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Location: Anchorage, Alaska | I don't have much experience with Ebay and have a question. I have been bidding on an amp. Back and forth with this guy for about 10 bids each, then I get to where I am as high as I am going to bid. After I quit bidding for a day, the guy I had been bidding against retracted his bid (after he found out how high I would bid) then was allowed to start bidding again on the same item at $5.00 over my highest bid. Is this allowed? Should I just put in a real high Max bid, see how much he is willing to go, then retract it and rebid just over his last bid? Just doesn't seen right. I guess that's why I don't do ebay with much confidence. |
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Location: Upper Left USA | Explain to the Seller and retract your bids. Start over with a reasonable bid.
In the last 5 minutes place your bid at your "walk away" level. |
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Location: Phoenix AZ | Place the maximum you are willing to pay and then forget about it. Dave |
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Posts: 1900
| ...here we go again...I will try to maintain my objectivity about ebay, what little there is left of it. I am confident in saying that ebay is 'seller friendly'. So the seller that knows all the rules also knows what he can get away with. If a seller happens to have a 'friend' (accomplis) who bids on his items to run up their price, but then mysteriously disappears from the auction, then that will leave the next highest (unsuspecting) bidder responsible. Perhaps you have heard the Latin motto of "Caveat Emptor", which means 'let the buyer beware'. That is quite applicable to most all ebay transactions.
Steve |
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Location: closely held secret | What Dave said. |
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Location: south east Michigan | Or....Don't bid until the last possible moment. Be online at the end of the auction and place your max bid 30 seconds before. |
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Location: North Texas | That's called a shilling. Ebay is like tight rope walking, if you don't know how, it's best to stay on the ground. However, if you play your cards right, there are some great deals to be found. There are risks, and rewards. |
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Location: NW NJ | AFG:
Let me start by saying, I love ebay. Have I ever been burned on ebay? Sure, but the good stuff I have bought and sold is easily 99.5% of my total experience. Ebay is a force that has dramatically changed the way much of the world is doing business, and has opened up a huge venue for buying and selling used goods that are, for the most part, good things needing a new home - not a trip to the landfill or Salvation Army store.
As a seller, I love to have bidders like you and the guy you were bidding against go at it in a bidding war. The price tends to go higher and higher and the emotion of the competition to win many times makes the two bidders bid more than they would have absent the "passion of the hunt".
Having said that, as a buyer I might bid my max right at the beginning and let the chips fall where they may. If I employ that strategy, I just don't check the auction again until it is over to see if I won, and how high the bidding went. Most of the time however, I don't bid until the last minute or so of an auction - you might call me a sniper, but as a buyer, this strategy often allows me to win a product for less than the maximum I was willing to pay if the bidding was low to that point. In either case, I only enter the max I am willing to pay and I almost never bid higher (unless it was a minty 1537...)
From your description, I can't imagine why the other bidder needed to retract his bid (ebay frowns on this btw, and will take action if too many bid are retracted) and then bid again higher than you. He/she could have just increased their maximum bid without having to go through the retraction process. Where bid retractions can hurt you is if you have been in a bidding war with a "shill"(sp) - a person in some way related to the seller who artificially bids up an item against you and then retracts, leaving you with the next highest bid and btw, a higher bid than would have been necessary to win the item originally.
Are bid retractions fair? I think yes if I inadvertantly hit the "0" button twice and entered a maximum bid of say $200 for a five pack of Adamas Strings instead of $20. I made a legitimate error and should be able to correct it quickly. In the case of a bidding war, where I realize that the game is suddenly too rich for my taste, then I say no. That is life and we have to learn to deal and live with our actions or passions.
My 2 cents ... |
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Location: Utah | Alaskan Fly Guy, it sounds suspicious to me. It is something that should probably be reported to the seller and to EBay, because whatever the motives were for retracting the bid, it corrupted the integrity of the auction.
Have you looked at the feedback for the seller and the other bidder? Have you looked at the bid history on the seller's other auctions to see if the same bidder is bidding on those? Perhaps the seller and bidder are working together and should be reported to EBay.
When I EBay, I set a max price that I would be comfortable paying for the item and I frequently bid it early in the process. Hopefully I won't get ripped off or shilled, but in the end if I win for a price that was comfortable when I bid it, then I got the product for an acceptable price.
