posted on October 12, 2000 01:04:50 PM new
I've been watching this item on eBay for a few days now for two reasons. One is I'm interested in it, the other is that I was surprised to see the price so high one day after it was listed. It's an odd size thing, not something the majority of people could use. Vague enough?
Anyhow, I got a tad curious and started checking out the seller's auctions. Out of 10 auctions (completed), 9 of them had bidders with bid retractions between 2 and 14. Same ratio for the ongoing auctions. So I went and checked out 2 other sellers. There ratio was 1 out of 10 and 2 out of 10 bidders with bid retractions in their history.
Now there is no way I will be bidding on this auction, simply because I have this 'gut' feeling that all is not kosher here and that this seller is a shiller. Whether I'm right or wrong about my reasoning is irrelevant...as a bidder I'm allowed to set my comfort zone boundaries.
My question is this: When you're bidding on something or about to bid on something, does a competing bidder's bid retraction history mean anything to you?
posted on October 12, 2000 01:33:22 PM new
I've never looked. If I can buy an item for what I believe to be a good price, I'll pay it. That said, I rarely use proxy bids, so I don't worry about being shilled. If I were in the habit of using proxies, I'd definitely get into the habit of checking out the other bidders that I'm bidding against.
posted on October 12, 2000 01:36:35 PM new"When you're bidding on something or about to bid on something, does a competing bidder's bid retraction history mean anything to you?"
If I see a bidder has made numberous retractions all for the same seller then I'd walk away... I'd report them for possibly running up bidder's proxies and look elsewhere. I haven't seen that but a couple of times. It was obvious to me the seller was using a dummy account to max out a bidder's proxy and then retracting a bid when they went over the proxy. It must have been obvious to Safe Harbor, in both cases the reports ended in the seller being NARU'd.
posted on October 12, 2000 01:37:31 PM new
tacress, if I really want something I usually only check the bidder's feedback and not the bid retractions. But you bring up a good point. All those retractions might mean there is shill bidding going on. If I were you I'd trust my gut instinct on that one. Maybe I'll start looking, too, now.
posted on October 12, 2000 01:52:33 PM new
I'm pretty fortunate to get few bid retractions. I did get one yesterday, but not before the bidder sent me an email, and I explained HOW to retract the bid. I couldn't help but laugh, since I had done something similar ( like place a $200 bid instead of $2.00). His email was great .. ( items removed for privacy sake)
I accidentally set my maximum bid at $36,550!!!! Omigod, I have never done
something this stupid before, and I sincerely apologize. I meant to set the
maximum bid at $36.55.
However, I accept that the bid is now $**.**, and I will honor that bid. But
can you reset my maximum bid price, or is that something I can do?
Again, my apologies.
True to his word, he rebid at the higher than expected amount, and I really didn't mind if he hadn't. I did thank him for letting me know, and even supplied the link to where he had to retract the bid.
[ edited by carolann56 on Oct 12, 2000 01:53 PM ]
[ edited by carolann56 on Oct 12, 2000 01:53 PM ]