Question about Ebay?

[jk03cobra]

Does anyone know if there is some kind of program out there that may block other people from bidding on a certain item to keep the price down. Something illegal of course.

The reason I'm wondering is because I recently sold something on ebay and only got about $203 for it. It is a fairly commonly sold item on there and all I have seen go for about $100 more than that. No problem though, I sold it at the winning price. Now I see the same item on sale there, my item, from the guy I sold it to and it is already at $345 with 2 hours left in the auction. There are 15 bids on it. When I sold it I think he was the only bidder. The part that really pisses me off is that he just copied my description and pasted it, including my picture from my auction. Why would it suddenly get that many more bids and that much more money when he is using my exact description and picture, nothing has changed basically. Something seems very scetchy to me. What do you guys think? I think I got ****ed somehow.

 

[kasee 03]

What an ass. From what I know a person CANNOT copy your pictures(happened to my sister and she reported the s#@t out of them). As for the description, I have no idea. You should definitely report them to ebay.

 

[Stewart]

It might just be friends of his bidding up the price.

 

[Candace 02 GT]

If you didn't want to sell it at that price, you should have had a reserve. It isn't HIS fault you sold at a low price - he is entitled to make a profit if he wants. Suck it up.

 

[jk03cobra]

If you didn't want to sell it at that price, you should have had a reserve. It isn't HIS fault you sold at a low price - he is entitled to make a profit if he wants. Suck it up.

Yes he is entitled to make a profit, but that is not my concern. It just seems suspicious that I have never seen that item sell for less than $280 by itself. When I sold it, it went for $203. I included extras with it too making it even slightly more valuable, and it is now suddenly at $345. Like I said before he was the only bidder when I sold it and now it suddenly has many bidders and a much higher price. Doesn't add up. Also, I am pissed that he used my pictures and description. (copy and paste)

 

[PonyFever]

Could be timing. Could be his friends artificially jacking the price up and if they get a sucker, it's sold. If you sold it without reserve, just store this as a lesson learned and better results next time.

 

[Longhornd00d]

It could also depend on how much feedback you have. People with more feedback usually get more bids, and higher bids at that, on the same items you are trying to sell if you have lower feedback.

 

[bp03svt]

If you didn't want to sell it at that price, you should have had a reserve. It isn't HIS fault you sold at a low price - he is entitled to make a profit if he wants. Suck it up.

Exactly. :beer:

 

[RoadZOmbie]

well copying another ebay members description, picture, etc. is against ebay rules and you can report him, which will cause his listing to be throw off and he might face a penalty with ebay.

 

[brandct]

To my knowing there is no program that can keep you from bidding because you would more than likely have to run that on their server since that is what it goes through And if you was going to go to this trouble you would do it for something that you could make more than 100 dollars on

 

[jk03cobra]

Exactly. :beer:

Again, you missed the point of this thread. I sold it and was ok with that. I just thought it looked suspicious and was curious. Idiot.

 

[dpotter]

Feedback and maybe S+H cost, not sure. Lesson learned, report the bastage if it's really buggin' you...like others have said, his buddies could be bidding it up.

I've gotten some killer deals off eBay on stuff that was not accurately desacribed in the listing/title, I knew what it was and bought for about 1/5-1/10 of what it should have gone for. I intentionally spell things wrong to see what's out there, sometimes nada, sometimes I strike gold. Even then, you need to know how to win those w/o tipping your hand.

Good luck,

 

[thenexlevel]

I been selling on ebay for the past 6 years, there are basically 5 things that play into the ending price (I never use reserve price btw).

1. Title/Description of the item - Never mispell or misrepresent in the title or description. Always type out as many variations as possible in the title to attract the most hits. Example if your selling a used Dell 17" LCD the title should be something like "Like New Dell 17" LCD Monitor TFT 1705fp Analog DVI" in the title.

2. Ending Time/Date of the item - Don't end auctions on weird times where no one is on to bid, for example Noon time or night time 7-9 pm from Monday to Thursdays are good times to end an auction. Ending an auction at 11pm on a Sunday would not be a good idea.

3. Similar items being sold - Sometimes people from forums discover some crazy deals that a lot of people are jumping into just so they can resell on ebay. Its better to hold out until all those items have been sold so the price comes back to normal. Check out how many items are being sold, sometimes its better to have auctions to end earlier (3 days) then later (7 days) or vice versa.

4. Terms of the item - This can include when the item is being sold, how long it will take to be shipped out, the condition of the item, if something is included or not included, shipping cost, insurance cost, etc... All the little details. Do not leave anything out or they can come back to haunt you.

5. Rating - People selling with lower feedbacks or lower ratings do not get as many bids. Nowadays its not uncommon for people to have 1000+ feedbacks and still maintain above a 99% rating. Someone selling with maybe 20 feedbacks and only maintaining a 85% rating would not grab as many bids as someone with 4000 feedbacks with a 98% rating. Try as hard as you can to maintain a good rating and get as much feedback as possible. This is a MUST.

Anyone can make good money from ebay, if you follow those rules above there is no reason why your auctions will not be as high as anyone elses and can end up being a bit higher.