Sometimes it's not worth getting all worked up over a few bucks. |
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Location: North Texas | Robbie, you can never bid more than you are willing to pay. |
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Location: Carle Place, NY | Originally posted by Slipkid:
Or....Don't bid until the last possible moment. Be online at the end of the auction and place your max bid 30 seconds before. This is THE way to bid!! Get a watch with a second hand and time the auction carefully. Confirm your bid with 15 seconds left.
Also, check the feedback of the seller very carefully before you do any bidding. |
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Posts: 383
Location: Indiana | I guess I am a "sniper". I always place my bid with 5 or less seconds left. I bid the most I am willing to pay. If I win,good.If not,I cannot complain. It makes me stick too my max bid. I don't leave enough time for anyone to bid the price up,or for me to raise my max.For me to lose an auction, someone has to bid more than my max(either before or after I bid). I just figure they wanted it more than I did. I have been second highest on occasion.
There was one auction that I did not bid on a while back,though. For one thing,the price was very close to my max,already. And second,who I would be bidding against.I had to believe if I bid my max,I would only be raising the buying price for the buyer. That sure was a pretty guitar (Custom Elite-12),though. Have you still got it, Dave?
Bill |
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Location: SE Michigan | Let me echo it again, wait until the last 30 (or better yet 10) seconds of the auction, then bid your max price. If you bid earlier you only help jack the price up and get in these games with other bidders.
I have won many auctions at good prices by waiting until the last seconds before bidding. |
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Location: Avondale, AZ | I bid in the last 30 seconds of an auction and there were two bids higher than mine in the last few seconds. I lost the item. |
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Location: North Texas | You guys are correct. That's the way ya do it. The highest award on ebay is Master Sniper. The greastest achievment is to win by a penny, with one second left. |
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Location: Avondale, AZ | Usually you can't increase the bid in increments of 1 penny. |
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Location: Carle Place, NY | Originally posted by OldLiverJones:
Usually you can't increase the bid in increments of 1 penny. Not completely correct.
Although the increments are in dollars, or sometimes five dollars, a bidder can bid any amount over the minimum increment. For example, if the highest existing bid is $300 with a minimum increment of $5, a bidder can bid $305.01 and beat out someone else that bid $305.00 by one penny. It's a good strategy to bid that way because a tie at the end of bidding goes to the first bid at that amount. |
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Location: North Texas | It's not the increment, it's the total. If you bid $23.76 over the existing bid, and the other bidder submits a bid of $23.75 over the existing bid, you win. |
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Location: Boise, Idaho | This is why American productivity is down by 25% since the advent of the internet. Everybody is on ebay when we should be working.
I'm an ebay dunce. I have a job that generally precludes me from watching my bids until the last 30 seconds. I have lost several auctions because of that, but I've grown used to it. I've only "won" twice and both times it was because I screwed up. The second time, on my Ultra GS, I looked for an ebay policy that allowed you to retract your bid if you made it while talking on the telephone on a Friday night after getting drunk at Hooters, but couldn't find any such policy. Turns out I like the guitar and it was probably worth the $200 it cost me. Since then I've adopted my own policy of offering what I think it's worth to me and leaving it. Turns out I always think it's worth less than somebody else does. That and I haven't been back to Hooters since. Maybe I should give up ebay and spend more time at Hooters. Good idea. Bye. |
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Location: Midland, MI | This is why American productivity is down by 25% since the advent of the internet. Everybody is on ebay when we should be working. I thought it was because through the 80s and 90s, right up until the present, highly (over)compensated management slashed staffing levels by 33%.
(g,d&r) |
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Location: Avondale, AZ | I hear profits are up at Hooters. The owners are thinking about opening a club with all male waiters and calling it Peckers. I wonder what that is about. |
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Location: North Texas | They should have plenty of business. |
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Location: NJ | e bay. I love to hate it yet I do much business on it.
Back when I started on e bay about 7 or 8 years ago it was a far more honorable place. No unpaid items without a legitimate excuse etc.
NOw that any bozon (bozo + moron = bozon) that has cable modem and a 299 e machine can buy sell shill and cheat on e bay. If you can be cheater rest assure they will figure out a way. Both buyers AND sellers.
From experience I can tell you that trust and sales on e bay have fallen because of these problems and because of confusion and the e bay ownership of pay pal. Sure pay pal works for most but when it fails it falls hard.
