Bye Bye Ebay

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frankenstein

Might Stick Around
Dec 7, 2013
59
0
So this is what has happend so far:
I'm bidding on a pipe and am the highest bidder (around $60) but have a maximum bid of $140. The auction ends in a couple of days. Yesterday I got an email notification from ebay that someone overbid me. Fine I thought. But then when I log in to my ebay I find that I'm still the highest bidder. Some hours later I get another notification from ebay saying that the person who bid over me retracted his/hers bid. I'm thinking "wtf!? can you retract bids on ebay?" So I check the items bidding history. It seems like this loser/retard who made the retraction bid like $868,56. Sure I can understand that you might sometimes write an extra 0 by mistake and that should be corrected and the ebay rules state that when you have had your bid retracted you should bid for the amount you first intended. But this is hardly the case here, right? I mean you can't bid $86,856 on an auction.
So this creep d***d either is shilling the auction or he's interested to see what my maximum bid is. Not very fair. Even if I win I'm never going back to ebay.

 

numbersix

Lifer
Jul 27, 2012
5,449
53
Ebay isn't so bad, but to win a bid, try sniping. Use esnipe. Right or wrong, it's the only way to win a pipe.

 

mso489

Lifer
Feb 21, 2013
41,210
60,433
I spend too much time sweating and fuming about selecting a pipe to want to spend additional time

on the roller coaster of an auction, and suffering the indignities of poorly described, or falsely described

merchandise. If I end up spending ten or twenty extra bucks, but get the pipe I want, correctly described

and properly delivered, that's easily worth the cost. If I had oodles of discretionary spending, I might

feel differently. I do admire those who get good prices and good pipes on ebay; more power to ya.

 

onepyrotec

Lifer
Feb 20, 2013
1,066
6,634
Nevada
Some people bid like that to be evil, others do it as shill bids. I always use a bid sniper program that sends an auto bid in the last 10 seconds to avoid bid-jacking. I also suggest to my repeat customers to do the same...or buy direct.
If you think it is a shill bid to raise your price, you can look at the sellers other items to see if anyone with the same feedback rating repeatedly bid, retracted bid, bid again at a lower price so as not to win. Then you can just about prove shill bidding.
If the person didn't re-bid, it "may have" been a case of price checking that didn't change your bottom dollar but is still wrong IMHO. I block bidders who do that on my stuff since ebay rules state you CAN retract a bid but you also MUST re-enter the correct amount.

 

winton

Lifer
Oct 20, 2010
2,318
771
If I am interested in a pipe, I bid the max I am willing to pay. Either I win or I don't spend the money. I don't get bothered by losing a bid.
Winton

 

ssjones

Moderator
Staff member
May 11, 2011
18,317
11,068
Maryland
postimg.cc
That doesn't seem right. I know you can retract a bid, but it should reset to the bids before that one was placed. I'd contact Ebay on that one.
If that holds up this reinforces my practice of snipping in the last few seconds.

 

msandoval858

Part of the Furniture Now
Jun 11, 2012
954
3
Austin, TX
That sounds like a good possibility of some shilling going on there. I'd contact ebay on it and at least report the suspicious bidding.

 

pipestud

Lifer
Dec 6, 2012
2,010
1,749
Robinson, TX.
Frankenstein, I've got "skin in the game," so you may want to keep that in mind as I reply to your thread starter. In my opinion, eBay is a great place to pick up all kinds of pipes, whether they be the red hot current brands or no longer produced hard to find gems. Those who collect the old classics, as an example, will have trouble increasing their collection without the help of eBay, which has, more than anything else since the emergence of the Internet, caused the electrifying uptick in our hobby's interest. Your collecting habits, frankenstein, may be such that not including eBay in your arsenal may be of no consequence.
As for the shill bidding; I do think eBay needs to get tougher on its policy. I think any more than 3 bid retractions over the course of 12 months should get the eBay member banned for a year. Whenever someone bids on one of my auctions and then retracts the bid (eBay rules state that if a bid is retracted the bidder must then re-bid) I quickly check out his/her retraction history. If that person does not re-bid and has three or more retractions in a year's time, I immediately report the bidder to eBay and block them from bidding on my auctions. I have no idea whether this has helped or not.
I had one guy I had banned try to bid on another auction of mine and when he found out he was blocked he emailed me through the eBay messaging system and asked why he was blocked. I said I noted that his bid retraction history showed 29 retractions in a twelve month period and that was just too many for my comfort level. His reply was honest, I guess. He said he drank too much and got drunk a lot and when he'd wake up the next day sober, he'd retract bids he made the night before when he was drinking too much. LOL!
I'll close by saying that it has been my experience as a seller that 99% or more of the folks who bid on and buy pipes on eBay are rock solid folks. Unfortunately, all it takes is one bad apple to leave a sour taste in someone's mouth.
Best,
Pipestud

