Question about Ebay

I bid on a power supply for my old computer 5 days ago.

When I bid on it, my bid of $10 was the first bid and there was 5 days left to buy the item.

Until 1 hr ago, my bid of $10 was the highest and no one else has bid on it.

Now I get an email saying someone else has bid on it.

I go look and the bid is now $11.

So I bid $11.50.

Well, $11.50 is not high enough - whoever this other person is, he has an automatic bidding system (which I have NO idea how to do) and he is beating me by 50 cents after each time I place a bid.

So now it's at $15 and that person is the highest bidder.

I don't know how much higher is his automatic bidding going to take it.

How do I know this person that's bidding on it is NOT the seller who created a separate account so he can jack up the final sales price by bidding on his own item?

Yep, ebay has scandal written all over it.
It's a well known place for people to off dodgy goods to unsuspecting suckers. Lucky for you you saw through this farcical world wide auction site.
Spread the word.

well, it's at $16 now and I am once again the higher bidder.

I will not go higher than $16 and there is also a $7 shipping fee.

On ebay you should set yourself a limit and stick to it. My general experience is therefor positive I have never paid more than I was willing to do.

My limits depend on:
Price for new item
my financial space at that time
price of shipping (some folks really get some xtra profit through shipping)

I have bought quite a few antique books for only a few dollars/pounds simply because there was no market for it. But I have never engaged in a biddingwar simply because as you stated I have no clear idea whom the other bidder is.

saint mark wrote:

On ebay you should set yourself a limit and stick to it. My general experience is therefor positive I have never paid more than I was willing to do.

My limits depend on:
Price for new item
my financial space at that time
price of shipping (some folks really get some xtra profit through shipping)

I have bought quite a few antique books for only a few dollars/pounds simply because there was no market for it. But I have never engaged in a biddingwar simply because as you stated I have no clear idea whom the other bidder is.

Good points. On the other hand, if the person trying to outbid JWild was the seller, he/she runs the risk of losing the sale by continuously outbidding JWild. If the seller comes to JWild in email a few days after the auction is over and says something like "The other bidder cancelled or reneged on the deal. Would you still be interested in buying this?" then you can negotiate with the seller. I think I've had that happen to me once before and I paid my original lowest bid.

You never know. Things change. I auctioned off some posters years ago, but after someone had won one of my posters, I got a closer look at the poster and saw there was some damage to it that I hadn't seen before. I emailed the winning bidder and told him what I found and that I didn't think he'd want the posters, and he thanked me for telling him this upfront rather than trying to pawn off damaged goods on him.

GS, would you mind changing your avatar? It's horrifying.

Santa wrote:

GS, would you mind changing your avatar? It's horrifying.

Sure, no problem. I changed it to something less controversial.

Hmmm...

It sounds more like the other person place a maximum bid of $15.50. The bid increases in increments of 50c. You bid 11.50 - it ups to 12. And so on. Until you reach the maximum bid they have entered, which would appear to be 15,50, as 16 is now highest bid. It's not an automatic bidding system (although such things do exist), but the usual eBay bidding system.

Just because you bid 15 doesn't mean it automatically goes up to 15.

Gravity's Silhouette wrote:

Santa wrote:

GS, would you mind changing your avatar? It's horrifying.

Sure, no problem. I changed it to something less controversial.

Thank you. Birth is my worst nightmare.

I collect comic-books. I spent over $20,000 (yes, twenty fucking thousand) on an estimated 280+ eBay purchases in 2011 with only one problem that was resolved by customer support. I also made good money reselling what I bought specifically to resell, since there are many good deals to be found if you're knowledgable about what's a collector's item. Good source for stamp collections too.

If you are ripped off on eBay, customer support is there with a guarantee of refunding original purchase price and shipping.

It would appear someone has a higher bid than yours and each time you increase yours without posting the top bid, it simply goes to the next increment. There is no rip off at all.

PS I snipe...meaning I put my maximum bid in a couple of seconds before the auction ends.

Mrs Aural Sects wrote:

PS I snipe...meaning I put my maximum bid in a couple of seconds before the auction ends.

'Imself does that, My relationship with eBay has not been terribly successful, but 'Imself is a master of it.

well I got it for $16 plus $7 shipping

I paid by PayPal, 2 min after the bidding ended at noon today, and I'd already receive an EBay email saying that the item has been shipped

j7wild wrote:

well I got it for $16 plus $7 shipping

I paid by PayPal, 2 min after the bidding ended at noon today, and I'd already receive an EBay email saying that the item has been shipped

Means the seller had your shipping label created and tracking has been activated.

I got the Power Supply today from EBAY.

Paid $23 total!!

This thread would have been edifying in 1999.

j7wild is 13 years behind us all in an alternate dimension. That's the nice way of putting it.

I sold just over $850 worth of January eBay purchases for a bit over $1,500 and that's after keeping a couple items for myself. With zero overhead, that's almost $700 in pure profit. If you have a resale market and have some extra time, it's a fun way to make some extra money and subsidise your own personal purchases....

Go to my profile. Click 'Wish List'. Buy all of the items.

That should solve the problem, j7.

Just forward me the tracking numbers.

Give me your credit card number and I'll take care of this for you, j7.

LOL!

you folks are a bit late to the party, aren't yall?

I already received the power supply over 2 weeks ago.

Cool. Send me your credit card number anyway.

Jack Wade wrote:

Cool. Send me your credit card number anyway.

You better hope he doesn't send a statement that's overly in debt....

Mrs Aural Sects wrote:

Jack Wade wrote:

Cool. Send me your credit card number anyway.

You better hope he doesn't send a statement that's overly in debt....

Good point. I don't want control of an account that owes thousands to Girls Gone Wild.

never bought anything from GGW and I wouldn't stock their DVDs in my store

I'm not a lawyer, but as an editor I am well versed in libel law and publishing, and the previous post by J7 seems libellous to me. As M seems to have gone walkabout from his own forum I suggest one of mods deletes the post.

J7's casual antisemitism and crackerjack politics I tolerate because I believe in freespeech, but libellous and malicious statements about corporations will get this place shut down. I'm just off the back of fighting a case like this and know exactly how this sort of thing goes down.