed out".   My response was, at auction shouldn't the item go the next highest bidder?  The sellers response was, "I can't do that, it's below my cost".   I smell a shill...

Beyond this little rant, I'm stepping away form this transaction.  What would you do?
« Last Edit: July 28, 2016, 11:31:30 AM by Bean »

OUTSIDEWAVE

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Re: eBay for Dummies
« Reply #1 on: July 28, 2016, 11:34:21 AM »
i'd skip it   there are so many scams every where. What was the highest bid how far below were you?
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NorthJerzSurfer

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Re: eBay for Dummies
« Reply #2 on: July 28, 2016, 11:41:15 AM »
yep...and you will have pay him direct...(he will request outside of paypal and ebay...and POOF...bye bye.

Check the winning bidders feedback..its probably a made up profile....

If there is that little margin in it for him his second highest bid shouldnt be below his cost.  If you had actually won and there was no reserve he is supposed to be obligated to sell it to you.....

linter

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Re: eBay for Dummies
« Reply #3 on: July 28, 2016, 11:41:34 AM »
   the second highest bid should only be the standard eBay-set increment away from the highest bid, usually a few dollars at most.  it's not like the highest bid can be 150 and the second highest 100.  that's not the way it works. so im a little confused how the highest bid can be above his cost and the 2nd highest below.  and if it is below it cant be by much.

Bean

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Re: eBay for Dummies
« Reply #4 on: July 28, 2016, 11:46:56 AM »
Outside, as you probably know the Onewheel is about $1500.  The high bid was $1275 and my max bid was $1151.  As a reasonably complex electronic device, there is just not enough markdown for me to even consider not buying direct or from a legitimate reseller in this case.

Bean

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Re: eBay for Dummies
« Reply #5 on: July 28, 2016, 11:50:49 AM »
   the second highest bid should only be the standard eBay-set increment away from the highest bid, usually a few dollars at most.  it's not like the highest bid can be 150 and the second highest 100.  that's not the way it works. so im a little confused how the highest bid can be above his cost and the 2nd highest below.  and if it is below it cant be by much.

Yup, in this case $25 increments...only a shill would jump from 1151 to 1275, no?  This is academic of course, I have walked away.
« Last Edit: July 28, 2016, 11:55:07 AM by Bean »

Bean

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Re: eBay for Dummies
« Reply #6 on: July 28, 2016, 11:54:31 AM »
yep...and you will have pay him direct...(he will request outside of paypal and ebay...and POOF...bye bye.

Check the winning bidders feedback..its probably a made up profile....

If there is that little margin in it for him his second highest bid shouldnt be below his cost.  If you had actually won and there was no reserve he is supposed to be obligated to sell it to you.....

So they troll you in through the auction and hook you with an email after the fact to extract a non-traceable payment.  Hmmm, bastards.  Thank God I'm too cheap to go along with that crap.

linter

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Re: eBay for Dummies
« Reply #7 on: July 28, 2016, 11:57:34 AM »
well, as i look at it, you weren't the second highest bidder, you were third.  2nd highest was 1250.  i've done a lot of ebay buying and selling and a/ shill bidding is extremely rare and b/ this doesn't look like shill bidding to me, it looks like it went down exactly as it's supposed to.
   anyway, the seller has sold over 10,000 items with a 99.4% approval rating and been on ebay since 2005.  you don't get all that without being good to your word.
  as long as he didn't suggest going outside of the ebay system to complete the transaction, i don't see anything wrong with what he did.  i've done the same thing many a time.  no biggie.

Bean

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Re: eBay for Dummies
« Reply #8 on: July 28, 2016, 12:52:37 PM »
I was contacted by email and advised I was next in line and offered to buy at the high bid.  Who knows, maybe the $1250 bidder got the same offer, I'm not privy.





« Last Edit: July 28, 2016, 01:00:13 PM by Bean »

PonoBill

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Re: eBay for Dummies
« Reply #9 on: July 28, 2016, 01:31:30 PM »
It's pretty much standard practice. I've bought and sold a lot of stuff on eBay, and it's not uncommon for the high bidder to bail. Lots of people bid on things because they're caught up in the moment, or they're just dicks, and then bail out when they win.  When you contact the second highest bidder, they are free to decline and often do. When I'm bidding on something expensive I hold fast to a price, watch the auction spiral away, and often times get contacted to see if I'll match the price. the answer is "NO", but I'll pay what I bid.

then again there are a million eBay scams, and high approval, high transaction number sellers know all of them. Shilling is not uncommon (sorry Linter, it's just not: http://community.ebay.com/t5/Archive-Bidding-Buying/This-place-is-LOADED-with-SHILL-bidding/td-p/2885957). There's also a standard auction practice of running an auction to establish a price--happens in live auctions as well as eBay. Exotic car auctions will often include cars that aren't really for sale--they post a sky-high reserve and see what the high bid is. Critical information for just the cost of registering. Car dealers with a dozen cars transported to an auction will often include a couple of flyers like that.
« Last Edit: July 28, 2016, 01:35:16 PM by PonoBill »
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linter

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Re: eBay for Dummies
« Reply #10 on: July 28, 2016, 01:58:45 PM »
I will defer to bill on shill bidding but I'm not convinced that anecdotal evidence counts for much.  Lots of people *claim* shill bidding but I have yet to see thorough studies done -- not that ebay would ever let such studies be conducted, however, because it is a paranoid and closed-mouth outfit.  Maybe because of shill bidding they don't want anyone to know about?  Possibly.  I doubt it.  It happens, to be sure, but not to the degree that people dream up in their angered imaginations.

