re-online auctions....

[carole]

We have just been bidding on a car for our daughter Melissa,she has saved hard from her wee job and is ready to get her first car.

my hubby knows a lot about cars, and went and saw it yesterday,and thinks it is worth getting,the lady told him she had an offer of $1300, so he offered her $1400.
We were online bidding yesterday afternoon,and of course we were outbidded, it went up to 1470, we decided on a limit of 1450,and i think an auto bid was on it.

The thing is we are quite suspicious, that the owner was bidding.

For one thing, firstly it was under her husbands name, and she introduced herself as Kay,and the other bidder had that name and a number beside it,secondly the reserve was 1300,and thirdly in the question section the person was asking about the rust spots on the hood, well in the picture there is no way it shows up any rust spots at all, everything just adds up.

Anyhow we shall see if she contacts us today.

Anyhow just wondered how fair you think this is?and would you do this if you wanted to up the price?

I personally would not do it, i think it is wrong,but it does go on all the time i am sure?

Again we do not know for sure, but it will be interesting to see if the owner says, the bidder opted out, of course you are not mean't to do that either and can get a bad reputation on the site, but if it was a fake, would not matter.

Will keep you all posted and see if we get this wee car, it is a 1994 toyota corolla, done a few k's on it for sure, but that is to be expected for the price to be paid.

your thoughts and opinions?

[Medusa]

I've had limited experience w/eBay, some good, some bad. I do know, though, that some sellers have others bid for them quite often in order to up their prices. I guess the adage "Buyer beware" is appropo here.

[Lady's Human]

I'd be leery of having to bid online for a car that I had made an offer for in person.

Sounds fishy at best.

[carole]

No no let me explain, sorry, it was already online in the auction, that is where we found it, hubby just made an offer, they wait and see how the auction runs, first, it is just a gut instinct,i could be way off base, it could have been an genuine bidder, time will tell,the car is fine,just wondering if they were actually the bidders, to see if we would bid higher and they would get more money that way,like i said i really don't know,just have to wait and see.

[Laura's Babies]

In todays world, morals are a lot lower than they use to be.. If you have a gut feeling, your gut is probably right.

Oh, BTW, if my online bid was lower than the offer I made and he called and said the other buyer opted out... I would hold him solid to the online bid...

[jennielynn1970]

Sounds way too coincedental that the bidder also has the name Kay. That would make me leery of the bidding as well.

I've had friends ask me to bid on their items before to get the price up if it's not going up, but I've never done it. It's just not right or fair to the other bidders. I wouldn't want that done to me. Whatever my stuff sells for, is what it sells for, even if it's really low. If it's something I know should go high, then I put a reserve on it, otherwise, nothing, or I just FreeCycle it and be done with it.

[Catty1]

Could be that the couple is divorcing too, and there are funny games going on there.

Does eBay have a way of checking sellers' history?

[jennielynn1970]

Does eBay have a way of checking sellers' history?

You can report fraud you suspect is going on. but it's only if you think it's really serious, not just a "think" it's fraud. They take it pretty seriously when there are accusations.

[carole]

It is not on ebay, it is a NZ site called trademe, i may well just be too suspicious lol, have not heard from them, so maybe i was wrong and it was a genuine bid, or they could re-list it,just a wait and see game i guess, actually my online bid was higher by 50 dollars than we offered, but of course they don't know we are the bidders.

Ah well i guess we shall just have to keep looking, hubby will be on holiday soon, and can spend more time with Melissa at the auctions and looking at cars.

[Twisterdog]

I bought my son a car on ebay. The car ended up to be not all we thought it was, and we traded it in a year later. However, that's my partly my fault. I went to pick the car up, and it looked a lot more "used" than it did in the pictures. I think they took the pictures when they first got done with the car (it was a heavily modified little tuner), and then put a lot of miles on it. When I mentioned this to the owner, he said, "I'm sorry. I don't want you to be disappointed. If you don't want to buy it, that's fine, we will just forget it ... no negative feedback, no hard feelings." He was very nice and fair about it, and I should have walked away. But I had driven 200 miles to get it, gotten people to work for me, had my sister come with me to drive my car home, my son was SOOOO excited, etc. so I took it anyway. Live and learn.

As far as people bidding on their own auctions ... I know that is not allowed on eBay. I don't know about other sites. Can you check the bidder's and the lister's profiles, and look for similarities in email addresses, etc?

If it's a good car and a fair price, you still get a good deal. I would not by any means, pay more than the car is worth. Don't get caught up in the heat of the bidding and wanting the car, like I did.

[carole]

Actually buying off the auction on trade me is a good way, as we can go check out the car first, hubby is a mechanical engineer and knows a lot about cars, if we find one that is really worth looking at we get our mechanic to check it over for 35 dollars, well spent, obviously we don't do that too often, only if it really seems a good one.

No i won't get caught up in the bidding, it is easily done though, but i set a limit and that is it,once it hits that we are done.