An interesting situation, any thoughts anyone?

[zaranvalesasterix]

I noticed on Saturday that there was an auction just about to end for some scrap gold worth around £800 with a bid of £100 which hadn't met the reserve. They had postage of £4.10 for 1st class only which LovesVintage had queried but they had not replied. It looked very genuine and I was concerned that someone would come in late and snap it up for a silly amount just above the reserve, so I put in a realistic bid which, in fact, only registered the reserve price of £250.
My thoughts were to stop this person from selling it for a price well below it's worth, although I wasn't certain if it was naivety on their part of if it was a scam but I thought that I could cancel the transaction and tell them to send it to one of the good gold buyers and get £800.
I had to go out as soon as I had put on the bid so didn't know what had happened until I got home later in the day, when I then saw that they had not verified their contact details so their status is pending.
I then checked on ebay and saw that it had been sold on there for £633 (so I think naivety was the problem) but it was sold on Thursday, 2 days before the auction finished on here!

I have lots of sad thoughts on this, the biggest one being that it could get a huge load of attention on ebay but very little on here, and another one is that ebid will be prey to the less than honest side of peoples nature.

[burgyeb]

I noticed on Saturday that there was an auction just about to end for some scrap gold worth around £800 with a bid of £100 which hadn't met the reserve. They had postage of £4.10 for 1st class only which LovesVintage had queried but they had not replied. It looked very genuine and I was concerned that someone would come in late and snap it up for a silly amount just above the reserve, so I put in a realistic bid which, in fact, only registered the reserve price of £250.
My thoughts were to stop this person from selling it for a price well below it's worth, although I wasn't certain if it was naivety on their part of if it was a scam but I thought that I could cancel the transaction and tell them to send it to one of the good gold buyers and get £800.
I had to go out as soon as I had put on the bid so didn't know what had happened until I got home later in the day, when I then saw that they had not verified their contact details so their status is pending.
I then checked on ebay and saw that it had been sold on there for £633 (so I think naivety was the problem) but it was sold on Thursday, 2 days before the auction finished on here!

I have lots of sad thoughts on this, the biggest one being that it could get a huge load of attention on ebay but very little on here, and another one is that ebid will be prey to the less than honest side of peoples nature.

I have seen and personally experienced this scenario here over and over. Most cases have turned out to be scams........particularly when dealing with new sellers selling gold. It does not have to be a scam, but unfortunately it often is, in my experience.

Reserve listings generally do not go over well on eBid. They are not liked by many buyers here. However, I would caution all new sellers here to either set a reserve on items of high value, or set the start bid at the lowest point they would be comfortable selling.

I bid on and won a coin that was started low, with no reserve. Had I not bid, the coin would have sold at a ridiculous level. In this case the seller may have possibly cancelled the sale or just defaulted on the transaction by not honoring it. Depends on the seller, some will eat the loss and others will not. I have won auctions at ridiculous levels; I offerred the sellers the option to back out, those offes have always been accepted gladly. Have seen one of those sellers go onto be a strong seller here.

If the seller you mentioned sold the same exact item on eBay, they either had duplicate items they could sell in both settings, or they could be trying to run a scam. If a seller has no track record of selling here, one can not say for sure the intention of the seller. It is generally poor practice to sell only one available item in mutiple settings.

I find it very disturbing that certain high demand items can draw a huge amount of attention on eBay, and just sit there looking ridiculous here. I do not believe it is strictly due to the differences in traffic between the two sites. There is more to it; I believe buyer attitudes have something to do with this type of situation.

I have seen an ounce of gold, with a start of $0.99 and no reserve, get one bid and multiple watchers. The huge numbers of watchers tell me that alot of people see the listing. I have gotten the impression that it is watched either by the curious, who want to see if the seller will honor the sale; or by those who do not trust a new and untested seller who is selling high cost goods. This will indeed bring to the surface "the less than honest side" of some people. There are honest sellers out there, ones who will take a loss, and honor a sale. However, they have to build trust in a new setting. Trust can not be demanded, it must be earned. Many people seem to have a problem with that basic fact.

BTW, not only did I bid on and win an item from a new seller; I placed two aditional bids with the same seller. So I'm taking a chance on a new seller here, and hoping that the sales proceed smoothly.

