Actual mistake or dirty pool

[Mac2Night]

Okay, so I bit the bullet and listed my '73 on ebay over the weekend. Started the auction at a moderate price with a low reserve and within 15 hours, I had one bid that met the reserve. An hour later, the bid had been retracted with an explanation of "entered wrong amount". Is this just a way for bidders to phish for the reserve price so they can come in later and bid right before the auction ends...... I've just never seen that as this is my first vehicle I have listed on the site. Any ideas or feedback is appreciated!

 

[Tedster100]

Did you have other bids? Was the high bid close to your reserve or way over?

If you have other bids that are close to the reserve I wouldn't sweat it too much, but if his bid was way over the reserve you may consider re-listing with a higher reserve since he now knows that he can get for less and possibly the other bidders do as well. If you re-list with a higher reserve you can always lower it back before the end of the auction. The only catch there is that if you lower it to match or below one of the bids that bidder will have to re-submit his bid to win, even though his bid is now below the reserve. I lost an auction on a Harley that way, the reserve changed to exactly my bid but I didn't bid another dollar & lost. If you do that I'd send a message to the bidders that the reserve is lowered even though ebay does too.

 

[Mac2Night]

It was one bid exactly for my reserve price which meant it sold with that one bid.
My thought is that he/she did that to see the "reserve not met" go away (giving him the advantage of knowing the reserve) then backed it out with hopes that he could come in at the last minute of the auction and bid just the reserve amount (that is if no one has already bid above that at that point or I have not ended the bidding to sell to a local seller, which is looking possible as I have had several local offers already). Just interesting and troubling enough for me to reach out for insight from my Bronco brethren.

 

[GloNDark]

The tinfoil hat in my thinks it's phishing for the reserve price but you never know. I wouldn't sweat it too much as it sounds like it's early in the auction, might be a crappy time of year to sell something like that but you never know. I sold my last bronco on ebay for my asking price but it took right up to the last 2 minutes there was a bidding war and one of the guys finally just did the buy it now as it was getting close enough anyway.

 

[Tedster100]

Yea, if you only had the one bid chances are nobody saw it meet the reserve and if they look now it will still show reserve not met. My guess is they are looking but not totally serious and threw a bid out not thinking it would meet the reserve, then..DOH!!!

I'd let it ride, if you don't sell it local and he comes back and gets it at the reserve at least you got what you wanted out of it. My guess is he won't be back.

Good luck!

 

[71massbronco]

http://pages.ebay.com/services/buyandsell/biddermanagement.html

Just block fat fingers as a bidder. That'll teach him to phish.

 

[Mowillie]

I agree with the others...I also sell a lot of motorcycle stuff on ebay too. When the chance comes up that I need to put a reserve on an item, I either start my bidding off at the price i would set the reserve, or I will simply put the reserve price in my description. I have never understood what the purpose of keeping it a secret is. If they know the reserve, you can rule out the tenderfooted people who like to tapdance around, but not bid high.

 

[Heus33]

If he had more than a dozen or so feedback I'd say he knows what he's doing.

I'm watching the auction - it doesn't have any bids... so unless your listed price is your reserve I'd say you're going about this wrong.

I like to start auctions at $0.01 with my reserve set at my actual reserve. This lets a few low ballers bid $1000, $1,200, $1,800 etc. The next thing you know you've got 15 bids and its at $10,000. Others start to think "this one must be a good one, look at all the attention its getting!" Now it sits at $10,000 with 30 min left and all those watchers are thinking they can bid at the last minute and win - someone bids $11,000, then emotions start kicking in and the next thing you know you've got a few guys thinking "whats another $200?" That drives the price up up up and you get your money.

 

[Heus33]

I agree with the others...I also sell a lot of motorcycle stuff on ebay too. When the chance comes up that I need to put a reserve on an item, I either start my bidding off at the price i would set the reserve, or I will simply put the reserve price in my description. I have never understood what the purpose of keeping it a secret is. If they know the reserve, you can rule out the tenderfooted people who like to tapdance around, but not bid high.

The reason I never disclose my reserve is to peak interest. Someone emails and asks what my reserve is I'll respond with "I'd like to keep that to myself, but I'm open to offers". If he offers more than the reserve, youve done well. If he doesn't you can either respond with what the reserve really is or just a simple 'no thanks'

 

[ilovemaui]

There is all kinds of dirty pool on ebay. The one I hate is when I'm the low bidder on an item that does not have a reserve and the seller cancels the auction because he's not getting enough interest.

 

[Tedster100]

There is all kinds of dirty pool on ebay. The one I hate is when I'm the low bidder on an item that does not have a reserve and the seller cancels the auction because he's not getting enough interest.