But while I'm here, let me gloat about two ebay purchases i made.

1/ a 1976 Porsche 912e.  Best example in the country, worth about 22-25k at the time it went on eBay.  I wrote the guy and told him I couldn't do that kind of money, how about somewhere around half that, I'm always here if you need me.  He got so sick of the Porsche freakshow that exists with buyers on eBay that he sold it to me for what I wanted to pay, which was a bargain.  And all because I wrote him a very nice and well-reasoned (sort of) and calm message.  It works!

2/ similarly, four or five years ago, there was a Banksy print up that I loved, because it payed homage to Keith Haring's barking dog.  Guy had it up on a BIN price of 12k, and started getting hounded to death by the Banksy crowd, which is every bit as lunatic as the Porsche crowd.  Again, I wrote him an email, and two months later he popped up out of the blue saying he was disgusted with ebay and I could have it for 6.  I took it.  2 years ago an art dealer I know offered me a clean 24 for it.  I should have taken it but I didn't.  I'll leave it to my daughter who, knowing the art market, will probably wind up getting pennies on the dollar for it.  No matter.  I love that freaking barking dog!

Anyway, I've bought and sold maybe 1500 - 2000 items over the years (and in so doing once was the third largest collector of LED calculators from the 1970s in the world, owned 550 of them, don't know what I was thinking, go figure).

Bill wrote: " There's also a standard auction practice of running an auction to establish a price--happens in live auctions as well as eBay. Exotic car auctions will often include cars that aren't really for sale--they post a sky-high reserve and see what the high bid is. Critical information for just the cost of registering. Car dealers with a dozen cars transported to an auction will often include a couple of flyers like that."  Maybe this isn't the best thing in the world to do, since it gets people's hopes up, but no one is financially harmed by it.  I did it once or twice back in the day and would do it again if circumstances really, super-duper called for it, maybe.

And, finally, for anyone who might be interested, here's a long-ass story called This Is Your Brain on Ebay, written by someone with my name probably 20 years ago now.  Pretty kooky stuff!  http://www.mvick.org/Ebay.htm

btw / don't nobody think about coming to rip me off.  the car is gone and the banksy is out on semi-permanent loan!!!!
« Last Edit: July 28, 2016, 02:27:39 PM by linter »

PonoBill

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Re: eBay for Dummies
« Reply #11 on: July 28, 2016, 03:31:41 PM »
It's remotely possible that eBay has clamped down on it. Highly unlikely, since they are only concerned about stuff that costs them money in either the long or short term. Used to be that if you got outbid in a suspiciously big way you could look at the other stuff your competitor bought and see if they were shilling. the answer often was yes.

We pitched some biz with eBay many years ago. secretive isn't a strong enough word. We got NDA'ed to death.
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lucabrasi

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Re: eBay for Dummies
« Reply #12 on: July 28, 2016, 04:50:42 PM »
.........(and in so doing once was the third largest collector of LED calculators from the 1970s in the world, owned 550 of them, don't know what I was thinking, go figure)......
too funny. Of all the things....
Of course I don't collect things someone else wouldn't nor find something cool that someone else wouldn't either.
Collections........and ebay.
How handy would it be to have a garage you could fly a helicopter in? I want that.........
will have to read the article later.





Bean

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Re: eBay for Dummies
« Reply #13 on: July 28, 2016, 05:00:15 PM »
In the long term, if buyers experience or even suspect higher incidents of fraudulent transactions, they'll simply stop using the service.  But there is a paradox, if eBay clamps down too hard on these schemes the issue becomes even more visible.  Of course, as with everything else, if they fail to properly self regulate  it is certain that the government would be happy to assemble an appropriate body to assist in the process.

So what do I do.  In this case, nothing, no negative feed back and no reporting to eBay.  Why?  Simply, I would have nothing to gain in the process and I recognize that I could be wrong. 

Thanks for the insight all...

krash

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Re: eBay for Dummies
« Reply #14 on: July 29, 2016, 07:02:54 AM »
How many times have you seen an ebay seller set an auction opening price at $0.99 with no reserve, then a few days later if the auction is not drawing the attention or prices they simply shut down the auction and no-one wins the item. (perhaps to get an idea of a target reserve price)
Couple days later with a little editing of the description list the item again with a reserve...
Old fugger who just likes to fish

 


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