Ebay Question: AM I being conned?

[romantico]

I have a question RE: Ebay. Okay, This has happened before and I am curious if I am being conned. Theres an item on ebay, say its being offered at an opening bid of $5. I bid $10. A day later I'm outbidded and the item is $20. I bid $25 and then am outbidded to $30. I stop bidding. $25 is as high as I want to go.Then, I get a notice saying I'm the winner and the item is $25.

Now, my first though is the seller has a friend who keeps bidding trying to get me to bid higher. I don't bid anymore so they take my last bid. If I was outbidded am I obligated to buy that item? If the seller sent me an email saying I am being offered the item at a buy it now special for $25, then thats different. I have a choice. The seller has basically said I HAVE purchased it, end of auction. I sense something shady because its happened before, not with the same seller though. AM I being paranoid? DO I have the right to say I'm not paying for this without getting a negative strike? Is there something weird going on? What do you think?

[NewJeffCT]

1. it's possible

but, did they say why the high bidder didn't get the auction?

what is the seller's feedback rating?

[ThomCat]

2. I would definitely suspect a con.

I'd ask why the high bidder didn't want the item. Is there a way to report suspicious behavior?

[rosesaylavee]

3. Go to the bidders page...

and see you placed the last bid. I don't think the bidder can take the last bidder off the bid themselves. If you are listed as the last bidder, it is yours. You can always double check with eBay but the system is fixed to prevent that type of fraud. If a seller gets caught doing that, they are booted off eBay permanently.

[DarkTirade]

8. It can be done with two accounts, usually two people working together

from seperate computers to make sure the IP addresses don't match.

[triguy46]

4. A couple pieces of ebay advice:

This does sound fishy. If ebay does not show you as the winning bidder, ignore it. Never, never do an off system buy or purchase. Though ebay is weak on protections, you have zero if you cut a special deal outside the normal bidding process.


1. There is absolutely NO incentive to bid early.

2. Know exactly how much you want to bid, but starting low, say at $5, then jumping up to $10, etc, may be fun, but is of no advantage. If you want to spend $25, then bid $25. With proxy bidding, it will only go up as a bid higher than the current bid is entered. I'll say it again, know your max. It may slip away from you, but believe me, something equal to it will show up, its an amazingly enormous garage sale.

3. Use a sniping or bidding service. This will enter your bid for you in the last seconds of an auction. Cost is very small, the one I use is about $.25 per auction and no charge if your bid is below the current bid.

Good luck.

[Duer 157099]

5. Somethings not right

Either what you got was a "second chance" offer, where the winner has cancelled their bid, for whatever reason, and the seller is "offering" it to you since you were the next highest bidder -- but in that case, it's an option, not required, purchase -- you decide.

That's the only thing similar to what you are describing that's legit.

[Whoa_Nelly]

6. This is what probably happened...

The person who won the item declined to honor thge win contract, and declined to pay.

You have been made an offer as a second chance bidder, and offered the "win" at your bid price.

As an eBay seller, when one of my items has sold, and there have been other bidders, eBay always lets me know that I can still sell the item to the person who was the next the last bid as as a "second chance bidder" win, and can contact that person to make that offer should the final bidder be a "deadbeat", so to speak.


So, no...I don't think you're being conned.

You can contact the seller and ask why you are being offered the item at your last bid price.

[DarkTirade]

7. Sounds like the last person withdrew their bid.

Could either be a con (somebody with two accounts making it go higher and higher, then withdrawing the bid at at the last minute.) or somebody who put a decimal in the wrong place. That happened to me once. I'd told it to go no higher than 15 dollars, then when I checked it, I was still the winning bidder even though it was over that. Turns out I'd accidentally put down 150 dollars. :P

Of course, normally eBay drops it down to the lowest possible price when that happens... when I withdrew my bid it went from 17 bucks or so down to about 5. Because that's what it would have been at if I'd never put my bid in.

You might want to email eBay and check it out either way.

[lavenderdiva]

9. you might want to try posting your question in the Ebay forum

you can find it here: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topics&forum=403

[Maddy McCall]

10. Sometimes winning bidders back out of auctions.

When that happens, then the seller can offer the next-highest bidder a "second chance" offer. HOWEVER, the next-highest bidder is NOT obligated to take the item if he doesn't want to.

Sometimes bidders cancel their bids. You can look at the bidder who outbid you--look at his bidding history and see if a bid cancellation shows up on his record.

Sometimes the seller can cancel a bid if a bidder is bidding on the auction, and the seller does not want to accept the bid from the bidder. Many sellers do this when a bidder has low feedback or lots of negative feedback.

If I were you and I suspect bid shilling, then I'd do a search on this seller's auctions and see if the bidder in your auction has also bid on other items being sold by this seller. IF so, then, I'd be suspicious of bid shilling and avoid the seller.

If you want me to help you figure this out, I'm a pretty seasoned Ebayer, and I'd be glad to look into it for you. Just send me a PM.

At any rate, I wouldn't buy anything from a seller outside of Ebay. I also wouldn't pay outside of paypal, because of the buyer protection that it offers.