Been there! Also hate when you bid on something that has a long duration and no interest that isn't really a popular item and all of the sudden with hours to go someone starts to out-bid you. Always makes me wonder if the bidder isn't bidding on his own stuff or having a buddy do it just to drive the price up. More than once I've walked away and had the bidder e-mail me saying the high bidder backed out and he'd sell it to me for what I bid. Makes me laugh as I tell them no thanks, go ahead and re-list it.

 

[Entourage]

There is a chance that the buyer did make a mistake. Seems like a lot of work to find someone's reserve. I agree to start the auction at the reserve. Silly to waste people's time on an auction that they cannot win unless others are bidding to reach the reserve.

I have seen people doing classified style ads on eBay - that seems attractive to eliminate the whole auction process. In the end, you are only trying to find that one special buyer that can actually follow through with the purchase of the Bronco.

 

[Bronco_69]

The reason I never disclose my reserve is to peak interest. Someone emails and asks what my reserve is I'll respond with "I'd like to keep that to myself, but I'm open to offers". If he offers more than the reserve, youve done well. If he doesn't you can either respond with what the reserve really is or just a simple 'no thanks'

and as a buyer i usually avoid your type auctiones. I buy and sell tens of thousands on ebay and i can tell that letting the reserve be known can only help you.

I also like to start low and let folks bid. it peaks their interest when there lots of bids.

BTW, did any of you sellers get your refund check form ebay? ;D

 

[Heus33]

and as a buyer i usually avoid your type auctiones. I buy and sell tens of thousands on ebay and i can tell that letting the reserve be known can only help you.

I also like to start low and let folks bid. it peaks their interest when there lots of bids.

BTW, did any of you sellers get your refund check form ebay? ;D

Valid point, difference of opinion. In my case I wanted that guy to bid $5000 on my $20k+ rig. As the number of bids increased I saw more and more interest. Ultimately I only needed two people to bid, the guy that bid $$$$ and the 2nd guy that bid $100 more. That all happened in the last few hours too.

And yes, got my eBay check too.

 

[hold24]

If he had more than a dozen or so feedback I'd say he knows what he's doing.

I'm watching the auction - it doesn't have any bids... so unless your listed price is your reserve I'd say you're going about this wrong.

I like to start auctions at $0.01 with my reserve set at my actual reserve. This lets a few low ballers bid $1000, $1,200, $1,800 etc. The next thing you know you've got 15 bids and its at $10,000. Others start to think "this one must be a good one, look at all the attention its getting!" Now it sits at $10,000 with 30 min left and all those watchers are thinking they can bid at the last minute and win - someone bids $11,000, then emotions start kicking in and the next thing you know you've got a few guys thinking "whats another $200?" That drives the price up up up and you get your money.

I would agree with this method...I've sold alot of jeeps on ebay this way...It gets people excited....

 

[Zillacon]

I would never post my reserve and with my recent sale I can tell you it helped me a ton. If you post the reserve people may look at it as it is out of their price range and don't give it a second look. Keeping it hidden keeps the interest and also gives people more time to dream and figure out ways to get some more cash to get the deal done. I had over 7 solid offers over my asking price and it came down to a silent bidding war as my requests for the reseve went back to them as make me a solid cash offer and I ended the auction early and happy. I have sold my last 3 rigs on ebay this way and sold everyone on of them before the auction ended.

 

[kyle]

BTW, did any of you sellers get your refund check form ebay? ;D

I got mine.

I have laid off of ebay lately, because with them and Paypal there is nothing but totally shadiness anymore. There is no doubt that a buyer found another dishonest way to find out your reserve. Recently on an auction we had a guy cancel his bid and his history showed it was his 11th cancellation in 6 months. As long as Ebay is raking in the dough they will turn a blind eye to all of this.

 

[Bronco_69]

I got mine.

I have laid off of ebay lately, because with them and Paypal there is nothing but totally shadiness anymore. There is no doubt that a buyer found another dishonest way to find out your reserve. Recently on an auction we had a guy cancel his bid and his history showed it was his 11th cancellation in 6 months. As long as Ebay is raking in the dough they will turn a blind eye to all of this.

i have also laid off ebay for the most part. the cost of selling is to high to justify the time that i spent doing it. my check was near $80 so that should let you know how much i was selling.

 

[kyle]

i have also laid off ebay for the most part. the cost of selling is to high to justify the time that i spent doing it. my check was near $80 so that should let you know how much i was selling.

To be honest it's probably a combination of a lot of things, but this is another big one. I was giving 18-22% of every sale to Ebay/Paypal.

 

[Hozr]

The eBayl policy is that if they ASK to retract a bid due to an error the seller must agree. If they do not ask the seller and just ask eBay to fix it then they MUST reenter the correct bid immediately.

Unfortunately eBay techs have decided not to follow this rule as of late, I have had 3 items with retracted bids this month. All were extremely high and removed the reserve and were then bid on at lower amounts. Every time I contacted eBay and pointed out their policy and they refused to reinstate the bids.

Basically eBay does what they want to protect buyers...always.

Good luck