some people just rub ya the wrong way

[Kidhuman]

I had a bid on ebay for 2 seperate auctions. 1 for Boba Fett POC and the other for the Snowtrooper. Both on gold card. I was winning, and now as the auction is winding down, about 12 hours left, I get outbid by the same guy on BOTH auctions.

I know this guy had a friend bid on them to try and jackl me for more cash, but he can go suck an egg. As a matter of fact, he had three auctions up on SW figures and the same guy is winning all of em. The nerve of some people to do that junk. I hope no one wins them and he has to list them again just for being stupid like that.

[Sidiously Darth]

Shill bidding is a big problem on ebay. It's really bad on items that only 3 or 4 people are selling.

Example, there's this flat iron that's really popular and only 3 people have it on ebay. We're not talking about 2 or 3 flat irons but between 15-30 each. They start them out at around $39.99 but by the end of the auction, they're over $100.

I sometimes look at the bids once an auction is over and you wouldn't believe all the id's with no feedback or barely 3, brand new ids and ids with "new" email addresses.

Doesn't ebay track the IP addresses of the computers that log accounts? I'm sure policing all the auctions is almost impossible. Unfortunately, the honest ebay sellers seem to be dwindling.

And what about those outrageous shipping costs?

[Kidhuman]

I saw a guy selling stuff real cheap and his shiopping was outrageous. I live in Va and he was in Jersey. I aint no dummy and know it dont cost 12.00 to send two vintage Taun Taun's loose. What a moron.

[slick169]

I bid on 3 auctions, each for 1 figure, and the shipping was listed as 4.50 on each auction "but" the seller would consolidate shipping for multiple wins. Well I won the auctions and emailed to confirm what the shipping would be. Response was "$10.00...Thanks". I honor all my wins so I Paypaled the money immediately to expedite shipping. It only took 2 days for transit time. Of course that was after he waited 5 days to bring it to the post office. BTW the shipping was $4.70 in a used box. It did have delivery confirmation but thats for the sellers benefit. I received feedback on 1 of the items, not 3. so I returned the feedback for 1 auction.

[Kidhuman]

On ebay, when you win multiple auctions from one person, it combines all the feedabck. That happened to me when I sold my comics to someone, it only let me put in one column of feedback. It goes by user ID and such. If it was at different times, you could of got more. That wasnt the sellers fault.

[Mandalorian Candidat]

I had a bid shield on me once. Some punk kids got ahold of their dad's account password and one bid low and another bid high. Toward the end the high bid was so big that noone else would touch it, then they withdrew the bid and the price went down really low. I found out they had done it more than once so I sent an email about it being illegal then got contacted by the dad that they were 10 year-olds. My email scared the peess out of them (I threatened to go to the FBI because it was a crime that happened over state lines ) so badly that they confessed.

[kool-aid killer]

Kidhuman, i would keep an eye on those auctions and the sellers future offerings just to see if he pops up with the same stuff. Lets say his friend won the auction, obviously his friend wouldnt pay so they would most likely both go back up on ebay. Drop a small bid on them and if the friend comes back to outbid you maybe you could show ebay that theyve done the same thing on a previous auction.

[mabudonicus]

Yeah, that seems to happen quite often from what I've seen....
I still don't have much faith in E-bay, but I've been watching it for a while, there seem to be a lot of items with a starting bid that is far higher than the item is worth, leading one to wonder if someone isn't setting it up sp that, if the item doesn't "sell" (as in to an actual buyer) the item can still be relisted several times over at the ridiculous price, until the curve catches up to the "value"of the item and no net loss is realized.....

It is curious.....

[Kidhuman]

Well, I have had better luck today on Ebay, as I found Rappertunie and J'quille for 15 bucks, BIN. I couldnt resist purchasing these two as I feel they will be HTF. If not oh well but I stillgot em. I usually will only get BIN items, but the Boba Fett and Snowtrooper were so cheap, cheaper than retail, that I said why not.

[jjreason]

Jerks are a dime a dozen on there, no doubt. The one tip I'd pass on to anyone is to email the seller if you've never dealt with them before. Email them before the auction ends if possible, then you've established the "personal" connection. I have, on many many occasions gotten breaks on shipping by emailing someone a couple of times about how I'm going to pay, then asking if there isn't anyway he'd be willing to crack open carded figures to save me money on shipping, etc. Tons of people will negotiate.

Recently I bought a McFarlane hockey figure right at the end of the auction, it had no bids and was about 1/2 retail. Great deal right? Wrong. The guy had a flat rate of 10.00 us for shipping. Good thing for me, I emailed him and he lives an hour away. He's willing to meet up with me to save me the money. That's sweet! Always email them.

My other tip would be to have a price in mind for whatever you're looking for, and only adjust it when you realize ebay is your only option AND there's no other possible way you can get the item for less.