Foo - The idiots who inhabit eBay never cease to amaze me

Recently there were a pair of new Specialized Mondo S-Works tires up for bid. There is a difference between the 2004 and 2005 (something the typical eBay idiot buyer would probably not know) - the design was enhanced in 2005, and the list price of the tire went from $40 to $47. I asked the seller what year they were, and they were 2004 - which are often available at Specialized dealers.

I bid for the tires, but the idiot who "won" the bid paid $78 for the tires, and $10 for shipping - More than what he would have paid at the LBS paying list price plus sales tax. Examples of the preceeding are endless on eBay.

Yes, but now the zoomer who bought the overpriced tires is famous as "the zoomer who bought the overpriced tires," and can sell them as collectibles. And, of course, there are the rights to his story as a Movie-of-the-Week.

Yes, but now the zoomer who bought the overpriced tires is famous as "the zoomer who bought the overpriced tires," and can sell them as collectibles. And, of course, there are the rights to his story as a Movie-of-the-Week.

Yes, I did hear that they were thinking of doing the life Alfred E. Newman!

I bid for the tires, but the idiot who "won" the bid paid $78 for the tires, and $10 for shipping - More than what he would have paid at the LBS paying list price plus sales tax. Examples of the preceeding are endless on eBay.
I just sit back and laugh at them.

Maybe he's in Sri Lanka or something, no authorized Specialized dealers in his town of 25 people.

Oh, I completely agree. I've been saying this for a couple of years now. I've been outbid on several items by dingbats who paid MORE than MSRP and then shipping. Amazing.

A fool and his money...

Gotta love 'em, it's my paycheck :D

Yea i see that a lot. When i was bidding on some cranks i thought i would go for Truvativ Stylo Teams. At this time jensonUSA had a sale and was selling them for $109 which was a great deal. So i saw one on ebay brand new in the box and all and i figured what the hell the shipping was cheaper than jenson so i stuck in 110 as a max bid. Well in the last 30 minutes 2 guys outbid me and it went up to 160 :p
needless to say, right after that i found a buy it now for 95 bucks for the same thing.

E Bay auctions are like the old time auctions used to be. Frenzy, Frenzy, Frenzy

Bidders paid by the house to increase the bids and get the suckers excited about getting a "real deal". I used to go with my grandfather who knew all the "touts" as he called them, and would rightly tell me to watch the little signals between them as they raised the bids. The auctioneer always got a cut of the action.

The fools who bid on E Bay think they are getting deals but as I've said before, they know the price of everything and the value of nothing.

Example........I bought something at Pottery Barn on sale marked down from an artificial hi price of 65$ to a "real deal", moving store special price of 11$.A bud who does Ebay selling of JUNK and I thought to have a bit of fun with them. I bought 4,so he put them on his Ebay auction and we watched the price go to 80$ each, with no help from us. There were glass replicas of something popular during Brit Victorian times, made in China of course, new and def NOT old, and not advertised as being old.

Old Mr Barnum would have a great time living in our world

So... what is the difference between the '04 and '05 models? I can't find any reference to model difference on the web anywhere.

Steve

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=7532937592&category=61779&rd=1

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=7532937592&category=61779&rd=1

LOL.

Sad thing is, someone is gonna buy that.

Here's the deal ...

Let's say I'm new to Ebay and need completed sales and feedback to enhance my selling power. So I list an item, create another account using completely different means of validating and make sure that I am the high bidder on the listed item. Therefore, it looks like the item sold for more than it should have. I then fabricate feeback and both accounts benefit.

When my feedback is high enough I go in for the kill and list an item that I have no intention of shipping.

Happens all the time. Ebay is dangerous if you don't take precautions.

Mark

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=7532937592&category=61779&rd=1
Look at the dude's other items:

http://search.ebay.com/_W0QQsassZposterguy916

Here's the deal ...

Let's say I'm new to Ebay and need completed sales and feedback to enhance my selling power. So I list an item, create another account using completely different means of validating and make sure that I am the high bidder on the listed item. Therefore, it looks like the item sold for more than it should have. I then fabricate feeback and both accounts benefit.

When my feedback is high enough I go in for the kill and list an item that I have no intention of shipping.

Happens all the time. Ebay is dangerous if you don't take precautions.

Mark


That's shilling... vigilantly guarded for on eBay.

Insanely parinoid.

When dad closed the gun shop (Gwinn's Guns and Tackle) he had an auction to liquidate the inventory. He learned two valuable lessons:

1. He should have held a couple of the collectible guns back, because there was no need to sell them, and

2. If he'd had the brains to auction guns and tackle, he never would have had to go out of business.

People who would have haggled and then walked out in a huff bid each other furiously, and we had no "touts" nor did the auctioneer. He ended up making so much on the auction that we got out with zero debt from the business, which was a relief. It was amazing.

