PHONY BIDDING

Jim is correct, wait till the end, put in the max you are willing to pay, and wait and see. I've done this consistemtly on many things and have about 40 winning bids as a result. Sometimes I get it for opening bid, sometimes, like just last week, it went to my max of $253. The next higher bidder jumped in and bid twice in the last minute with his last bid of $250.51, which my bid beat out.

Shills are "fake" bidders in an auction to drive the price up. I've encountered this a number of times and you may be able to prove a case if you look at all the other auctions a seller has and see if the same buyer(s) is/are bidding on them, especially if they are very diverse items that one buyer would not be likely to be interested in.

The firearms auction site www.gunbroker.com has a different approach to the auction. They have a 15 minute rule. If you place a bid on something less than 15 minutes before the auction is to end, the auction is automatically extended 15 minutes after your bid, to allow someone else time to bid. This keeps on, with the end being extended 15 mins each bid, until no one else bids, and the 15 mins runs out. This is the electronic equalvent of the "going once, going twice, gone" of a live auction.

Remember, the auction is for the benifit of the seller, to maximize his profit, not to give the buyer a deal.

I have automatic searches set up to email me when certain things are listed for sale. I watch alot of items I'm interested in just to get a feel of the market, what its worth and how well its selling.

items that end on a weekday, during the day, especially mid morning are least bid on and items that end on weekends and evenings are most likely to be bid on.

Look for items that are listed out of their subject area, or are mis listed, or mis described. I bought a 25 ton press, it was listed as a 10 ton. Few people would want a 10 ton shop press, it isn't much good, and no one bid on it, except someone who bid in the last four seconds and drove my minimum bid up by a few dollars, but came nowhere near my max bid. I knew it was 25 ton, the particular brand and design is not built in anything less than 25 ton. I emailed a factory tech rep and had them look at the auction and they confirmed that it was 25 ton. Also the seller would not set up or palletize for shipping, it was a pick up only, I figured the drive into the value of it, most people won't bother. Do your homework. Know your product or what you want to buy.

Look for items that the seller has mis spelled the name of. do searches with common and not so common misspellings, you will be surprised what you will find.

Charles

I refuse to do business with people of low morals.

Good luck, and buyer beware,
Dan

Let's say the item starting bid is $175 and there are no bids. You see it and say "dang! that's a deal!" so you hit the button and the screen tells you to bid $175 or more. So you type in $175 and ebay tells you "congratulations, you are the high bidder". However if there is still time left, you could be out bid.

Now along comes another guy. He sees that item and in his mind it's worth $500. So he clicks the bid button and is told to bid $180 or more. So does he bid $180? No! he thinks it's worth $500 so he types in $500. Ebay takes that maximum bid and files it away. Ebay also registers his bid as $180. When you come back and say "Hey! That's mine!" and bid again, the system tells you to bid $185 or more. If you bid just the minimum increment to $185, ebay takes your bid, looks at the maximum bid of the other bidder, sees that the other guy still has a higher maximum. So the ebay enters a $190 bid on his behalf. If you keep bidding, ebay will keep entering the other guy's bid to beat you until you exceed $500 (the other guy's maximum).

But if you give up after $200 and no one else bids, the other guy will win the auction and will NOT have to pay his $500 maximum. All he will pay is whatever is the minimum bid amount needed to beat you.

My experience is that bidding on something you really want before the end of the auction is just a waste of time and money. All it does is drive up the price. If you find something you really gotta have on ebay, wait until the last 30 seconds and put in a bid for the maximum you're willing to pay. You'll either get it for that price or less, or you'll let some other fool part with his money.

That is quite common on any of the online auction houses. There is software that can be purchased that will make bids for you. You tell it what your top amount is and it will automatically place bids for you up to your limit. When someone out bids you, the software will jump in and place a higher bid.

If you really want something and you see that happening, about the only thing you can do is bid the maximum amount you want to pay. That's basically what the other party is doing - they just don't have to set at the computer all day to do it. Sorta like proxy bidding where you have instructed someone what the max is you will pay and they are bidding for you.

If you think it was the seller doing this, then that is against the auction rules and they should be reported.

I've been an Ebay'er since it started and there is always someone trying to beat the system. But, they eventually get caught and Ebay will ban them. The other auction places do the same.

Best thing to do is to check the sellers feedback rating and total number of sales.

What is a pain is when you see something you want but two newbies start a bidding war with three days to go. They'll bid the price up to lunetic levels.

My grandfather was an auctioneer in Oklahoma in the depression dust bowl days. He told me at least a dozen ways a crooked auction can scam the unwary---ringers, winkers, brothers--so inspect any high-dollar item carefully and decide what you'll pay, and stick to it! And trust your instincts--if it feel wrong, bail. Regardless of how great the gizmo looks, another, even better item WILL show up later. They always do.