Why You Don't Get Into A Bidding War - Episode 36,859

[Snow Hill]

And given that these are illegal sales in eBay's eyes, the buyer has zero recourse if they get scammed.

Good points sablebrush52. I wonder how many people have been scammed by these sky high Esoterica auctions.

 

[balkisobrains]

oldgeezersmoker

Since eBay no longer shows bidders ID's, only their feedback number, I can't think of any legit reason to run a private auction.

Well, they still show a portion of the ID, and if you click on the feedback, you can see the percentage of bids with that buyer, and if they have retracted any bids. Most of the time, a shill bidder account is going to be newly minted with no or little feedback, most if not all bids with the seller (same person or friend), and bid retractions after they run up early bidders and then cut and run. All of this is masked with a private auction.

 

[oldgeezersmoker]

@balkisobrains, so what legitimate reason is there for a private auction? It seems like an open invitation to shill bidding.

 

[balkisobrains]

oldgeezersmoker
@balkisobrains, so what legitimate reason is there for a private auction?

I guess because it stays private. I'm guessing that the feedback would be private too, and not list what an item actually was in your feedback. There are legitimate uses for it such as that, but I think that most of the time the private auctions are used by shills running up their own stuff with burner accounts.

 

[oldgeezersmoker]

@balkisobrains, maybe there is a legitimate reason, but I share your suspicion. Also I see where some bidders have private feedback. I can't figure out what that is about unless they have something to hide. For all of its ballyhooed protections, eBay still has what are to me glaring opportunities for shill bidding.

 

[brian64]

The eBay rules that are always quoted in these listings are not the same as they once were. A seller is required to show a photo of the empty interior of the tin because only empty tins can be legally sold on eBay. The whole "the value is in the packaging and not the contents" is immaterial because eBay USA now requires that there be NO contents.
Of course this "rules" business is, and has long been, bullshit. eBay USA doesn't allow the selling of tobacco from listings originating in the US. International sellers can sell tobacco on eBay as long as it isn't prohibited by the eBay marketplace that services the country form which the listing originates. And given that these are illegal sales in eBay's eyes, the buyer has zero recourse if they get scammed. eBay does a completely inept job of policing these listings, so people continue to sell vintage tobacco on eBay.

Seems like a quasi-black market as a result of quasi-prohibition.

 

[balkisobrains]

Here's now what I think is going on with the empty bags. The seller apparently recently had a previous listing pulled for a new bag of Penzance. I can see this when I click on "see original listing" through the empty bag auction that just wrapped up. The original one had something like over 20 bids on it, breaking reserve, and went to nearly $200.00 before it presumably got yanked by Ebay. So at that point, this guy has bidders that he can communicate with directly through Ebay, despite them shutting his auction down. He tells them that he'll contact them once he lists his "empty bag" auctions, but ensuring them that he will send the winner the sealed bag that they were originally bidding on. Most likely, the auction would not get shut down (which it did not), and they would have to put their faith in this guy that he would actually send the sealed bag. :puffpipe:

 

[beefeater33]

Yes.............. they did not pay for an empty bag.......... :crazy:

 

[balkisobrains]

Wouldn't that be nice?
And here's some roll-eyes for your crazy-face: :roll:

 

[Chasing Embers]

And get this, some guy paid $200 for that last bag I filled! :rofl:

 

[brian64]

I know next to nothing about ebay, but it's really difficult for me to understand why anyone would go through such bother and pay so much money for Stonehaven or Penzance when there are still so many readily available and inexpensive great blends out there.

 

[sablebrush52]

Seems like a quasi-black market as a result of quasi-prohibition.

That's a very good summation.

I know next to nothing about ebay, but it's really difficult for me to understand why anyone would go through such bother and pay so much money for Stonehaven or Penzance when there are still so many readily available and inexpensive great blends out there.

Think of it as Pipesmoker Lemming Syndrome, or PLS for short. People keep raving about a particular blend, or pining over the lack of opportunity to experience that blend. If all of these people are talking about this blend, it must be the cat's meow, or so goes the thinking of the PLS sufferer.
The subject blend is in perpetually short supply and when some of it comes on the marketplace it is hoovered up in a nanosecond or less. This set of conditions ignites the Psychology Of Scarcity, POS for short, which when multiplied by PLS - POS x PLS - results in deranged behavior around the object of desire.
So if you understand this as a form of mental impairment, there is an element of sense to it.

 

[brian64]

That makes perfect sense Sable. Fortunately PLS & POS do not seem to be unavoidable, as are PAD & TAD.
They must be mutated forms of PAD & TAD being expressed through pre-existing mental impairments.

 

[Snow Hill]

I know where to buy my Stonehaven.

 

[woodsroad]

How prescient of me.

 

[wyfbane]

Good call woods!! :rofl:

 

[recoilrob]

I have been selling tins for some time now and have been caught by eBay twice in the last year, can't figure out the reasoning on who they shut down and when.
I've thought about trying to list it in another category, like a food. If someone is looking for Penzance they wil have a search for Penzance and it will turn up in their daily email...
Too bad, it used to be a good marketplace.

 

[oldgeezersmoker]

@recoilrob, it breaks my heart, too. NOT

 

[cossackjack]

ssjones:

Al, looks like you did well on the sale of your tin of Penzance. They used to bid for $55-60.

Still seeing 8 oz bags going for > $200. So your tin may be close to a new price point.

 

[balkisobrains]

Looks like tins are going to be $100 soon, and a bag just went for $300, although the packaging looks weird.