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Jim Rimmer
08-02-2010, 1:08 PM
I was looking for a Bosch Colt router and found a couple on ebay. Decided to bid on one that had a 99 cent start. I knew I wouldn't get it for that but thought it might end up at a reasonable price. As bidding started, I was upped several times but when I went to look at the bidding history, the bidders identity was protected. Don't they usually display the screen name of the bidder? I assumed it was the seller bidding the price up to where he wanted to sell it. I hung in to what I thought was a good bargain price and lost by $1.00.

I was immediately offered another Colt at the exact price I had bid in a Buy It Now offer - good for 24 hours. I went to the sellers "store" and found another one at $1.31 less. Since I thought the price was a bargain and the item was NIB, I bought. Got it for $98.69 (stealth gloat) but feel like I've been kind of taken for a ride on ebay.

Anyway, I got a good deal on a new Colt but feel like ebay is not what they advertise to be.

David Weaver
08-02-2010, 1:34 PM
The $1 at the last minute stuff is probably either someone bidding or someone using a snipe service, but you could be right - the seller may have a proxy bidder. I don't know what ebay does to control that - but I'd bet it's pretty easy to check.

The seller, if he's innocent in the deal, may have just been going down the line of bidders and offering to anyone who made a bid high enough for him to make money. I can understand that, but it seems like it would be a lot of work to do (unless one of the auction package softwares does it).

I've never responded to a follow-up offer or second chancer, and I've never used any third party software or follow-up tools, so my thoughts are worth what it cost to read them!

You are right, though, ebay is almost retail-bay now. The final value fees are high enough and the listing fees low enough that stuff sits on there often for prices you can beat elsewhere.

Jim Koepke
08-02-2010, 1:42 PM
ebay has changed a lot recently.

I do not think I will sell there again. Not sure if I will buy much either.

The selling fees have gotten to be too high for a small time seller. Many will jack up the shipping and handling to get around the fees.

jim

del schisler
08-02-2010, 1:47 PM
I was looking for a Bosch Colt router and found a couple on ebay. Decided to bid on one that had a 99 cent start. I knew I wouldn't get it for that but thought it might end up at a reasonable price. As bidding started, I was upped several times but when I went to look at the bidding history, the bidders identity was protected. Don't they usually display the screen name of the bidder? I assumed it was the seller bidding the price up to where he wanted to sell it. I hung in to what I thought was a good bargain price and lost by $1.00.

I was immediately offered another Colt at the exact price I had bid in a Buy It Now offer - good for 24 hours. I went to the sellers "store" and found another one at $1.31 less. Since I thought the price was a bargain and the item was NIB, I bought. Got it for $98.69 (stealth gloat) but feel like I've been kind of taken for a ride on ebay.

Anyway, I got a good deal on a new Colt but feel like ebay is not what they advertise to be.

On the bidding the identity is protected Only seen by the seller. The reason it used to be any one could see the bidder. I was a good way for other people to get the bidder and offer maybe the same deal. I never bid on a 1 cent start bid wasting my time What you can do it put in What you want to pay for it. Like we will say. You lost by a couple buck's . You could have put in a hundred and it would have keep going up tell you ran out of bid money . Also a snipe will work too I been with ebay when the listing number's were under a million . Long time ago .Lots have changed . Also the seller is not sopose to offer another one to the other bidder's. Ebay loose out on bid and close money . Creig list is better?

Dan Hintz
08-02-2010, 3:33 PM
If the bid amount was $1 increments, you lost by $1, and were immediately offered a second chance, the chance is high you were pushed by the seller using a fake account. I've seen it on numerous occasions (you have to spend a lot of time looking through their history and seeing who bids on their items... a few push accounts will stick out like sore thumbs). Little you can do about it except complain, and then you have to prove it.

Bryan Morgan
08-02-2010, 4:05 PM
I've gotten some good deals. Admittedly, I like to snipe bids at the last second to win, but thats just part of the eBay experience. I got some expensive Roland guitar equipment for very cheap ($200 for a GR20 with GK2A when they were going for $600 USED) not to mention a bunch of other things, hand planes and whatnot. My only beef with eBay is the reliability of the sellers. My friend bought a $700 turbo timer for his car and all he received was an empty box. The seller even admitted his own employees were ripping things off like that. eBay did nothing about it, paypal did nothing about it, and the police did nothing about it. Luckily the seller didn't live too far away so he got a $700 beat down.

