odd thing I may have notice about Ebay

[Kevin the grey]

It has happened that the seller will get someone to bump up the price to stimulate bidding . If the guy overdoes it he can back out and the item will go to the buyer who bumped up his bid to try and stay in the running . E-bay isn,t perfct and there are a few scams they are trying to eliminate . The trouble is its hard to stop people from paying them money . When they interfere that is essentialy what they are doing .

 

[CWendling]

ive never had any problems with ebay or paypal

 

[Alan Molstad]

when in fact, you were biding against his much larger ...

When I bid on Ebay, it will ask me for my MAX bid too.
This means that if I bid $5 I might also say that my MAX bid is $7

If a new guy sees my bid of $5 and tries to only bid $6 he will not be able to, Ebay will not accept his bid of $6 and it will push him to bid past me, only then will it take his bid.

So that situation is a bit different than what I talking about.

Here again is an example of my situation ;
I bid $5
You bid $6
I bid $7
I go to my work computer and under a different name I bid $100.00

You think $100.00 is crazy for a car part that new is $35 installed so you dont bid anymore

I win car part for $100.00,
I back-out of the deal
Seller goes to the next person on the list (also me at $7) and offers me the car part.

 

[Alan Molstad]

You may be bidding too soon. Be the guy at the end of the auction. ..

Last night I took your advice,
I was looking to get an Native American flute, I had seen one I liked about a week or so ago with no bids on it yet, so I put a bid on it.

Then last night the bidding was ending, but just 1/2 and hour before the end a guy placed a higher bid than mine

I fought off the desire I had to race to out bid him.
I sat and just watched the clock, then just before the end of the auction I placed a bid and won the flute!

 

[howiesatwork]

Here is what I was trying to explain...
Bidder 1 - you
Bidder 2 - 2nd bidder
Bidder 3 - High bidder

Auction is for a part that goes for $50 on a good day...
Bid increments are say $1 minimum...

Bidder 1: $10
Bidder 2 puts in a $45 bid. He is now winning at $11...
Bidder 1: $12
Bidder 2: now winning at $13
Bidder 1: $14
Bidder 2: now winning at $15
Bidder 1: $16
Bidder 2: now winning at $17
Bidder 1: $18
Bidder 2 now winning at $19
Note that Bidder 2 has made on actual bid, and eBay proxy bidding has incremented it up every time you enter a bid...
Bidder 1: $20!!
Bidder 2: now has it at $21
Bidder 3 arrives, puts in $49 bid, then eBay shows Bidder 3 winning at $46, which is the min bid increment over Bidder 2's max bid.
Bidder 1 goes "Huh? How did this guy put in the large bid and drive me out?"
He didn't. He overbid bidder 2.
Now Bidder has won it at $46, but renegs on the deal:
Bidder 2 should get it at his high bid of $21, but the seller will probably offer it to him at $45...
You never had a chance to get it cheaper than $46 in this scenario, and only if Bidder 3 never showed up...
Is that any clearer?
That's how it works...
Glad you won the one last night.

 

[Alan Molstad]

I have also learned to be carefull with the use of the MAX bid thing.

What I have seen is that the MAX bid just seems to needlessly jack up the bidding.
I once bid on a hammer on Ebay, and although I only bid say, $10 for the hammer, I put a max bid of $15 on it at that time too.

Then I went to work and when I nexed checked the bidding was at $17.
I did a check and the only other guy bidding on it against me had been forced to jump over my MAX bid inorder to get his bid to register.

I think that had I just not filled in the MAx bid thing, then the other guy would have only placed a minimum bid and i would have been able to bid my $17 later on.

On The Other Hand...
Last night as a bid I was in was about to end, I placed my last bid with just a few minutes to go. At that point I also filled in the MAX bid box because I felt that it would help my bid win ....

 

[Alan Molstad]

Hawk...I do not think that EBAY will accept your bid if you are lower than my MAX bid....
Yes, it will up my bid to be on top of yours,
But you never are said to be the top bidder....

What happens is that you will get a message right on the spot that says you have been out bid and you will be asked for a higher bid.

You will NOT be said to be the highest bidder if my MAX bid is sitll in play...

So, this type of situation is a bit different than what im talking about where me and some other guy actually do become the top bidder,

HOWEVER Hawk, what you are saying makes a lot of sense to me ...For what you are saying could be exactly what happens to me, but seen from a different angle.

example..
Im the high bidder at $5
guy 2 out bids me at $6
Bidder 3 out bids us both at $7, BUT fills in a MAX bid at $100

Guy 2 tries and tries to bid, but keeps bumping into that MAX bid of $100
The MAX bid setting jacks the price up automaticaly ...soon guy2 to has jacked the price up to $100 and has yet to become the top bidder!

I come back to check on the bidding, and see that this new 3rd guy has come in and bid $100 for something that an hour ago was mine for $5

This would explane the sellers answer to me when he said that the top bidder backed-out and it went to the one other guy who was ahead of me...

From my point of view I would not know about the 2nd guy's bidding history to try to get it. unless i checked, and I should have checked to see if the 2nd guy actually ended up paying like $99 for the stuff?

 

[Matthew Gregory]

I think Howie's point is that the only way the dollar value can be 'outrageous' (by your definition) is if your own MAX bid is just shy of that... otherwise, his bid wouldn't beat yours, and they'd be ignored.
If the current high bid is at $7 and I bid $99, the only way it''l get to $99 is if YOUR max bid is $98.99! Therefore YOUR max bid upped the price.

