Ebay weirdness
 

I have noticed two things in the last couple of days that I don't understand in my dealings with Ebay:

-I made a Best Offer bid on a bike. The seller made a counter. And now I can't find anywhere what my original bid was. I probably got an email from Ebay at the time confirming it, but I must have deleted it. But, nowhere in my MYEbay stuff can I find it. I am pretty sure I remember, so its not a big deal in this case, but still, it seems very unhelpful for that info not to be easily accesible by me.

-I put a low bid in a frame early in the auction to wipe out a BIN price that was higher than I wanted to go, and also I thought someone might snatch it up at that price. So, for a couple of days, my low bid was just sitting there, and I have been waiting for the last day/minutes for the real bidding to start. This morning, the last day, I log on and cannot find that item anywhere. It is not in my won, lost, watching, active, ending lists. Just gone. What could have happened to it? If the seller kiboshed it, it should still show up in the ended list.

jim

Jim,
I had a similiar event with a bid I made. Now when I make an offer or a bid, I also hit "watch this auction". That way I can't lose the information.
Edit: I re-read your post. It could be the owner removed the item for auction which would result in complete removal of all activity. Watch for an e-mail from the owner for an outside deal.

+1 Owner removed item rather than face possibly giving it away.

They ought to do away with 'buy it now' unless it EQUALS the starting bid. I freqently start things at $1 because I do not really know what htey are worth. I sell a number of things at $1 as a result. I hate folks who pull things late because they are not happy with how it is going. Lord knows I'd get flamed if I pulled a BID because I did not like how it was going.

The seller could have received and accepted another "Best Offer" as well.

I've had the bike mysteriously stolen before it could be shipped. Technically, the guy still owes me a bike. In the real world, I'm not fighting too hard for a Schwinn Le Tour.


Anyone else getting a lot of second chance offers? I've had three in the past two weeks, including that awesome Colnago Master frame. Only had one before that and it was over a year ago.

I use two starting prices on ebay. For items that I know will get multiple bids (based on history), I start them all at 99 cents. That minimizes the fees from ebay, and maximizes interest. On items where I think there is likely very little interest (just a couple of bids on similar items in history), I will start them high. close to/at the price I think they are worth. Then I usually get just one bid.

It seems to be working.

I also got a winning bidder recently that wanted to put the item on layaway. Jeez. I think the economy has caught some bidders short. Not sure why they bid...

jgedwa said he listed it in his "Watching" section. If it was sold via the "Best Offer" it would have showed up as a "ended" auction in his watching section. Since it did not, something else happened such as a withdrawal. Another thought, I've seen an auction completely disappear when ebay removed it due to fraud.

If your asking price equals the starting bid, what's the point of having an auction? I customarily set my "buy it now" price a little higher than what I would expect the auction to bring. I have often been surprised at how quickly somebody jumped at that price, or how often the bidding went over my asking price.

And I once pulled an item because my description had a fundamental inaccuracy. I didn't want responsibility for anyone buying it based on bad information from me.

Ebay's software has been pulling a large number of auctions for infringement of the ebay rules. I know of a good number which were pulled for keyword spamming, others for statements asking for payment to be made by money order or check (no longer permitted on ebay), others for sundry other infractions. If the auction is ended by ebay, it will totally disappear from the searchable memory of ebay (except for the seller, who can recall the auction and modify it in such a way that it will now no longer contravene the rules.)