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Thomas Linton

Thomas Linton

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Say you have a guy on eBay who puts up knives with "no reserve," then cancels the auction at the very last minute when it looks like he won't be happy with the high bid (which eBay says it allows.)

And he's done it twice in the last month saying knife "no longer available." Before that ?

Comments?
 
As far as I know, cancelling a no reserve auction has the same net affect as having an auction where you set the minimum price of the item, but nobody bids on it. Ultimately, he/she still has their item, unless of course he is telling the truth and it is no longer available. But assuming he is not telling the truth, I think both are free to list to the seller, so I am not sure why he/she doesn't just set a minimum price rather than play games.
 
I'd bid what the knife is worth to me and forget about it. What do I care what he wants? No skin off mine. shrug
 
The seller seems to forget that most of the bids happen in the closing seconds.
 
Thomas Linton said:
Say you have a guy on eBay who puts up knives with "no reserve," then cancels the auction at the very last minute when it looks like he won't be happy with the high bid (which eBay says it allows.)

And he's done it twice in the last month saying knife "no longer available." Before that ?

Comments?
Click to expand...
That would aggravate me also and I don't think it's right . If you have a reserve price set in your mind use it .
Don't bait people in with no reserve and cancel the auction when it doesn't get to were you want it .
Poor business and not very ethical in my book .

Sent from my SM-G935T using Tapatalk
 
That should be enough red flags for you to ignore him from now on. I'm curious about his eBay history. Things like length of membership, percent positive feedback, comments, types of items being sold, etc. Just like here, people to ignore telegraph their bad intent, if you read and heed the signs. It seems like it's time to say Adios to his listings.
 
He will not last long doing that. There was a seller back years ago that was doing the same thing with Luminox watches. I just stopped trying as did most others I guess as it wasn't long before they were no longer selling on ebay.
You are right about most bids being in the last minute. I have seen knives bid up more than 100.00 in the last 20 seconds of an auction.
 
TheFactor said:
That would aggravate me also and I don't think it's right . If you have a reserve price set in your mind use it .
Don't bait people in with no reserve and cancel the auction when it doesn't get to were you want it .
Poor business and not very ethical in my book .

Sent from my SM-G935T using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
The problem with this is that setting a reserve takes a portion of your sales on ebay. Ethically it is the correct thing to do, but sometimes people want to take a chance with no reserve so they can get around the fee for the reserve
and then get squirrelly at the end and renege

Sent from my 831C using Tapatalk
 
rchesler said:
The problem with this is that setting a reserve takes a portion of your sales on ebay. Ethically it is the correct thing to do, but sometimes people want to take a chance with no reserve so they can get around the fee for the reserve
and then get squirrelly at the end and renege

Sent from my 831C using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Those are the same people who can't figure out how to calculate a final price and expect others to guess what they mean by net to me listings here.

Sent from my SM-G930T using Tapatalk
 
Turns out he's done it three times in the last month.

I don't know if he's a member here, but he's a maker and is on one of the knife-making forums under his actual name.

It would appear that he makes the knives where this happens - puts them up for auction with no reserve, then "cancels the bid" or ends the auction when he doesn't like the bidding.

rchesler gives me insight into why he doesn't simply set a reserve, but like Lone-Wolfe I wonder about the logic. Maybe he was a sort of sniping app that lets him pull the item at literally the last second.

He's been selling on eBay since 2005 with 1300+ feedback and all positive. Mostly he's a buyer and when he sells most of the knives he sells are production knives. Of course, when he pulls this trick, you can't leave feedback.

Not a kid. White hair.
 
Sounds lame... I'd message the guy and then just not give him business. It's shady at best.
 
Thomas Linton said:
Turns out he's done it three times in the last month.

I don't know if he's a member here, but he's a maker and is on one of the knife-making forums under his actual name.

It would appear that he makes the knives where this happens - puts them up for auction with no reserve, then "cancels the bid" or ends the auction when he doesn't like the bidding.

rchesler gives me insight into why he doesn't simply set a reserve, but like Lone-Wolfe I wonder about the logic. Maybe he was a sort of sniping app that lets him pull the item at literally the last second.

He's been selling on eBay since 2005 with 1300+ feedback and all positive. Mostly he's a buyer and when he sells most of the knives he sells are production knives. Of course, when he pulls this trick, you can't leave feedback.

Not a kid. White hair.
Click to expand...

Lots of threads about the sucky parts of ebay. If you don't like how it operates don't use the service. There are lots of things I don't like but it is useless to complain about them here. BFC is a far better place to buy and sell. If you want, name the seller and we can all take a look and add him to our not to deal with list. That is about the best you can do here about this. Complaining to ebay might be an option, especially as you are the buyer and have more rights as such.
 
eBay "customer service" says any seller is allowed to back out any tome prior to sale if he pays the eBay fee. So eBay gets the fee either way. Just how it is. So this seller is simply exercising his rights to pretend there is no reserve when, effectively, there is. Buyer does not lose money. Just frustrating that deception is institutionalized.
 
1) Name names.

2) Don't bid on this guy's stuff. If he's dishonest in his selling method then what else is he dishonest about?
 
Danke42 said:
1) Name names.

2) Don't bid on this guy's stuff. If he's dishonest in his selling method then what else is he dishonest about?[/QUOTE]

Precisely. I refuse to do business with people who play games. No seller has an item I want that badly. shrug
Click to expand...
 
The guys simply needs to place his reserve as a Buy-it-Now. No deception.

If he sells easily then start raising that price. If not, then it's not worth the price to buyers, no matter WHAT the seller thinks.

Missed opportunity, too: I'm with 'Sosa'. I don't bid on anything until the last seven seconds of ANY auction.

Coop
 
Thomas Linton said:
eBay "customer service" says any seller is allowed to back out any tome prior to sale if he pays the eBay fee. So eBay gets the fee either way. Just how it is. So this seller is simply exercising his rights to pretend there is no reserve when, effectively, there is. Buyer does not lose money. Just frustrating that deception is institutionalized.
Click to expand...

Usually the term "institutionalized" refers to situations that are societally unavoidable. An example would be institutional racism. Look it up if you are not familiar. Not being able to buy a knife you want is for from an institutionalized problem. Saying such a thing is a kin to when people come on here and complain that BFC is censoring them.

This is not your first thread about an issue with ebay rules. Do they suck? Yup. Is there any point in complaining about them here? No. Don't like the terms of the service you agreed to? Then don't use the service. It is not institutionalized. You don't need to use ebay. I realize you need ebay to do a certain type of collecting. I am the same in a certain type of knife collecting. Time to get over it or get out of what drives you to ebay. This all boils down to the fact that ebay can suck at times. Is anyone surprised?
 
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