My first Ebay win, I'm in trouble with the mrs!!

Model Railroader General Discussion (Model Railroader)
1

I thought I’d try my hand at bidding, I was at work and just had dial up net access on my laptop.

I waited till the auction had 3 minutes to go and made my bid, I just clicked confirm, when the battery died in the darn puter!! I thought I’ve lost the auction for sure.

By the time I was back on-line there was 11 seconds to go and I was still the winning bidder!! after a few heart stopping moments.

I’m the proud owner of a Con cor Zephyr set!!

Paid to much but hey they aren’t making heaps of them.[8D][8D][:D][:D]

Ken.

2

ah yes, the first bidding ah how i remember that when i was a young lad, lol good job hope you like your item.

3

The trick is to keep buying, after 63 wins my wife now ignores the packages [:P]

4

hey, you’re the man of the house. You buy whatever the heck you want to buy, and she better not say a word!

(maybe this would be a good weekend to make her breakfast for a change, and finally paint the living room for her).[;)]

5

Congrats, I bought one thing off of ebay and that was a brake van that I used to build the wobbling donkey

6

I got bad news for you! The bidding is all done by the Ebay computer in the last minute of the auction. It goes off the highest amount you entered that you where willing to spend on the product your bidding on. I didn’t think there where still people logging in the last two min. of an auction trying to win the bid. It doesn’t work that way. (though they make it seem like it does.) It’s all based on your first bid yout put in. Maybe you can edit your bid at the end, but the computer does most of the work. For everybody typing in at the end, there’s 10 people that forgot they even bid on that auction. Sorry to give you an Ebay reallity check. Still hope you had a GOOD Ebay expeiriance!!!
Hey Cheese3- I hope thay’s not your train room up in flames!!! That would suck!!![:D]

7

Oh, thanks for that Loathar. Well you learn something everyday. I bid on a rotary dumper a few months ago and was outbid in the last seconds so I assumed that someone was quicker then me.

I did wonder why it didn’t go to the amount I bid, 5 dollars more than the end amount.

I was the only bidder too, I think?

The Mrs and me did discuss the Zephyr last night so she’s ok, need to spend some $$$ on her soon.

Ken.

8

Yea!!! The good thing about it is, if your willing to go to $100 on something and the next guy is only willing to spend $20, you get it for $20.01. The computer won’t cheat like the ones in Vegas do!!! (An honest computer? Go figure?must not be a Mac[:D])

9

If there are two active bids, ebay will post the higher amount at the time the bid is placed, not at the end. When someone else enters a higher bid right at the end, then the higest bid received is posted. A lot of people like to use ebays proxy system, but I am a firm believer that early bidding drives prices up.

10

i buy quite a lot of trains on ebay and i L O V E to get my wife A N G R Y ( not rearly )… when i get on ebay…australian and u s a … she looks to see how much i am bidding and what i am bidding on…S O O O O O O … i go to watch this item and when she looks she see,s $ 30,000… motorbikes… SHE GOES OFFFFF and i sit there giggling to myself as she walkes away saying things like " you will have to sell your boat "… then when in only spend only $ 100 she is a lot happier…TRUE STORY… peter

11

Congratulations on the Z. I wanted one so bad I could almost taste it
but cancelled my pre-production, $389.00 order.
In part, that 30 day warranty scared me off.

12

Correct! That’s why you decide what you want to pay, and then sit back and wait and see.Somebody comes in at the start and bids $20 for something worth $5 and everybody gets screwed.(this is why people make accusitions of “phantom” bidding) Think of it as playing the Price is Right game show, only it’s the computer that bids $20.01 when your bid was $20.

13

Oooooh only 30 days? hope nothing bad happens then aye!![B)][B)]

14

Congrats on your first ebay win! Like Grubby my wife doesn’t notice the packages anymore lol. Of course she thought it was hilarious after we redid the front flower gardens and the UPS guy thought he was at the wrong house - it’s pretty bad when the UPS guy knows your house. Is there a 12 step program out there?

15

First off , I think its a rule (in the wifes clubs) to say “NO” to anything you want to buy or do! I know that my wife wait to hear the words " I would like to" come out of my mouth and the word “NO” is building up in hers! (It takes time to get both of her brain cells working at the same time).
As far as ebay goes, You get what you pay for (most of the time). Bidding early is for people that are not willing to watch the auction ( it usually drives up the ending price). Most of the time the “snippers” hit between 10 and 7 seconds before the bidding ends.
Sounds like you got very lucky on this auction. I hope you have as good of luck with your Zephyr.
ennout

16

Actually with my fast DSL I can enter a bid within 6 seconds of Ebay’s official time ending of auction with any price I want to.

Regarding the win, congrats on your winning the trainset. I wish you all many happy bids in the future.

Regarding the Mrs. I usaully do a little something extra around the time the package is due to arrive. So the happy wife does not mind too much. I guess she knows that I do bid from time to time.

17

After the warrenty’s gone, you’ll want to keep it away from any pets you might have, don’t let little kids touch it and put it away or in a display case when you’re done using it for the day.[:D]

18

An Ace Hardware store in Tucson, Arizona, has 3 Zephyr sets on the shelf priced at $330.

A member of our local club pre-ordered directly from Con-Cor and paid over $400 for his.

Needless to say, he was rather irked when he saw the ones at Ace priced lower than what he had paid.

I don’t understand how or why these are showing up on E-bay already because they were just shipped by Con-Cor to distributors earlier this month.

19

I haven’t won anything off of eBay yet. I would try for a few things now, but I have no money, so, yeah, I wouldn’t be able to pay for it.

I once bid on a builder’s plate for the Westinghouse-Baldwin Blue Goose turbine. I wanted that so bad, but my $65 didn’t cut it.

20

Our UPS man not only knows our house, but where to put packages when we are gone. He also knows our car and where we are likely to be at lunchtime. We have had packages that needed a signature delivered at my wife’s office and at our favorite cafe, as well as on the street where our car was parked. That’s service.