Is the Ebay bidding process rigged? I think so . . .

cnh

I do believe tonyb has pretty much hit it above! Do I think there is "some" of what GlennDog is intimating above? Sure. If Wall Street can collapse under the weight of speculators and liars then why would ebay be immune?

I have noticed some of what GD suggests occasionally on ebay. But less so rather than more so. I also wait till the very last seconds to place bids and WALK away if I see something "bid up" rightly or wrongly. Which brings me to Doro's post. Mark is a seasoned player on the buying and selling market so I believe he has a good bead on it.

As for me, I've rarely been burnt on ebay. And I've rarely paid too much. But I'm cheap and I'm very careful to get OUT and start looking again.

There is a reason caveat emptor (buyer beware). Was coined millennia ago.

cnh

jbooker82

Just make it so auctions end at random times, with a minimum listing time of at least 5 days. That way buyers can't actually tell for sure when the bidding is going to end.

mhardy6647

Auctions are simple enough - bid the maximum amount you wish to pay for an item. If you get it, great; if you don't, that's fine, too.

I am always amused by folks' saying they "won" something on eBAY... all one "wins" is a chance to spend one's money on something one (in most cases) have not seen, touched, or heard with one's own senses. And one isn't really out anything when one "loses" an auction. One's still got his or her money, he/she just don't have whatever thing it is on which he/she was bidding!

sucks2beme

You have to factor in the fact that the product may NOT be as advertised.
Bid accordingly.

shadowlight

I am going to piggy back on the thread and ask if folks have used snipping services like http://www.gixen.com/index.php or www.esnipe.com. Any pro's and con's, concern being that I am sharing my username and password. My last bid was for a speaker set that I got snipped at the last second :twisted:

nspindel

I use esnipe all the time, it's great.

shadowlight

nspindel wrote: »

I use esnipe all the time, it's great.

Thanks. Any experience with gixen which is free but at .25c per win for esnipe is not bad either.

nspindel

No experience with gixen

teekay0007

shadowlight wrote: »

Thanks. Any experience with gixen which is free but at .25c per win for esnipe is not bad either.

Wow! :eek: It's a rare find to come across anyone who will provide any service for one quarter of one penny for that service! :razz:

Syndil

I've used both esnipe and Gixen. Switched to Gixen because it's free. Works fine.

nspindel

I'll check it out.

oldmodman

Never had a problem using E-bay.

I always place my maximum amount during the last three seconds of the auction. And I only win about 5% of the auction I bid on.

A lot of the stuff I bid on are very obscure automotive parts. Frequently I am the only bidder, so the seller gets his starting price plus shipping. And I never even bother to bid on auctions that have really high profit center shipping costs.

Sometimes I bid just for fun. Last week I bid on a Ferrari. I bid 10K less than their starting price. And again I was the only bidder. As of today I have not gotten a counter offer from the seller.

cnh

I've used sniping services here and there. But I've also found that if you can use ebay's ONE BID feature (or whatever it is called) in the very last second of bidding where you list what your maximum bid would be and place it at the very "last" moment you can even beat out a sniper because you can "guess" the parameters of some snipers maximum bid. How much their last snipe would be. Not always of course, but in a "normal" bidding cycle where the bids don't seem to be flying out of control. In the latter, of course, almost nothing will work for you.

And though mhardy is right above. Most people are trying to grab a "bargain" not simply bid or lose a bid. It is the search for the bargain that is not the "rational" but psycho-emotional problem. Whether or not they should have such a response is another question entirely. Best left to the Behavioral Sciences, I'm afraid. Just because Freud has been left behind "does NOT mean that all of us are perfectly rational". In fact, I highly doubt anyone here is, including myself! Don't believe me, ask a friend, child, spouse, parent, etc. about your behavior, your thoughts, your choices sometime?

cnh

shadowlight

When I bid on an item I have a set maximum that I am willing to pay. If someone outbids me I am ok with that also. It just annoys me that I someone sniped me twice in the last few seconds. My max bid was close to 500 dollars more than the current bid price when I posted about 4 hrs before the auction closed and no other bids were entered other than the sniper bid, which was entered twice.

nwohlford

By definition in an Ebay auction, you pay more than an item is worth to anybody else bidding. The only real bargains are "buy it now" that are priced below the market value. There are other bargains such as items with flaws that you don't care about, items listed as "as-is" where you can tell from the description that it is user error, and sometimes items that end at weird times. I have gotten some great bargains, but other times I just wanted something more than everybody else. You can occasionally get a decent deal sniping by playing off the earlier bidder's belief that the item will not sell for much more than the current value.

cnh wrote: »

And though mhardy is right above. Most people are trying to grab a "bargain" not simply bid or lose a bid. It is the search for the bargain that is not the "rational" but psycho-emotional problem. Whether or not they should have such a response is another question entirely. Best left to the Behavioral Sciences, I'm afraid. Just because Freud has been left behind "does NOT mean that all of us are perfectly rational". In fact, I highly doubt anyone here is, including myself! Don't believe me, ask a friend, child, spouse, parent, etc. about your behavior, your thoughts, your choices sometime?

