The Forum at Handcuffs.Org

Scam......i think so

16 visible archived posts · 16 preserved total · topic ID 2773

GB68 09 Nov 2008

Check this item out .. http://offer.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll? ... 0285073359 ....90 bids ......come on there not rare and not made of gold....by the time this listing id finished there will be 790 bids....i think the guy has some friends trying to get big bucks for this .....

Dorson 09 Nov 2008

Apparently some new people to ebay and they were bidding it up incrementally to find where the other person bid it up too and back and forth...

Kevin Connolly 09 Nov 2008

I think the newbie was just trying to find the reserve. There are easier ways to find the reserve on an item you want on Ebay, besides bidding 40 times, at a dollar per.

Kevin Connolly 14 Nov 2008

That seems like a fair price. I guess it wasn't a scam after all.

GB68 14 Nov 2008

I guess not ...it just seemed funny ....90 bids in the same day.....good price for them...

Kevin Connolly 14 Nov 2008

As I mentioned above, it was just a new guy trying to figure out the reserve. Hopefully he'll soon learn how to get the reserve without even contacting the seller. It sure saves a hell of a lot of time.

Edgeplay_Cgo 14 Nov 2008

He's what they call a nibbler.

Anonymous 14 Nov 2008

I am intreged with this discussion.
How does one find out the reserve price with out contacting the seller or by nibbling?
I can not imagine any other way to do it.
I know that if you are close to it, your bid price will change to a different amount than you entered.

Nelson

Kevin Connolly 15 Nov 2008

Say there is a set of cuffs on Ebay that usually sell for about a thousand dollars(for example) when they turn up. The seller has a reserve on the cuff for $500. He starts the bidding at $10.00. You could place a bid for $20,000 and the bid used to jump up to the reserve. Then you would retract the bid and bid $20.00. Now you know where you stand at the end and how to bid.

Now, that might not work anymore, just like Ebay hiding bidders names now, used to be shown to all. If it doesn't work anymore, you or a friend can do the same procedure, but use a lower bid.

This is against Ebay policy, besides being under-handed. Handcuff collectors, like Houdini collectors, have a few weasels that will try this. Just like getting an auction shut down early, etc. Our circles are so small that we can figure out who did what. Capish?

Anonymous 15 Nov 2008

#10

Stupid, unethical, and forbidden by ebay. Yes, you "small circle" people are weasels.

Edgeplay_Cgo 15 Nov 2008

#11

I guess I get the idea of hidden reserves, but don't think they're very effective. I don't see why a seller woon't simply reveal his reserve; he wants to sellstuff, not play games. But others have different tactics.

I tend to snipe, filing a bid late, electronically. I just file my max, and fergediboudit. I get an e-mail telling me whether I've won or not. It takes away all the stress, and insulates me from bidding wars.

Kevin Connolly 15 Nov 2008

#12

I snipe myself, but I do early bid too sometimes. The reason I bid early for is a couple of reasons. Say an item usually sells for a thousand dollars and I have one already in my collection. If the seller has a low opening bid, I'll put a low bid in early. Everytime I get outbid, I just bid again. I would go up to $600-$700. If I win it, I just average it down. If I lose, the item doesn't go cheap.

Also by bidding early, it usually deters the seller from shutting down the auction to work a deal off Ebay. This I know both of our fields encounter from to time.

J. Kuczero 16 Nov 2008

#13

I have to agree with Dennis. I really don't see the point of hidden reserves. Put your reserve price out there and people either want the item bad enough to meet it or they don't. As far as the bidding wars, I tend to put in an opening bid if no-one already has and then use the snipe to put my highest price in at the last second. If I win the item, I'm happy. If I don't then someone else would have been willing to pay more than I was anyway. Bidding back and forth every few hours for a week just raises the final price. (Good for the sellers, not so good for the buyers.) Putting your high bid in first just gives the little mice time to nibble away at it till everyone knows what it is anyway. And e-bay's new policy of hiding the bidders just makes it easier for the not so honest sellers to work bid scams. I personally think that the whole user ID system gives the buyers all the anonimity they need if that's what they want.

Kevin Connolly 16 Nov 2008

#14

What I really can't understand is a reserve and an intial high starting bid. There's a guy on Ebay trying to sell a set of magazines. For ones like he has, they sell for about $2,500-$3,000. Not only has he has a reserve, which is fine by me, but his opening bid is $1,000. That scares most of the guppies away. If you start it at $50 and let it run its' course, you might sell it. This way all the smaller bidders can play and then at the end, the heavy hitters might come in. With a $1,000 opening bid, 90% of the collectors are out. If you get out bid, say at $250, you know someone wants it for $10 more than you. This might justify another bid by you and so on and so on.

The Amazing Michael 16 Nov 2008

#15

I rarely use a reserve when I sell on eBay. However, when I do, if someone asks what it is.....I will tell them. That's fair. If the reserve is too rich for them, they can walk away and forget it without waiting a week to find out if the reserve was met or not. I try to treat buyers the way I would like to be treated; no games.

I also dispise the greed fuled games that certain people play on eBay......auctions ended early with bullspit excuses, auctions just plain disappearing, and so forth. I also hate when people ask me to end an auction early and sell them the item for peanuts outside of eBay or to end it and repost it with a "buy it now" option. If I wanted to put it up with a "buy it now" option, I would have done so in the first place! This type of piece of spit A-hole exists in every circle, not just ours. Personaly, I no longer sell on eBay; I will stick to selling at the lock shows or through personal contacts and I am good with that. My 2 cents.

Cheers, Mike

Kevin Connolly 16 Nov 2008

#16

I'm with you with Ebay. I'm just fed up with their new rules, forced to only use Paypal, fees, feedbacks, etc. I know their the biggest, but I sure wish someone would come by and knock them down a peg or two.