Flee bay

[RegandPat]

On e bay if I do a high bid say £6.50 for some music CD and the bit is at .99p I always seem to win but at £6.50 and there is only 3 bids.
Is this a fix just to get my highest bid from me.
This has happened before on items.
Or am I being paranoid.
Reg

 

[Damian]

Yes to question 1
No to question 2

 

[colin-yorkshire1]

hi reg.
question 2 "noo" if you are so am I
question 1 is a little more retorical flee bay is basicly a auction house like any other be it cars, funiture or whatever, I won 2 items on there today one was 50p over the last bid the other 1.25 over, but I did not make the last bid on either untill the last minute of the auction,
basically what I am saying is if you offer a bid well above the last one all subsiquent bids will be automaticaly made up to your limit or highest bit so in the end that is what you pay, but if you bid in small incriments right up to the last minute you can win it more cheaply however you may be out bid by someone with a higher limit bid. one the gavel goes down. if you see what I mean.
its A bit like going to a car auction a car comes along you fancy the bidding starts @ £50 then steadily goes up to £350.were in, you put up your hand and bid £800. chances are you would get the car at the bid price of £800 but if you had bid steadily along with the rest you may have got it for £425. ""I hope this make sense to you""

oh and the other thing to remember is check out other sellers some may have a "buy now" price that is lower than the auction bids with cheaper P&P .

colin

 

[Lord Braykewynde]

....... also factor in the cost of P&P.
What you must do is decide the maximum you are prepared to pay.
If possible, and you have a fast broadband, time your bid to the last second. This will not always work though if any other person has an automatic bidder and they have set their limit higher. The automatic bidder will normally outbid you. If the person in your example used an automatic bidder and set his maximum at £6 then the bids would now be in 50p increments meaning you would win at £6.50. What you don't do is start bidding as soon as it's listed. The majority of bids start within the last hour.
I've been on e-Bay since 2002 with 695 feedback and in that time I've only had 3 unpleasant dealings and this was all to do with feedback except one and after a dispute I proved that the chap was telling porkies and they eventually booted him off.
e-Bay is an excellent tool for buying/selling but commonsense is needed. A lot on e-Bay are now full time traders and their prices are no different to your local outlet and sometimes dearer due to the postage.
I've just bought 6 items in the last two weeks from different sellers all without any problems. I also have a PayPal account which is great. No bothering with cheques, just a few clicks and it's done. Lots of sites, like Amazon, now use PayPal.

 

[colin-yorkshire1]

spot on LB

 

[chrisbee1]

It amazes me the prices some items eventually sell at. About 4 years ago I was bidding on a used porch awning but dropped out when the price exceeded £50.00 It eventually went for £110 plus £10 P&P. I managed to buy an identical brand new one from a well known caravan dealer on line for £99.00 with free P&P. Some people just seem to get carried away with urge to "win" the auction.

 

[JonnyG]

Not an expert by any means, and on the few occasions i have used Ebay, i am normally outbid in the last few seconds anyway.
Now a couple of months back i wanted a Tmobile pulse 1 phone second hand, when i bid and set my max limit, i was always outbid regardless, and my max varied from £60 ot £80, which seemed the norm for these items.
My son decided to get me one for my birthday, he bid just the once for a phone with a high android running programme and won it for £66. these regularly go for at least £25 more.

His believe is that regardless of max bid, if you get your bid in at the right time and it is excepted and the clock runs out before the automated system can kick in with a response you win.
Maybe this is not the case but he has had far more success than I and any automated system has to have some sort of time lock for legal reasons,so I have strong suspicions that this could be the case.

 

[colin-yorkshire1]

it is worth looking at sellers that have the item you are looking for on the buy now option often with free P&P if you select several you can compere and choose the best one. use this info to make bids for the items you want minus the P&P if you get out bid you have saved money by not paying too much on auction items if you win it all the better but check the item description very carefully first.
early low bids only win items that no-one else wants or are from sellers that have bulk items they want to dump it does not happen very often but is worth a try now and again.
colin