First point is e bay is not an auction. It is a pantomine of what an auction actually is.
second people treat e bay as if they are buying from a store with a return policy etc. Assume that you are not and if this is a concern of yours read the auction and or contact the seller before bidding.
third best price is not always the best deal.
fourth deal with people you feel you can trust. Even a long time e bay veteran like myself has been ripped off.
fifth if you are unsure in anyway DO NOT BID
Unfortunately when you open a site like e bay up to the masses it also opens it up to scammers. This is very unfortunate but it is a fact. when I was dealing with mostly people in the high tech industry in the late 90's and early 2000's there was a higher level of customer and client. Now instead of a yard sale people sell on e bay and it clouds the issue. there are a ton of good buyers and good sellers unfortunately syncing them up is not always easy. |
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Location: SE Michigan | The cardinal rules of Ebay:
(1) Only make deals via auctions and paypal, never deal on the side, be wary of 2nd chance offers and never even consider offers made "on the side" independant of an auction.
(2) Always pay with a charge card and then use paypal. You can always dispute a charge with your credit card company if you get ripped off. Money orders are not iron-clad, they can bounce a week after you deposit them.
(3) To me a seller or buyer who responds promptly to my emails means more to me than good feedback. Any dope can buy a few books or CD's and get positive feedback. Legitimate sellers usually respond promptly to inquiries. Nothing pisses me off more than an Ebay'er who ignores my emails for days-on-end. |
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Location: San Bernardino, California | If you get a suspicious eBay email FORWARD it to:
spoof@ebay.com
for PayPal:
spoof@paypal.com |
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Posts: 10583
Location: NJ | Wow I remember when selling from a second chance offer was legit. I sold a ton of stuff that way.
I also remember when contacting people off of e bay would sell items too. sold a ton of gear that way too.
Funny as a seller I have actually told potential customers to go elsewhere when I did not get a good feeling about it. Maybe if I was a multibillion dollar conglomerate, I could just write it off, but I am just an idiot who sells gear for a living and I spend probably as much time protecting myself as a buyer does themself. |
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Location: Upper Left USA | Ebay is like meeting people at a Bus Station. Most are honest, nice people that just want to get somewhere. There are those that would club you, take your possesions and remove one of your kidneys! You wake up in a tub of ice and hope that Paypal or Visa will cover your medical expenses!
The biggest threat I find is the uninformed, clueless POS's with a hotmail address that don't have the resources to finalize a decent sale. Fortunately, there are some clues that will give them away. I tend to not notice these however, when I really, really want the item and it just seems too good to be true! |
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Location: SE Michigan | The problem with 2nd chance offers is that these usually occur in conjunction with "schrill bidding"; in other words the seller's buddy who was jacking up the price accidentally won the auction. Then they email you with a 2nd chance offer.
As far as deals on the side are concerned, If you go for these I know a Zulu Prince in Nigeria who father's is the former Sultan of Boogawomp-Wampalli. He needs help getting his father's money out of the country, he'll pay you a good bonus for your assistance. You should check into it, easy money. |
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Location: NJ | btw did I mention that most of my problems occur with sales under $50??????
anything that is a large ticket item always goes smoothly.
I have no clue why |
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Location: Boise, Idaho | I got a fake second chance offer on a 1537. Boy, talk about going from a low to a high and back down again. |
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Location: North Texas | Some good observations, these last few posts. There are phoney ebay and paypal mailings. You can go to "properties"(without even opening the email) and navigate to "message source". There, you can see a trail of addresses and get an idea of the validity of the mailing. My policy is that if an email is not directly related to a pending, or completed sale, it gets deleted. Any legitimate messages will be found in your "my ebay" page. I don't merely delete unwanted email anymore, I block the sender for all unwanted emails. That's a more thorough deletion, and helps get rid of hidden files. Buck |
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Location: closely held secret | Important note to Buck's post - Ebay and Paypal will NEVER send you an email concerning your login, account status or anything asking you for login credentials. These are 'spoof', or 'phishing' emails. In the most prevelant one purporting to be from ebay the entire message body is one big html link, if you click anywhere on the body it opens thier fake login page. It all looks very real and official, but it's not. They're after your login info.
Ebay and Paypal will only communicate this kind of message through thier own servers, via thier own messaging systems.
