eBay & German Privacy laws, potential problem?

[The_Man_Of_Steel]

I won an auction tonight that I proxy bid on, and 1 bidder raised the price with 2 bids from $25 to $60. I decided to check out the bidding history, and just out of curosity I wanted to see what the person bidding against me bids on. I put in their user id into the search and I came up with the following message:

 

Not possible

German privacy laws do not allow us to pass on information involving bidders from Germany. If you want to find all auctions this user has bid on, please contact the user directly by email.

 

This is the first time I've encountered such a message when searching under other people's user id's. The reason I've brought this to attention is because by not being able to investigate a user id, it's impossible to learn if someone is shill bidding, and therefore takes away the thought of reporting an id to eBay for shilling.

 

[aardvark88]

I wonder how many other European countries may have this strict privacy law protection. Possible hidden shill activity, but probably 99% of eBay auctions are honest.

Noticed that All Star Auctions took out a full pg ad in a new comic art mag trumpeting the fact that they have NO conflict of interest in their own auctions. All Star does not allow themselves or their own staff to bid on All Star lots.

They will also not auction duplicate copies of the same bk in their auctions. e.g. 5 copies of ASM #1 like Heritage . They don't want to split the bids & hope to achieve max. results for the consignor.

[chromium]

Germany AFAIK is the only country that has this kind of blocking, It can get annoying when you want to check up on your competition and see if the guy who is biddign against you usually places a last minute snipe or has a fixed ceiling etc....

I'm having trouble with a German seller right now and it is indeed harder to drum up evidence this way...

[The_Man_Of_Steel]

I checked out the feedback of this German bidder, and in the past 90 days, it appears that he/she has only won 2 items. Neither were auctions from American sellers. The rest of the person's feedback is all sales, "good girl" original art. This German bidder doesn't appear to have interest in Superhero comics from what I can tell.

 

How difficult would it be for an American seller to get a German email account and address?

 

I checked Heritage, and the DAY before I won the eBay auction, a copy of the same book, sold for $58 in VF/NM condition. That pisses me off considering Heritages reputation for driving prices up.

[The_Man_Of_Steel]

I might add that this book had a "Buy-It-Now" price of $70, and nobody jumped on it for I don't know how many days. I bid on it with only 1 day + hours.

 

The all too common eBay overgradding factor is getting to me. I'll be surprised if the book is as described, especially considering the mention of "subjectivity" in grading. All that and looking at the German bidders previous purchases (all 2 of them in the past 90 days), lack of purchases. It may not be right in the eyes of sellers reading this, but I'm having second thoughts because of the German bidder. It's not an "even" playing field, when you can't search the competition. The seller of this auction is a Powerseller, and uses Squaretrade, and claims to sell books for other people. Who is to know that the book being sold in the auction does not belong to a German? The more I think about this the more I'm thinking twice about "honoring" my bid. I don't see the honor in paying for a book that could be "shilled" up to what the seller wants? A fair auction is honorable, but give people a "false sense" of getting a good deal is deceitful. Anybody in the world could have purchased it for $10 more. Looking at auctions for the same book, either it's rare, or there is really not much demand for it...which would add to the mystery.

 

BTW - In case anyone is curious about what book I'm talking about, it's a Spectacular Spider-Man Magazine Issue 2 featuring the Green Goblin and one of the best John Romita covers out there, a painted cover. The book appeared in 1968, is in color, it's 58 pages in length, and is part of the Norman Osborn Green Goblin history.

 

 

[Rickdogg]

You can always retract your bid if you do it in time. It's great that you look for deals, but personally I try a few guys out with cheapie books and if I like them, I come back to them and buy batches of stuff from them and don't mind paying a little more for peace of mind.

 

Just because someone is a powerseller and has a squaretrade logo doesn't mean they are truly "honest." I've shown many examples on this board before of sellers who shill with these same exact credentials.

[The_Man_Of_Steel]

I sent the seller a copy of everything I've said in this thread and this is the response that I received.

 

We're definately not "new" to ebay and this is a "1st" for us (Having a Buyer not pay because they're upset over issues that have absolutely nothing to do with the purchase at hand)....We've passed your comments to ebay Powerseller Support-They probably would be interested in them....We strongly suggest that you re-evaluate your membership in the ebay community in light of your comments.....

 

It's a "1st", yeah, that's what they all say. Issues that have absolutely "nothing" to do with the purchase at hand? But it has EVERTHING to do with the AMOUNT of the purchase at hand.

 

Yeah, I'll bet they've passed an EDITED version of my comments to eBay.

 

Basically, from this seller, I get the idea that there is no merit or worth or anything like that to anything that I said. It's almost as if they said "we'll take the 5th". Rather than respond to my message, the seller responded to me.

 

I'm staying far away from this seller...they can neg me if they want, but I cannot afford a $60 positive feedback. I do think I'm going to be spending some time away from eBay though, this type of [!@#%^&^] seems to be the norm rather than the exception.

[chromium]

I'm having a hard time understanding this...

 

Why did you put a proxy bid higher than $60.00 on the book in the first place ?

It's not like it was a snap desision, (placed more than 24 hours prior to the end of the auction).

 

It seems that since you found out that the Heritage book went for less than you paid, you feel bad about making this purchase...

 

There is a pretty slim chance that a power-seller and squaretrade member will use such an elaborate scheme as to use a German identity to shill a (for them) low-dollar auction...

 

I can understand that you hoped to win the book for much lower when you placed the proxy-bid and the book was dead at $25.00.

But a lot of people get fooled by the BIN price, they think it reflects the true-market value and then come back close to ending time and place a bid of 80% - %90 of the BIN price hoping to win it.

If they do win they feel happy as they are under the impression that they made a deal and got it for less than the BIN,

If they don't win they leave with the feeling 'well, it's worth whatever the BIN price was, and there will be more at that price'...