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Can someone please explain why someone puts a $5 bid on a $300 book?

Started by ronm3-migration,

66 posts in this topic

Norrin_Radd

Norrin_Radd

Posted
Posted
To those that think they can buy a 300 dollar book with a simple 5 dollar bid on books of no reserve they will find that almost all sellers will claim "improper listing" and close the auction without having to sell the item. I have had many sellers close auctions out claiming an error in listing many times so they wont have to sell their precious item cheaply.

Works both ways as you see.

 

Artboy99

 

True but they have to close it before 12 hours are up or its to late to yank auction right?

 

Wrong! It's happened to me before. A nice comic is going for cheap so the seller ends the auction on the last day proclaiming "Error in the listing". Pisses me off. 893censored-thumb.gif

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mica

mica

Posted
Posted
True but they have to close it before 12 hours are up or its to late to yank auction right?

 

Wrong! It's happened to me before. A nice comic is going for cheap so the seller ends the auction on the last day proclaiming "Error in the listing". Pisses me off. 893censored-thumb.gif

For clarification sake was it 12 hours and 1 minute to go on that last day? 893scratchchin-thumb.gif
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Norrin_Radd

Norrin_Radd

Posted
Posted
True but they have to close it before 12 hours are up or its to late to yank auction right?

 

Wrong! It's happened to me before. A nice comic is going for cheap so the seller ends the auction on the last day proclaiming "Error in the listing". Pisses me off. 893censored-thumb.gif

For clarification sake was it 12 hours and 1 minute to go on that last day? 893scratchchin-thumb.gif

 

I don't think it was.

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OldGuy

OldGuy

Posted
Posted
True but they have to close it before 12 hours are up or its to late to yank auction right?

 

Wrong! It's happened to me before. A nice comic is going for cheap so the seller ends the auction on the last day proclaiming "Error in the listing". Pisses me off. 893censored-thumb.gif

For clarification sake was it 12 hours and 1 minute to go on that last day? 893scratchchin-thumb.gif

 

You can't retract a bid with less then 12 hours to go. You can close an auction any time you want.

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Ares

Ares

Posted
Posted
You can't retract a bid with less then 12 hours to go. You can close an auction any time you want.

 

Not allways

 

Timing Matters

 

When there are 12 hours or less remaining and the item has a winning bid, including a reserve met bid, sellers cannot make any changes to the listing, including:

 

Ending the item early. Sellers may cancel bids, but not end the item unless the item is being sold to the high bidder.

Adding to or changing the item description.

Converting the item to pre-approved bidders.

Note: Canceling bids or making changes to a listing with bids when there are 12 hours or less remaining, can damage the buyer experience and can undermine trust in the marketplace.

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Tomega

Tomega

Posted
Posted

I sometimes put a low bid in on an expensive item so I can check the sellers information. I am sure there are many other people that do the same. If it is someone you do not know and cannot verify the info, retract the bid and move on.

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Stronguy

Stronguy

Posted
Posted

There used to be a guy who would put in $1 (or some other low amount) bids on all slabbed, no reserve auctions. His logic was that if eBay was down during the last minute snipe he would win. IIRC this paid off for him a couple of times.

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seank

seank

Posted
Posted
A lot of times it's a "tracking bid" or a bordeom bid.

 

thumbsup2.gif

I concur.

 

I will bid a small amount on a high dollar book to "watch" it.

 

I do the same. I don't expect to get the $300 book for $5, but I keep an eye on it. I also expect I'll raise my bid at least once before the auction is over.

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divad

divad

Posted
Posted
Wrong! It's happened to me before. A nice comic is going for cheap so the seller ends the auction on the last day proclaiming "Error in the listing". Pisses me off. 893censored-thumb.gif

 

Yeah, yeah, yeah . . . NSTAFL 27_laughing.gif

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Reno McCoy

Reno McCoy

Posted
Posted

If there's a BIN that seems too high for me yet I still want to see how the bidding goes, I'll bid low just so no one else can take that BIN. If there's no reserve, the BIN goes away on that auction once someone bids. Then, once the bidding has taken the price up, I'll re-evaluate my desire to purchase as a certain price.

 

I just did this on a football card. The BIN was $15 but I'd only be willing to pay $8-$10. I won the auction for cheap, but had I not made that first $1, who knows what kind of insufficiently_thoughtful_person would see the BIN and take it? confused-smiley-013.gif

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Norrin_Radd

Norrin_Radd

Posted
Posted
Not always

 

Timing Matters

 

When there are 12 hours or less remaining and the item has a winning bid, including a reserve met bid, sellers cannot make any changes to the listing, including:

 

Ending the item early. Sellers may cancel bids, but not end the item unless the item is being sold to the high bidder.

 

All they have to do is put in a shill bid and then cancel the auction and tell eBay it was sold. eBay is too busy to care.

 

 

 

Note: Canceling bids or making changes to a listing with bids when there are 12 hours or less remaining, can damage the buyer experience and can undermine trust in the marketplace.

 

No 893censored-thumb.gif. mad.gif

 

I'm still not happy about the Batman #9. The seller didn't like the price it was going to sell for so they yanked it. They told me in an email that they wanted more and were going to list it with a much higher BIN ($800).

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otherworldcomics

otherworldcomics

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Posted

I don't know if its a better tracking method or not but I can see throwing in a bid to see if you can get the book at a cheap price. Sounds like a sound idea to me. Though, I've been on both sides of the issue. I can understand trying to get a great book at a low price but it sucks as a seller to take that kind of lost. I mean, sellers are trying to make money not give books to charity. So you can't blame them for ending early so they don't get taken. We all want to be as far as possible. But hey, if the seller is too lazy to keep up with his auctions and it happens to him, then its a lesson to be more attentive.

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divad

divad

Posted
Posted
Haven't read Heinlein?

Its other variant is "TANSTAAFL"

 

thumbsup2.gif

 

TNSTAAFL?

 

"Tnstaafl" was coined by Robert Heinlein in his book The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. It was used by the Lunarians as a greeting and a reminder to all inhabitants of Luna that not even the air you breath is free.

 

There's No Such Thing As A Free Lunch".

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Zonker

Zonker

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Posted

TANSTAAFL /tan'stah-fl/ [acronym, from Robert Heinlein's classic "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress".] "There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch", often invoked when someone is balking at the prospect of using an unpleasantly heavyweight technique, or at the poor quality of some piece of free software, or at the signal-to-noise ratio of unmoderated Usenet newsgroups. "What? Don't tell me I have to implement a database back end to get my address book program to work!" "Well, TANSTAAFL you know." This phrase owes some of its popularity to the high concentration of science-fiction fans and political libertarians in hackerdom

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