E-Bay bidding

[oldred]

I have bought a lot of things from E-Bay and have gotten some really good deals, lately I have noticed something strange in the bidding procedure. I watch a fairly large number of cutting tools (mostly end mills) at any one time looking for those real bargains and often an item will have a minimum starting price but zero bids, it may remain at zero until a few hours before bidding ends then suddenly have one, two or more bids showing but the bid amount has remained unchanged at the starting price????? This may not be anything new at all but just something I had not noticed until now but it's kind of puzzling, anyone know what's happening here?

[smokeywolf]

I've bought quite a few machinist's tools on the Bay and I don't remember encountering that.

I'll have to watch for it.

[shooterbob]

Sometimes its because of a dutch style auction. If the seller has multiple items the bid can stay the same but each bidder will get one of the items at the same price. I've also seen as a seller that a buyer will increase his maximum bid and it will show up as a bid but the price won't change until someone bids higher than he did.

[Bad Water Bill]

Back in Dec I saw a bunch of Lyman NEW stuff up for bid.

I contacted the seller to see if he would take a money order (I hate PLAY pail) and he responded yes and sent his addy.

Well I won and for less than 1/2 of what Lyman prices were.

Off to pick up the M O and it was in the mail in less than2 hours after the close.

Sent the seller the M O # and waited for my goodies.

A week goes by then 2 and no package or reply.

His answer was WHAT m o?

Luckily it was only $20.00 or so.

If you put something up for auction and you are not happy with the results just tear up the winners M O and deny ever receiving it and you are home free.

To bad it doesn't work that way with the I R S.

And NO he never filed a complaint of non payment.

[imashooter2]

If the original bidder goes back and increases his maximum before anyone else bids, a glitch in the system will display the item as having (2) bids submitted, but the current bid "price" will be unchanged.

[oldred]

If the original bidder goes back and increases his maximum before anyone else bids, a glitch in the system will display the item as having (2) bids submitted, but the current bid "price" will be unchanged.

That makes sense because with the first bid the price would remain the same, the price showing that is.

[Echo]

Maybe others are like me - I don't look at anything with more than a day left on the auction. I look generally, not specifically, look to see if something catches my attention, and maybe bid my max, including shipping. If I win, great - if not, C'est la vie...

[Handloader109]

Back in Dec I saw a bunch of Lyman NEW stuff up for bid.

I contacted the seller to see if he would take a money order (I hate PLAY pail) and he responded yes and sent his addy.

Well I won and for less than 1/2 of what Lyman prices were.

Off to pick up the M O and it was in the mail in less than2 hours after the close.

Sent the seller the M O # and waited for my goodies.

A week goes by then 2 and no package or reply.

His answer was WHAT m o?

Luckily it was only $20.00 or so.

If you put something up for auction and you are not happy with the results just tear up the winners M O and deny ever receiving it and you are home free.

To bad it doesn't work that way with the I R S.

And NO he never filed a complaint of non payment.

Did you save your receipt? You can find out if it was ever cashed? If so, I'd have let "Bay know along with the seller.

[oldred]

Maybe others are like me - I don't look at anything with more than a day left on the auction. I look generally, not specifically, look to see if something catches my attention, and maybe bid my max, including shipping. If I win, great - if not, C'est la vie...

I do pretty much the same thing except I save interesting items in my watch list even if they are new listings, I never bid on them at that time I just save them to the list. I go down the list usually once a day and if any of the items have picked up more than two or three bids or if the price is approaching my max I will just delete that item and go on to the next one, the top of the list is the shortest time items so I can always know the status of it without having to look at all the listings.

It's amazing what happens sometimes, not long ago I placed two extra long length 9/16" Accupro carbide TiN coated end mills on my watch list while they were new listings with six days left. The starting bid was $15 and for six days no one placed a single bid, in the last few seconds someone bid $16 and I followed that with a bid of $75 and won the darn things for $17.50 and $7.45 shipping! $24.95 total for $321.76 worth of brand new end mills ($160.88 each at MSC) for a nickle under $25! I fully expected the guy to back out on the deal and I honestly would not have left bad feed back for him if he had of but four days later they arrived in my mailbox, yeah I love E-Bay!

[imashooter2]

I use a free sniping program. I look at newly listed items, decide what I'm willing to pay and program a bid in the last seconds of the auction. Then I forget about it unless / until I get a "You Won" email.

[Ehaver]

I use a free sniping program. I look at newly listed items, decide what I'm willing to pay and program a bid in the last seconds of the auction. Then I forget about it unless / until I get a "You Won" email.

I do this to. It has won me many of Auctions. Is it fair? I dunno, maybe not. But, it works.

[imashooter2]

I do this to. It has won me many of Auctions. Is it fair? I dunno, maybe not. But, it works.

Everyone has the ability to do the same. Some choose not to. How can that be unfair?

[dragon813gt]

Everyone has the ability to do the same. Some choose not to. How can that be unfair?

It's not unfair. It's just playing the game. I really don't bother w/ eBay unless the items are Buy It Now. I'm impatient and very rarely have I gotten a deal through an auction. Same goes w/ Gunbroker. I prefer to plop down my money for an item at a good price and have it shipped to me in a day or so. I don't need a deal to good to be true.