I've seen auctioneers around here just go right ahead and bid themselves--no secret "touts," the auctioneer just says "Aw, hell, Roy, it's worth more than that! I'LL bid 50, and if nobody wants to beat that we'll just put it right back on the wagon!"

Recently there were a pair of new Specialized Mondo S-Works tires up for bid. There is a difference between the 2004 and 2005 (something the typical eBay idiot buyer would probably not know) - the design was enhanced in 2005, and the list price of the tire went from $40 to $47. I asked the seller what year they were, and they were 2004 - which are often available at Specialized dealers.

I bid for the tires, but the idiot who "won" the bid paid $78 for the tires, and $10 for shipping - More than what he would have paid at the LBS paying list price plus sales tax. Examples of the preceeding are endless on eBay.

Hey skydive - I was in Vegas last week and saw some bike tires with the outline of John Lennon on the sidewall - the guy only paid $78.00 plus $10.00 in shipping :D

Easy way to find what an item trades for on ebay is to search the compleated items.
Bidding gets outa line for two reasons, the item is percieved as "rare", the item is currently very popular.
Also keep in mind, some of us live hundreds of miles from a storefront that might have this item for sale and would have to take time off work to even go there when they are open.
Lets say you are looking for a blue widget, first see how many blue widgets are on auctions for the next week, find out what people bid for blue widgets in the same condition, what do most charge for shipping those blue widgets or is it local pickup only? Read the whole listing, if it doesn't mention the adapter gizzy the blue widget should have you most likley wont get the gizzy, it may even be sold in another auction for an outragous amount because the gizzy is fragile and many people bought blue widgets and now need one.
It maybe an auction, but there is a lotta shopping involved, read the sellers feedback.

BTW my feedback score is almost 400, been on since 1999.

I'm 60 miles from a good bike shop, I figure it costs me $20+ to visit in travel expenses.

PS: ebay is wonderfull for the retrogrouch!

I have sold two bikes on eBay and both times I did a bit of research prior to listing so that I could see what other similar bikes were selling for. I could not believe how many sellers were fudging the year on the bikes they listed. At least three different peeps had bikes listed as being a 2000 model or newer and they had downtube shifters!! I enjoy eBay, but there are truly some moronic people in this world so buyers beware.

Pete
http://www.viovio.com/anthropete

I see that all the time....that's why I almost never win anything on Ebay - there is always some idiot who will pay more than you can pay for the item retail local in a store, just to win the bid!!

Ebay is the lunatic asylum of the internet, and I mean that in the old-fashioned sense, ppl who are 86'd from their local stores so shop there, raving loonies and the smell of disinfectant and pissy sheets.......

That being said, rampant looniness aside, it's sure a great resource for finding stuff.

Easy way to find what an item trades for on ebay is to search the compleated items.

How do you do that? I don't ebay much, but when I do, I make damn sure that it's worth while (after the shipping & applicable taxes and/or fees).

But I always thought to myself "it would be nice to be able to do a search on identical items that were won during the past 2 weeks. This would give me a guide of the 'Ebay' market price".

Well, I never found a way of doing that. A little help for a newbie ebayer would be greatly appreciated.

Do a search to find that which you are looking for. When you've targeted on the item catagory(s), look down the left side of the page. Near the bottom of the search options you'll see a checkbox marked "Show Completed Items". tick that checkbox and hit submit... Viola! You're now looking at all the closed auctions for the item in your search criteria. :)

Dude, what're you complaining about? For all that unused bike stuff in your garage, there is ebay. Whatever it is, it's just what somebody out there is looking for. And if you really feel bad because they're bidding up the price, you can always close the auction and let it go to the current highest bidder.

Do a search to find that which you are looking for. When you've targeted on the item catagory(s), look down the left side of the page. Near the bottom of the search options you'll see a checkbox marked "Show Completed Items". tick that checkbox and hit submit... Viola! You're now looking at all the closed auctions for the item in your search criteria. :)

Thanks for covering that Stacey, I should have but was running outa time. :)

Its not uncommon for me to watch close 5 or 6 auctions of the same item before the price is one I'm willing to pay, sometimes I have paid a bit more because I couldn't afford the hours spent looking at auctions to get what I needed. Prices reached even vary because it either a week day or weekend and also time of day. Used to get up in the middle of the night tryin for a bargin, usually didn't work out that way so almost never do that anymore.