[zaranvalesasterix]

BTW, not only did I bid on and win an item from a new seller; I placed two aditional bids with the same seller. So I'm taking a chance on a new seller here, and hoping that the sales proceed smoothly.

There was something on the forum on freebay once about blocking buyers with no feedback, but they probably didn't have any feedback because they were all blocked from buying anything, so it can be a catch 22 situation.

There is the concern about sellers from freebay, that they may be ones that have been banned, although in most cases the ban is unjustified there will always be the odd one that isn't honest but you would find that in any situation. I haven't yet sold anything on ebid, (hopefully one day I will!) but I would always be honourable in anything I do even though I have no feedback on here.

Oddly enough, the gold seller had only been registered on ebay for a month with just 1 feedback that was private, so whoever bought it may find that it didn't exist anyway. If anything had happened on here and I found myself having to purchase it I would only have paid through paypal so should have got my money back-in theory.

[LovesVintage43]

I had wondered what had happened to that auction...silly me, believing it to be an inexperienced seller noticed that they were only charging for normal post and sent a message to them out of concern advising that they would need to used special delivery guaranteed to avoid being scammed,lol. They ignored my message and then I saw the listing had ended. Zaranvalesasterix- should you have been the winning bidder on this item then?

[zaranvalesasterix]

Yes, technically I won £800 worth of gold for £250!! Its all very iffy, like you, I just thought they were inexperienced and was worried that they were going to lose a lot of money but I think there is a lot more to it than that. They registered on ebay in August and registered on ebid last week, they listed the item on ebay on 16th Sept and listed the same item on here on 18th so something tells me it is a scam. A lot of thoughts crossed my mind when I was out on Saturday and as soon as I got home, before I looked on ebid I checked the paypal site to make sure I was covered if it turned out that I had to go through with the purchase.
That is one thing that worries me is that by ebay sending the decent sellers over here, they have also brought the site to the attention of the ebay riff-raff.

[iwiw60]

Red flags should go up on that listing....no one who truly knows gold and its value would EVER sell it for less than spot. Just sayin' ...

[Maelbrigda]

I saw an auction a month ago starting at 99c for all the sims cds from the US I placed a reasonable bid but of course only the 99p registered. I asked the seller a question as to how much they would charge for BIN and they replied $50. Combined with postage to the UK this was more than i was willing to spend. The auction ran for 30 days and i was the only bidder. I "won" the items for 99c, but the buyer answered neither my requests for an invoice nor my emails. I would have paid the £30 i bid for them but never got the chance

[zaranvalesasterix]

Totally agree. There was something that made me think it was a lady selling them, it all looked very innocent, but then so do those emails that come from Nigeria that want to send you some money!!
Anyway, someone on ebay bought them for £633 so I hope they paid by paypal.

[zaranvalesasterix]

Yes, Maelbrigda, that's always upsetting when you particularly want something. I have had several things like that on the other site and the seller has cancelled even though I bid a lot more. I have bought some things that are collection for a silly amount of money but have always paid the amount I have bid, I suppose I could get in trouble for that!!

[LovesVintage43]

Yes, technically I won £800 worth of gold for £250!! Its all very iffy, like you, I just thought they were inexperienced and was worried that they were going to lose a lot of money but I think there is a lot more to it than that. They registered on ebay in August and registered on ebid last week, they listed the item on ebay on 16th Sept and listed the same item on here on 18th so something tells me it is a scam. A lot of thoughts crossed my mind when I was out on Saturday and as soon as I got home, before I looked on ebid I checked the paypal site to make sure I was covered if it turned out that I had to go through with the purchase.
That is one thing that worries me is that by ebay sending the decent sellers over here, they have also brought the site to the attention of the ebay riff-raff.

So technically, as the winner of the item, if you paid they should honour the sale...I mean, they don't know that you know that it was also on Ebay unless they come here to the forums. So if you paid and they never fulfilled the sale, you could then report them for non performance and leave negative feedback on here...I mean, the item was never available for sale as it had already gone and they should have at least contacted the buyers to cancel the bids? I mean, does anything happen to these people over here if they do that sort of thing? Other potential buyers need to be warned about this person in case they do it again. :-(