E-Bay question

[eugenevh]

I am only an e-bay buyer but can somebody who sold on e-bay before tell me if a seller of an item can see what a person's 'maximum' bid is before an auction closes?

I've done a small unscientific test earlier by bidding on a model. Then a day later I increased the maximum allowed bid and soon someone bid till just below that. Two days later I again increased the 'maximum' and an hour before the auction ended someome pushed the bid up till $0.50 below my maximum.

Granted, it could be co-incidence.

At the end of the day, I am glad I won the plane as it could be difficult to get it in future (Aeroclassics Hanger Club plane) . But the cost is close to a new 200 Scale Inflight 737

[fleetlordatvar]

i've never been able to see the highest bid from a bidder & it wouldn't make sense from the companies perspective either. The only i can even think of someone to do this is they had insider info on who the script/ program worked & personalized their own account...i've been selling since 2002

[eugenevh]

Thank you for the reply.

I will sleep better now that I know I have not been 'shilled' by someone. I don't particularly like e-bay, but sadly, it is almost the only place where you can find sold-out models at times.

[fleetlordatvar]

The only way to determine if your getting shilled is by the bidder having a low feedback number, very low number. There is also the chance a "buddy" can bid to hike it up, but overall it's very unlikely. You can always contact eBay & ask if that is what happened.

[fleetlordatvar]

I forgot to mention the numbers like waffle said. Does this help you know if you were shilled or some guy using this method to try out bid you?

You can always post the listing & see what other peoples opinion is based on their exp. It might help other to recognize if they are getting shilled.

[waffle]

If you use off numbers you can usually figure out how much someone is bidding. If your max bid was say 10.00 and I bid 3.77 then 4.27 and so on til I hit 9.77 and the max bid only went up 23 cents I now know your max bid number so when it comes to snipe I know what I need to do.

[robertjon5]

did the other bidder have zero or low feedback?? sometimes members have a second account or fiends who will help push up the price by doing as waffle said. then sometimes when they bid too much and win it by a few cents, it is strangely re-listed due to non paying bidder!! OR the bidder retracts the last bid saying they 'entered wrong amount'! just to get max amount possible for model. caught one guy at it last year! had around 15 rare'ish landor models for sale 1/200 and 1/100. every time someone bid, a ZERO ebayer outbid them within 2 hours. I checked his other auctions and this new zero bayer had 89!! bids on 10 items!! ALL small increments! when he ACCIDENTALLY won 5 items, they were re-listed the next day!! he halso had 3 bid retractions too. reported him to ebay who pulled off all his remaining listings he could only sell by listing models as BUY IT NOWs!!! I got his 1.100 spacemodels landor concorde for jut £85!! would have gone to £150 in the original auction listing.

[robertjon5]

did the other bidder have zero or low feedback?? sometimes members have a second account or fiends who will help push up the price by doing as waffle said. then sometimes when they bid too much and win it by a few cents, it is strangely re-listed due to non paying bidder!! OR the bidder retracts the last bid saying they 'entered wrong amount'! just to get max amount possible for model. caught one guy at it last year! had around 15 rare'ish landor models for sale 1/200 and 1/100. every time someone bid, a ZERO ebayer outbid them within 2 hours. I checked his other auctions and this new zero bayer had 89!! bids on 10 items!! ALL small increments! when he ACCIDENTALLY won 5 items, they were re-listed the next day!! he halso had 3 bid retractions too. reported him to ebay who pulled off all his remaining listings he could only sell by listing models as BUY IT NOWs!!! I got his 1.100 spacemodels landor concorde for jut £85!! would have gone to £150 in the original auction listing.

[eugenevh]

Thanks for the replies. I am satisfied that he bidding seems to have been above board.

At least this time I wasn't sniped at the last minute, but mainly because this time I decided to pay a premium.

Thanks Michael for another way of thinking about establishing someone's maximum bid. It is so obvious, so I feel like a bit silly for not thinking about that.

I still hate e-bay though

[fleetlordatvar]

eBay is so much better now than a couple of years ago. they are much more responsive overall to customer request & complaints. I had a horrible exp on their w/ a buyer, but equally had two awesome exp w/ eBay after sellers opened disputes. They even responded to my complaint about neutral feedback when a person didn't pay because they didn't want to pay the global express prices, which were clearly stated when he mad the five purchases. Most people are not satisfied w/ the non paying process & still can't leave neg for not paying, but overall way BETTER than before.

[JAL1628]

I've been doing good on eBay lately.. I just got a 'like new' Phoenix 747-8F for less than $26, including shipping. It's worth at least 50% more than that.

That's less than I recently paid for a Gemini Jets US Airways Express DHC-8-200 ($27) or an AeroMexico 767-300ER ($27).

[fleetlordatvar]

congrats! I've been doing 'better' too, which means i've been less compulsive to buy. I did finally locate an A380 via an eBay auction not for the model on auction! The seller let me know he had 'connections' & i gave him a short wishlist. I was very happy to get a reply that he found this hard to find A380!! It's mostly hard to find since it's production has been yrs now & limited run...I'm happy too.