We are definitely not rational even most of the time. In fact, the predomoniant veiw among people who study the brain (neuroscientists and experimental psychologists) is that we most likely don't even have free-will. What we experience as rational thought and decision making is the story we tell ourself to explain our (non free-will) actions to ourselves.

nspindel

shadowlight wrote: »

When I bid on an item I have a set maximum that I am willing to pay. If someone outbids me I am ok with that also. It just annoys me that I someone sniped me twice in the last few seconds. My max bid was close to 500 dollars more than the current bid price when I posted about 4 hrs before the auction closed and no other bids were entered other than the sniper bid, which was entered twice.

Like I said earlier, the notion that an auction has a fixed end-time means that the only sensible way to bid on an ebay item that you really want is to snipe at it. Otherwise, you're allowing someone else the opportunity to outbid you. Almost every single auction runs up at the end. Next time, be a sniper yourself. The price a few hours before the end is meaningless, so why put a bid in early and drive the price up?

nwohlford

nspindel wrote: »

Like I said earlier, the notion that an auction has a fixed end-time means that the only sensible way to bid on an ebay item that you really want is to snipe at it. Otherwise, you're allowing someone else the opportunity to outbid you. Almost every single auction runs up at the end. Next time, be a sniper yourself. The price a few hours before the end is meaningless, so why put a bid in early and drive the price up?

I would say the only exception to the above is where the minimum starting price is close to the usual selling price. By placing a bid right away, you can scare off any interest in the item. Somepeople when they do this will actually place mulitple bids on the item. (It makes it seem like you are willing to go way above the current price, but in reality your maximum bid may just be a few dollars above the minimum.)

gdb

cnh wrote: »

I do believe most of the dead find voting from the colony on Mars more than acceptable. lol

cnh

Is that anywhere near where Tom Cruise's or Mitt's deities reside ?? What's the name..........Kolob.......Xenu.......? Cult members in Hollywood, outer space and on the campaign trail, where next ??

vcwatkins

esnipe

shadowlight

nspindel wrote: »

Like I said earlier, the notion that an auction has a fixed end-time means that the only sensible way to bid on an ebay item that you really want is to snipe at it. Otherwise, you're allowing someone else the opportunity to outbid you. Almost every single auction runs up at the end. Next time, be a sniper yourself. The price a few hours before the end is meaningless, so why put a bid in early and drive the price up?

Hey give me a break I just crawled out from under a rock when it some to snipping. All I can say is I will be a sniper going forward.

gdb

Going to a real auction is way more fun............. with all the fist fighting and nipple pinching !

potee

I think its on the up&up. ijust got a golf club delevered to the front door for $202.00. Itsells at Dicks sporting goods for $299.00 + $21.00 Tax

Upstatemax

I skip all the bidding crap and email the seller a solid offer to pull the auction and sell it outright to me. I get a good price since people don't want to wait 5+ more days to possibly get more money and usually they get to skip a lot of the eBay fees...

I picked up my Brimar tubes and my Parasound that way.

goofyGAguy

Upstatemax wrote: »

I skip all the bidding crap and email the seller a solid offer to pull the auction and sell it outright to me.

That could be dangerous. No eBay buyer protection that way...

Upstatemax

goofyGAguy wrote: »

That could be dangerous. No eBay buyer protection that way...

I use my credit card with total buyer protection. Anything happens, I call them and I have my money back in under 24hrs.

Besides, I hear the eBay buyer protection is a joke anyway...

pitdogg2

Upstatemax wrote: »

I use my credit card with total buyer protection. Anything happens, I call them and I have my money back in under 24hrs.

Better read the fine print. Most CC have a radius of 50-100mi for that protection. I know mine does.:sad:

Upstatemax

pitdogg2 wrote: »

Better read the fine print. Most CC have a radius of 50-100mi for that protection. I know mine does.:sad:

I don't have that restriction.

Syndil

Upstatemax wrote: »

I use my credit card with total buyer protection. Anything happens, I call them and I have my money back in under 24hrs.

This is why sellers will almost never take anyone up on canceling an ad and selling outside of eBay. As a seller, the risk of getting burned with a chargeback is far too great, and they'll have no recourse. For that reason I automatically consider such offers to be from scammers trying to get something for free. But if you can find people who are uneducated enough to cancel an ad and sell through unprotected channels, good for you.

badchad

Upstatemax wrote: »

Besides, I hear the eBay buyer protection is a joke anyway...

In my experience, it's good, but can be abused. I paid for a phone, and when it never came my money was refunded.

However, I think the "new scam", is that a seller can send any item to your address, provide the tracking info, and then provide that as "proof" they sent the item.

tophatjohnny

On certain auctions I think so!!