Jim Rimmer
08-02-2010, 4:45 PM
I've gotten some good deals. Admittedly, I like to snipe bids at the last second to win, but thats just part of the eBay experience. I got some expensive Roland guitar equipment for very cheap ($200 for a GR20 with GK2A when they were going for $600 USED) not to mention a bunch of other things, hand planes and whatnot. My only beef with eBay is the reliability of the sellers. My friend bought a $700 turbo timer for his car and all he received was an empty box. The seller even admitted his own employees were ripping things off like that. eBay did nothing about it, paypal did nothing about it, and the police did nothing about it. Luckily the seller didn't live too far away so he got a $700 beat down.
I made a bonehead mistake on Paypal (not an eBay purchse) and could get no response from them so I contacted MasterCard and protested the payment. I got immediate response from Paypal and got it resolved to my satisfaction.

Brian Elfert
08-03-2010, 1:02 AM
Ebay started to block bidder's names a few years back. They claimed it was security or some BS, but the real reason was too many sellers contacting Ebay members directly and cutting Ebay out of the loop.

Ben Franz
08-04-2010, 11:41 AM
I made a bonehead mistake on Paypal (not an eBay purchse) and could get no response from them so I contacted MasterCard and protested the payment. I got immediate response from Paypal and got it resolved to my satisfaction.

Another, unrelated hobby of mine involves a fair number of forum based "swap meet" sales of used items between members. Paypal is the default payment method and a trade feedback system seems to keep nearly everyone on the straight and narrow. I ordered some material from a retail site and used Paypal during checkout - why give out CC info if you don't need to? When the retailer failed to ship for 2-3 weeks and kept changing the story, I finally cancelled the order. They immediately sent me a refund through Paypal but I wonder how much of a hassle I'd have gone through if the retailer wasn't cooperative. I'm guessing Paypal doesn't do much and then fights it when you protest the charge with your CC. Anyone have any direct experience with this kind of situation?

Dan Hintz
08-04-2010, 1:28 PM
It used to be that reversing charges on your credit card saw PayPal either (re)charging your linked bank account (if you had money in it), and if that didn't work for them, they canceled your account. At least it was in the early 2000's when I was using them quite a bit more.

Jim Rimmer
08-04-2010, 4:13 PM
Another, unrelated hobby of mine involves a fair number of forum based "swap meet" sales of used items between members. Paypal is the default payment method and a trade feedback system seems to keep nearly everyone on the straight and narrow. I ordered some material from a retail site and used Paypal during checkout - why give out CC info if you don't need to? When the retailer failed to ship for 2-3 weeks and kept changing the story, I finally cancelled the order. They immediately sent me a refund through Paypal but I wonder how much of a hassle I'd have gone through if the retailer wasn't cooperative. I'm guessing Paypal doesn't do much and then fights it when you protest the charge with your CC. Anyone have any direct experience with this kind of situation?
What I had done was enter the wrong email address for the Paypal payment. Noticed it immedately and tried to stop it but got no cooperation from Paypal. Tried to contact the "wrong" person and got no response. Called Paypal - was told to wait and see if they returned it. Long story short, after 2 or 3 calls to PP, called Mastercard and Paypal decided to respond/react. No penalty to me.

Lee Schierer
08-04-2010, 4:15 PM
If the bid amount was $1 increments, you lost by $1, and were immediately offered a second chance, the chance is high you were pushed by the seller using a fake account. I've seen it on numerous occasions (you have to spend a lot of time looking through their history and seeing who bids on their items... a few push accounts will stick out like sore thumbs). Little you can do about it except complain, and then you have to prove it.

Not necissarily. The auto bidding feature will increase a bid automatically by one dollar up to the bidders high limit. It won't go over the $1.00 amount unless you have also entered an automatic bid with a maximum amount.

Many sellers are now full time sellers on ebay and get discount goods from various sources including distributors or unclaimed freight. If the seller had several identical items I can see why they might contact you and sell a second item for $1.00 less than the first one. I've seen similar action taken at live auctions where there are multiples of the same item. The auctioneer runs up the bids until he has just the one bidder left and then offers to sell several at that price. Nothing shady or underhanded about doing that.