[opos]

For anyone that uses Ebay, pay pal or e snipe (or any of the other sniping programs)...E bay and pay pal have been hacked and if you go to their account pages you will find their "urging" to change you pass word...both e bay and pay pal...if you have a snipe program and change your e bay password you will need to furnish the new password to the snipe program or your snipe bids will no longer work...Sniping is not unfair..anyone can get E snipe or one of the other programs...no way will I sit there and click time after time toward the end of an auction when there is a service that will do that for me for a very small fee...I put in the amount I'm willing to pay and about 6 seconds before the item is sold it begins the process of electronic bidding for me....usually there are many other folks doing the same thing so it happens fast and the one with the highest snipe bid wins...you can't click fast enough to keep up if not using a snipe bid...if you have put in a regular bid with a high limit and that limit is higher than the snipe bidding you will still win the item....but it is not unfair..

[lancem]

Back in Dec I saw a bunch of Lyman NEW stuff up for bid.

I contacted the seller to see if he would take a money order (I hate PLAY pail) and he responded yes and sent his addy.

Well I won and for less than 1/2 of what Lyman prices were.

Off to pick up the M O and it was in the mail in less than2 hours after the close.

Sent the seller the M O # and waited for my goodies.

A week goes by then 2 and no package or reply.

His answer was WHAT m o?

Luckily it was only $20.00 or so.

If you put something up for auction and you are not happy with the results just tear up the winners M O and deny ever receiving it and you are home free.

To bad it doesn't work that way with the I R S.

And NO he never filed a complaint of non payment.

So you broke ebay rules by not paying by paypal, the seller broke ebay rules by accepting payment other than paypal, you get ripped off and it's ebay's fault the way I'm reading it... Play stupid games win stupid prizes.... If you had paid by paypal and the seller hadn't sent the item you would have gotten your $20 back no problem, I guess I don't see what your complaint is, hard to call a foul if you don't play by the rules.

[Bad Water Bill]

So you broke ebay rules by not paying by paypal, the seller broke ebay rules by accepting payment other than paypal, you get ripped off and it's ebay's fault the way I'm reading it... Play stupid games win stupid prizes.... If you had paid by paypal and the seller hadn't sent the item you would have gotten your $20 back no problem, I guess I don't see what your complaint is, hard to call a foul if you don't play by the rules.

And some folks here lately always have to try and start an argument every chance they can.

Each time I contact a seller it is done thru and saved on my Evil bay records.

I have been doing it this way for over 8 years and discussed my few problems over the phone with folks at Evil bay and not one time has Evil bay said I violated THEIR rules.

I am sure if I did anything against their rules I would have been told by them instead of a computer ninja.

I obey all of the rules there AND at this site as well.

We have had to many folks lately trying to cause trouble on this site.

Now IF you can show me chapter and verse in the Evil bay rules that I have broken even one of their rules FINE and I will apologize.

[oldred]

So you broke ebay rules by not paying by paypal, the seller broke ebay rules by accepting payment other than paypal, you get ripped off and it's ebay's fault the way I'm reading it... Play stupid games win stupid prizes.... If you had paid by paypal and the seller hadn't sent the item you would have gotten your $20 back no problem, I guess I don't see what your complaint is, hard to call a foul if you don't play by the rules.

Where in the E-Bay rules does it say a buyer is REQUIRED to use Paypal??????

Come on show us where it's a violation!

[oldred]

I use a free sniping program. I look at newly listed items, decide what I'm willing to pay and program a bid in the last seconds of the auction. Then I forget about it unless / until I get a "You Won" email.

I have been considering doing this also but I have been a bit nervous about giving out my E-Bay user name and password to complete strangers. Even if these people are well meaning, and it looks as if they are just enterprising individuals who came up with a good money making idea, we have no idea of how good their security is or how honest everyone directly involved is. A hacker could easily steal this info if the site's security is lax (how much were they willing to spend on security?) and dishonest individuals or even pranksters could wreak havoc with an E-Bay account, if that happened through a site that is independent of E-Bay what would be our recourse? Still snipping is getting harder to do all the time and I imagine it's due to programs such as this.


BTW, to those who think snipping is unfair E-Bay itself actually ENCOURAGES the practice and indeed not long ago they even took steps to make doing so easier by moving the countdown clock to the confirmation page. Check out snipping at E-Bays Q/A or FAQ sections.

[Teddy (punchie)]

Bill

The bay is the Bay, years ago it was different and now PP and Evil are one. I just let it roll if someone's opinion is just hard.

I do recall reading years ago now, that Evil Bay was going to make it a policy only to use PP. Unless it was larger and condition for pickup. Not sure about it now, most use PP(Evil Bay) payment.

Not as easy to contract people. Years ago I would e-mail all of the bidders if someone sha.fted me. Explain how and why and what the Ebayer did.

[Finster101]

So you broke ebay rules by not paying by paypal, the seller broke ebay rules by accepting payment other than paypal, you get ripped off and it's ebay's fault the way I'm reading it... Play stupid games win stupid prizes.... If you had paid by paypal and the seller hadn't sent the item you would have gotten your $20 back no problem, I guess I don't see what your complaint is, hard to call a foul if you don't play by the rules.

Before you jump on somebody you need to get your facts straight. No where does it say you must use paypal on e-bay. It is against the rules to contact the seller to see if they will sell outside of e-bay.