 

[Alan Molstad]

yes, thats what i think may be in play here...
seen from MY point of view, I would not know about what the other guy was doing while I was at work.

i just come home and see a new 3rd guy has dumped a $100 bid on us...

 

[Stacy E. Apelt - Bladesmith]

What happens (often,I think) is that a seller lists his item starting at $10. He thinks he will get $50 for it. The bidding stalls at $11,between the first two bidders,"A" ,who made a $10 Max bid and the "B", who made a $30 Max bid."B" now has the bid at $11. The seller doesn't want to let it go for that little,but what is he to do - it's an auction -Right? Suddenly a new bidder (almost always with less than 10 wins),appears and makes a $50 Max bid. This will expose what level the Max bid of the current high bidder was set at (the seller does not know this information).Suddenly it jumps from $11 ,to $31 with "C" as the high bid.Either of several things happens.1) "B" or "A" will make a new bid at More than $51 (any lesser bid will get a "Bid Too Low" message). 2) The new bidder will "WIN" the auction. Next thing that happens is the seller offers it to "A or B" at the $50 he wanted in the first place.3) the seller will offer it to "B" at the $30 bid that was his last proxy bid .
In any case it is against Ebay rules to make shill bids. But,I believe it happens regularly.It is easy to go to a friends computer and set up another account that ebay won't notice.

 

[Don Hanson III]

Not sure if you understand or know this, but every time you or someone else places a bid and you get the......"you have been out bid"........ the winning bid jumps to the minumum just over the bid amount you just entered.

If I want an item on ebay, I wait to the last few min.s of the auction and enter the max amount I am willing to pay, I may get it or not.

 

[J.Marsillo]

If I want an item on ebay, I wait to the last few min.s of the auction and enter the max amount I am willing to pay, I may get it or not.

That is the way i do it too.Depending on when the auction ends I'll wait untill the last possible "refresh" and bid as much as I think it's worth.If you have ever sold anything on e-bay you can see that there may be 100 people all sitting there watching the auction end.

 

[JCaswell]

If you're serious about ebay sniping, you must use a program. It's just not convenient to be there punching in bids in the last 20 seconds.

I've had very good luck with ez sniper (www.ezsniper.com). You just put in the item number and the max you're willing to bid and it'll automatically make the bid for you with just a few seconds to spare. There are others out there too, but I'm happy with this one.

 

[Ilovetoolsteel]

I go to my work computer and under a different name I bid $100.00

This scam is getting harder and harder to pull, about 4 or 5 years ago Ebay began requireing you have an actual email address with an ISP not just a Yahoo email address. If you choose to go the latter route you must give ebay a credit card # and if you back out of an auction you won they can charge the listing fees to you. In addition if two accounts show up with the same credit card # they get booted. Most people don't have an unlimited supply of isp email addresses or credit cards. 4 npb's (non paying bidder complaints) and the user gets booted. If you run this scam you must report the npb, otherwise you get charged the final value fee (sellers commission) based on the selling price. If you over bid a $17 item by biding it up to $100 you will end up paying commission on a $100 sale unless you file a npb.

 

[Alan Molstad]

let us hope so,

 

[Kilo Romeo]

Hey guys, new here but an old dog when it comes to ebay.
The best thing I've found is wait to the last 2 mins before you bid or your just driving up the price. There are tons of deals on there but watch the shipping prices as thats where most em scam ya.

 

[J. Keeton]

They should be able to block the IP of the person’s computer so that he could never create another account... That would be a great punishment for people like that.

 

[waredbear]

Hey guys, new here but an old dog when it comes to ebay.
The best thing I've found is wait to the last 2 mins before you bid or your just driving up the price. There are tons of deals on there but watch the shipping prices as thats where most em scam ya.

Boy you have that right. Even though E-Bay states they can't jack up the shipping price....they do it anyway. I bought a paper product once that could fit inside an envelope. I ended up buying two each of four pages. They charged me something like $8.00 for shipping and put them all into one .38cent envelope. Talk about your rip-offs. I have made the mistake and bought stuff with jacked shipping but I also weigh in the cost of the item and if they even out I will go for it. Cuts down on the item savings but I will do it now and then.

Reid

 

[Ilovetoolsteel]

Hey guys, new here but an old dog when it comes to ebay.
The best thing I've found is wait to the last 2 mins before you bid or your just driving up the price. There are tons of deals on there but watch the shipping prices as thats where most em scam ya.

Same here. Just all around eaiser. Some people will say: "what if you're at work when the auction ends?" A lot of sellers end their auctions in the evening to get higher traffic and to give bidders a chance to get into a bidding war. Especially if it's something like a custom knife or something that is not mass produced.

People like to think they got scammed when they lose an auction but the reality is that you can have ebay notify you when auctions you want to bid show up. Dealers use this to find things on ebay. Everytime a Randall 1/7 with a stag handle shows up on ebay there are probably over 5000 people get an email notice about it. The days of the someone winning an auction on a highly sought after custom knife for the minimum bid has long since passed.

 

[Ilovetoolsteel]

Boy you have that right. Even though E-Bay states they can't jack up the shipping price....they do it anyway. I bought a paper product once that could fit inside an envelope. I ended up buying two each of four pages. They charged me something like $8.00 for shipping and put them all into one .38cent envelope. Talk about your rip-offs. I have made the mistake and bought stuff with jacked shipping but I also weigh in the cost of the item and if they even out I will go for it. Cuts down on the item savings but I will do it now and then.

Reid

You learned a valueable lesson there, Don't bid if they don't list shipping costs. (most sellers do) If they don't list shipping costs and you really want it email the seller and get a shipping price before you bid.