Bid on some E-scam stuff toinight. Two bids…NO problem…High bidder.
Found a guy selling used Atlas code 83 turnouts.(I know I shouldn’t buy used turnouts, but the price was low and shipping for$5)
4 listings from the same seller.4 days to go.ALL said 1 bid $.99. I started to bid.
E-Scam said your minimum bid should be $1.05. I bid $5. They came back and said I’ve been out bid.Bumped the bid up 4 times up to $20 when I was told I was high bidder.I checked the bid history and except for the first $.99 bid I was the only one bidding on these???There was no minimum bid on these items.
How the Frack does that work.???[%-)][%-)][%-)]
This is only my second venture into E-Scam…Any advise would help.
Thanks…
Yet another reason for me to be weary when it comes to evil-bay. I will only now buy from e-bay if I cannot get what I want from anywhere else.
If you’re gonna play you gotta learn the rules.
First bidding is incremental, that is it has to be raised by a certain amount (varies). That is to avoid having 199 bids each raising one penny.
Second is that bidding is incremental also. If I put a bid of $100, ebay will only show enough to overcome another bid - if you bid $10, ebay automatically raises my bid to $11 and so on up to my $100 dollars That way I don’t have to sit and rebid every time you raise a dollar.
How about giving us a link to the auction? We might be able to see something you didn’t.
It definitely sounds to me like the other bidder had simply put in a top bid of say $19.50 initially, even though only $0.99 registered because that was the seller’s starting price. So…you had to keep bidding until you passed the first bidder’s top figure. That’s simply eBay procedure and nothing out of line. I’ve bid $100 on items I’ve really wanted…with only $5 showing when the auction closed. You gotta learn the rules!
CNJ831
Its always the people who dont understand that are the first to yell ‘Scam’
Here is how I work my Ebay…
- Search for the Item you want to bid on.
- Click "watch this item’ (Ebay will notify you when the auction has about 5 or so hours to go)
- Put a small ‘in’ bid on the item (Example…if the item is at 12.99, then bid 13.57 or some strange number) to get your foot in the door. This will allow you to do the next step quickly and sneekaly.
- With 10 seconds left in the auction, bid how much you will be willing to spend on the said item…MAKE SURE ITS IS A STRANGE UNROUNDED NUMBER…10 seconds, no less, no more. This will allow you time to bid and confirm (effectivly placing the bid with only 1 or 2 seconds to go…its all about timing).
- Smile after you win the item at the lowest price possible.
These steps are referd to as Sniping. Now…with your example of putting in bids from the get-go, you drove up the price probably 2-fold. If you followed my steps, then you probably would have gotten the items for 8 bucks or so. What happened was, you put a bid in for 20 bucks, and the Joe-Smo kept bidding one dollar incrimants to see what your bid was (it wont show until he exceeds it). If you didnt put that 20 dollar bid in, he would have probably bid small.
Hope this helps.
David
OK, maybe I didn’t explain this right. First bid-$.99. E-Bay said I have to bid at least $1.05. I bid $5.00. E-Bay said Immediatly that my bid was too low and I was outbid. Bumped it to $10-same thing,bumped it to $15 same thing.Up to $20 and finally I was high bidder. When I looked at the bid history,there was my 4 bids and the original $.99 bid. How did the computer make me go up to $20 when the only other bid was $.99.
I understand if the other guy had a $19 limit this would happen, but wouldn’t the bid history show his raises as well as mine?
Shouldn’t the E-bay computer have told me my first bid should have been $19.05 instead of $1.05? Even if I get it for my bid I’m still getting a deal. It was almost like this guy had a raise bot raising against me. I’ve heard this can happen but I don’t know how true it is.
It was only with this one seller. Two other items he had did the same thing so I stopped bidding on them.
there is no reason that you can’t bid $0.99 if that is the starting base price. if someone bid $0.99 ahead of you his bid would win. one thing about the watch list. the time left on an item does not match the exact time that is left and is a little behind. i usually go to the page that the item is listed on then i can refre***he time as it goes on. there’s nothing wrong with sniping. it happens at all auctions. someone is always willing to pay more for something.
I’m fairly unexperienced at e-bay but what I think is happening is you’re not hitting the reserve bid. Just because the seller starts the bid at $.99 doesn’t mean he’ll sell it at that price. He start the bid off at $.99 but has a reserve bid of $10. What this means is you’ll keep getting outbid until the reserve is met. Then you’ll be the high bidder unless someone wants to have the item more than you. You can also put in a silent bid where you will place a low bid but will tell e-bay to counter other bids until such amount you have set is outbid by someone else.
I.e., You post a bid at say $10 and you state you are willing to go as high as $30 so someone else will put a bid in at 25$ because you have a bid already in you’ll still outbid them unless they out bid you. I know [%-)]
As said by others…Learn the rules!
Fergie
Thanks Ferg- That was a good explanation. I understand a little more now.
I won the bid…NOW can someone explain how I had a cap of $35 and I won it with a bid of $38.01???(without shipping??) It’s still an OK deal so I’m going to honor my bid.
I’m the only one to bid on this other than the original $.99 bid. (there was no minimum on the item.)WOW!!! I’m REALLY scared to deal with E-Bay anymore. My first deal 6 months ago was fine…This one leaves me scratching my head…[:O][%-)]
Ebay never goes over your max bid, you must have put in more then you thought you did. Post a link to the auction and we can see what happened.
davidmbedard is so right when he said"Its always the people who dont understand that are the first to yell ‘Scam’"
loathar,
All that happened is that the opening bid amount set by the seller was $0.99 The first bidder came along and bid on the item with a maximum bid of $30 odd dollars (now the auction is over you can look at the bid history and see what they bid). The way e-bay works is that their bid of lets say $32 dollars was accepted at the $0.99 starting bid amount because there were no other bidders. If there were no other bidders they would have won the auction at that amount. So you then come along and start bidding. As you enter your bid amounts, e-bay handles the first bidders maximum bid as if they were sitting there bidding against you. You bid $5.00, e-bay ups it to $6.50, this keeps going until you bid it up and exceed the maximum set by the other bidder. So what you experienced is correct e-bay procedure. Evidently the first bidder decided on the maximum he was willing to pay and placed that amount. You will see many auctions like this, you can do as you did and “creep” up on the other bidder in small increments. Either you will get the highest bid, or you will decide that the bidding is too high and back off. e-bay does not post what the other persons maximum bid is, just like any live auction, you do not know what the other bidders are willing to do. This is why it is so important to understand the maximum that you are willing to pay for an item (including all shipping and handling) and not get carried away.
Now, if your bid maximum really was $35.00 and you won the bid at $38.01, then something is wrong. You should never be able to win an auction for more than you bid. If the seller came back to you and offered the item at this higher level, report them to e-bay. If this higer ammount is showing up on the auction page as the winnning amount and you only bid $35, contact e-bay to have them investigate. I suspect if you check you will see that you max was above $38.01.