 

rebornbriar

Starting to Get Obsessed
Aug 21, 2013
250
1
United Kingdom
I hate the fact that Ebay started anonymizing your bidding opponents, there was a time when I could look throughh a sellers auctions and see an individual "coincidentally" bidding up an auction prior to closure and they would get reported...I am not sure why they stated anonymizing people but as for shill bidding, I think it wasn't a good thing in this regard.
Ebay took this course of action because too many people were being scammed with false 2nd chance offers, payment required by Money Order. It happened to a losing bidder on one of my partner's listings when she sold diamond rings. The young girl and her boyfriend had been saving for a year to get engaged. Not nice.
if you know your way around eBay, you can discover a lot about bidders and their patterns even though they are so called anonymous.
I had one guy I had banned try to bid on another auction of mine and when he found out he was blocked he emailed me through the eBay messaging system and asked why he was blocked. I said I noted that his bid retraction history showed 29 retractions in a twelve month period and that was just too many for my comfort level. His reply was honest, I guess. He said he drank too much and got drunk a lot and when he'd wake up the next day sober, he'd retract bids he made the night before when he was drinking too much. LOL!
Yes Sir, Steve. You should have seen some of the diamond rings I purchased after taking my zopiclone sleeping tablet! :)

 

allan

Lifer
Dec 5, 2012
2,429
7
Bronx, NY
I must admit I enjoy following ebay. I do try to stay aware of 'final sale' or 'no returns', which make me suspect.
I agree with Steve that ebay allows the average pipe smoker to discover and obtain a huge selection of pipes otherwise not available to him/her for monetary reasons. I have no issues at all with a pre-owned pipe-in fact, I generally prefer it because it is already broken in and the selling price is way often less than 1/2 price of new.
With proper research and investigation, one can get excellent values using the auction site. IMHO, of course.

 

kcghost

Lifer
May 6, 2011
13,140
21,408
77
Olathe, Kansas
Sometimes people make mistakes and should have a reasonable recourse to correct a mistake.
eBay has an almost impossible task in trying to keep everyone happy. Before eBay buyers and sellers had virtually no chance of selling/buying collectable products.
If you don't like their business practices then don't use it. Or find a may of mitigating the issues you have with them. To some people, myself included, sniping solves most problems.

 

shaintiques

Lifer
Jul 13, 2011
3,615
227
Georgia
I am also an ebay seller and buyer. Sniping is just part of the game and I also do it. If there is something I feel I just can't live without I will set my alarm to remind me to bid on it at the right time. The only time I win auctions that I bid on early are ones where no one has bid against me and that doesn't happen very often.

 

frankenstein

Might Stick Around
Dec 7, 2013
59
0
I wasn't very surprised when, the same bidder who retracted his bid, less than 24h before the auction ended placed a bid merely $1 above my maximum bid. Fortunately it wasn't that scumbag who later won the auction. Never the less I contacted the person responsible for the auction and made him aware of the bidders behaviour and explained that if it hadn't been for that I would have countinued to bid thus raising the price on the pipe. The seller thanked me for my observations and said that he should ban the cheating bidder from future auctions and report him to ebay.

 

frankenstein

Might Stick Around
Dec 7, 2013
59
0
You who are talking about sniping is missing the point. I don't have any problem with that. What makes me furious is how some bidders blatantly trying to use glitches in the system to get unfair advantages. I'm a honest person and even though I really wanted this pipe I could never, ever resort to that kind of behaviour to get what I want.
Regarding how we bid, we all have our own methods. I often place a bid that is my "maximum" and then I have another a bit higher that is my real limit. I find this way working for me. Depending how bids on other auctions turn out I can either raise my maximum bid a little higher or let it be.
But I really do prefer the 'Buy it Now' option.

 
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