Don't take the bait and get 'phished'... |
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Location: Upper Left USA | Phe-e-e-w-w! |
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Location: SE Michigan | "Ebay and Paypal will NEVER send you an email concerning your login, account status or anything asking you for login credentials."
Good advice, unless you are corresponding with Prince Iggywamp, son of the former Sultan of Boogawomp-Wampalli. He will need your Visa card number with security code along with your bank account number, routing code and your ATM PIN number. He needs this information because the former finance minister will have to set up a trial bank wire transfer, and also he has to bribe the palace guards to release his father. Once he has this data, he will circumvent the Nigerian Goverment's Comptroller office deposit 37 million dollars into your account. In this case you will have to give him the information. |
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Location: SoCal | anything that is a large ticket item always goes smoothly.
Yeah, right Al.... do I need to remind you about that Adamas you spent a year tracking down? |
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Location: closely held secret | Well, Brian, I suggest you don't use Paypal when you send your money to Prince Iggywamp... |
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Location: SE Michigan | Prince Iggywamp says I should have the 37 million in about a week, once it clears Nigerian customs. Then I'll buy everyone on this forum an Adamas.
He also said to be agreeable and play along if my bank calls, that's just the finance minister making a test bank transfer. He said banks are paranoid and I need to reassure them that this is all very legitimate! I am so lucky! |
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Location: Boise, Idaho | One of my senior partners, recently retired, actually sent around the Nigerian bank account email wondering if it was legit.
My dad, of similar age (78) had some similar scammer answering his ad for a motor home. The guy was supposedly in England and needed my dad's bank account number so he could wire money to it to buy a 40 foot motor home. My dad thought it was a little strange that a guy in England would want to buy a motor home in Oregon. Duh. |
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Location: Latitude 39.56819, Longitude -105.080066 | While I fully agree with BrianT on his 2nd and 3rd cardinal rules, I tend to disagree with the first one.
I have cut many side deals on ebay from both the seller and the buyer end of things. If I see that the seller runs a storefront and has a phone number, I will not hesitate to call him, discuss the items and then try to cut a deal. I have also had buyers contact me to end an auction early and on occassion I have done so. Do you homework when dealing offline and there should not be any problems. |
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Posts: 10583
Location: NJ | Originally posted by moody, p.i.:
anything that is a large ticket item always goes smoothly.
Yeah, right Al.... do I need to remind you about that Adamas you spent a year tracking down? |
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Location: SE Michigan | I guess I'll concede your point stephent28 about rule 1, provided that you are sure it's a legitimate trace-able verifyable business. But never deal on the side with a private individual. I get a constant barrage of emails offering to sell me a similar item to what I just bid on for a lower price. I am sure the majority of these offers are scams. If it's a legitimate verifyable business then I would agree.
I also like the analogy of Ebay being like a Bus Terminal, but it's a really really really big Bus Terminal full of hungry scammers.
And I also agree with alpep, larger more expensive sales usually go smoother, maybe because the parties involved are more serious. |
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Posts: 2850
Location: Midland, MI | Originally posted by alpep:
...The smaller the item for the seller the bigger the pain in the butt. IMHO your mileage may vary. This is not limited to eBay, IME. YMMV. |
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Location: Boise, Idaho | I got my Collector's edition off ebay after it received no bids on ebay. It happened to be a local seller, the picture was terrible, with a bunch of dirty clothes in the background, and the kid admitted he didn't know what he was doing and listed his phone number. He didn't even identify the guitar as a 99 Collector's.
I called him up after the auction ended with nobody offering his minimum bid and worked out a deal, trading my Celebrity and some cash. Nothing wrong with that. |
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Posts: 4389
Location: Capital District, NY, USA Minor Outlying Islands | True, as a seller, things under 50, there are more problems. Things over 50, never a problem. |
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Posts: 580
Location: NW NJ | Originally posted by Buckaroo:
Robbie, you can never bid more than you are willing to pay. Buckaroo - I disagree. I think that bidding more that you are willing to pay means that sometimes you get caught up in the frenzy of bidding and suddenly realize that you are the high bidder on a brand new Ovation-style Legato guitar for only $1,375 USD. I'm not willing to pay $13.75 for the guitar, but I bid more because my emotions got the best of me. In that case I either live with my actions (the right thing to do) or I retract (the wussy was out). |
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OT - Ebay Question