so i am bidding on an object. it's of questionable value, because it's not useful for anything. but it's a collectible, with a value of between $100-200 dollars. webstores sell this item for around $220, but i would expect that if i were buying one off of a fellow collector, i should pay less than that. the new value of the item was around 100 GBP, which does translate to $200, but if it were sold in america and not britain then i would've expected that it would cost around $100.
so i placed a bid for the item. the starting bid was $90. i set a maximum bid of around 2.5 times that price, which is slightly more than what a *reseller* would charge but quite a bit more than the "street value" with liquidity taken into account - in other words, you might be hard-pressed to sell this for more than, say $180 dollars.
nobody else bid on the item for about a week. about 10 seconds before the auction ended, a bidder with zero feedback logged in and bid me up to my maximum bid. the bidder then retracted the bid ("oops! i bid too high!) and the seller offered me a "second chance" bid equal to my maximum bid.
does that sound fishy to anybody else?
― moonship journey to baja, Thursday, 21 February 2008 03:51 (eighteen years ago)
actually, the person won at a price of $231.50, which was $2.50 more than my max bid of $229.00.
not 10 minutes later, i got the "second chance" offer of $229.00.
what i'm saying is, shouldn't the "second chance" price be $89? because nobody ELSE except mr zero feedback even made a bid, and he's withdrawn his erroneous / fraudulent bid. and nobody else even bid on this shit!
― moonship journey to baja, Thursday, 21 February 2008 03:54 (eighteen years ago)
this doesn't make sense. if the shill bid was cancelled, then your bid price should have been $89.
either way avoid.
― electricsound, Thursday, 21 February 2008 03:59 (eighteen years ago)
yeah i hear you vahid.
i did some ebay 1999-2001 took a long break then checked it out again in 2005 or so. one thing that surprised me was the whole Second Chance thing. in the old days, the seller would contact the loser if the winner flaked. you could usually negotiate a price that was exactly what you bid or just a little bit more.
the new Second Chance thing seems to invite fraud. it really should be set for you at what the tertiary bid was. yet, i've often sent multiple Second Chance offers when i had quantity of an item. so, it doesn't mean you're being scammed here.
you're best bet is to immediately message the seller and offer what you would have won it for had that possibly shill bidder had never arrived.
― sanskrit, Thursday, 21 February 2008 04:00 (eighteen years ago)
yeah sanskrit I think something like this might have happened with that Boredoms Rebore Vol. 0 LP, except my bid was only $10 more than the nexxt highest so I'm not too bummed. I agree that it should be set at tertiary. For some reason I am unable to find the bid history right now but it would be interesting to check out the swiss duke or whoever he was.
― sleeve, Thursday, 21 February 2008 04:08 (eighteen years ago)
sleeve i wouldn't be too suspicious of that guy. he probably has twenty copies of every boredoms lp, being in japan and all. most likely sold it to the winner, you, and anyone else with a decent bid.
― sanskrit, Thursday, 21 February 2008 04:16 (eighteen years ago)
also, vahid, don't be too suspicious of that $231.50 -- $2.50 is probably the bid increment, assuming the winner was real.
if it's a one of a kind item, then yeah, stay away. maybe message the guy and ask him what happened. if he claims that the buyer flaked then that is definitely a shady second chance being only ten minutes after and all.
― sanskrit, Thursday, 21 February 2008 04:20 (eighteen years ago)
here's the bid history
him US $231.50 Feb-20-08 15:45:39 PST him US $170.00 Feb-20-08 15:45:30 PST him US $120.00 Feb-20-08 15:45:19 PST
why doesn't the bid go down to $170?!?
― moonship journey to baja, Thursday, 21 February 2008 04:55 (eighteen years ago)
I think eBay are aware it's a massive scam-hole - I got a "second chance" offer from someone about a Big Muff, and at the bottom was this: Second Chance Offer emails with the subject of "message from eBay Member" are fake. Real Second Chance Offers come directly from eBay and also appear in My Messages with a subject line of "You have a second chance offer...".
and this message just said 'message from an ebay member', so like the good dutiful citizen snitch that I am, I forwarded it to eBay, who replied a couple of days later saying it was a scam and had come from a completely different person to the name I had, which was strange.
― Bocken Social Scene, Thursday, 21 February 2008 09:31 (eighteen years ago)
Yeah, I won an auction for a set of LPs, and got a "Second Chance" offer for the same stuff. I contacted the seller, who assured me it wasn't them, and they sent it onto ebay for dealing with.
The link in the second chance was to the genuine auction, but the contact seller link was all "dodo✧✧✧@frillzz✧✧✧.xde✧✧✧" all that...
― Mark G, Thursday, 21 February 2008 09:34 (eighteen years ago)
yeah this is not THAT scam ... it's more like a very subtle form of shill bidding ...
― moonship journey to baja, Thursday, 21 February 2008 16:50 (eighteen years ago)
i would snitch em out, this sounds slimy
― s1ocki, Thursday, 21 February 2008 16:52 (eighteen years ago)
and that is my professional opinion as a guy who has bought about 5 things on ebay.
i might buy the item now and snitch 'em out once they ship ... i saw the same thing going on several other websites for $299, so i'm not feeling *totally* ripped off anymore ... besides, i really really want the item!
the battle of pride vs materialism!!
― moonship journey to baja, Thursday, 21 February 2008 16:57 (eighteen years ago)
capitalism = getting FUCKED
what is the item. cmon
― s1ocki, Thursday, 21 February 2008 17:37 (eighteen years ago)
glass dildo in the shape of sven vath
― Tracer Hand, Thursday, 21 February 2008 17:43 (eighteen years ago)