How do you avoid the following scam as a seller?

jwilson6204 · February 7, 2011 9:43AM

I ran into this a few months ago and wanted to see how others handle it. I assume the answer is report it to Ebay and block sellers, but wanted to get the boards' opinions based on their experience. Assume I'm selling a card that with an average VCP price of $1,000 in an auction. Two hours before the auction will end the price is up to $750 and for ease let's assume that was as high as the top bidder was willing to bid. Along comes scammer #1 who bids $1,150. Minutes later scammer #2 bids 1,160. For the next 2 hours no one comes near my auction as the price is higher than they deem the card is worth. Finally, scammer #2 "realizes" he entered the wrong amount and pulls his bid 30 seconds before the auction ends allowing scammer #1 to win the auction for $760.

I guess I could have disallowed the scammer #2's bid. Hate to think I would have to monitor every single auction like that. Any thoughts would be appreciated.

CrazyMind2017 · February 7, 2011 9:46AM

There's not much you can do to prevent something like that. What can I say, ebay sucks.

WinPitcher · February 7, 2011 9:47AM

Can someone even retract a bid with 30 seconds left?

Especially when he left it 2 hours prior?

Not sure this is possible.

Hopefully I understood you properly lest I get lambasted.

Steve

brendanb438 · February 7, 2011 9:49AM

The question here is other than contacting eBay to see if they can see a relation between the two accounts (name, same city, IP address) how can you prove that this is a scam?

Remember eBay/Paypal doesn't give a damn about the seller.

I just got screwed on my first chargeback where person claimed the item was SNAD on the 59 day after the auction ended. He managed to get himself kicked off eBay about 3 weeks earlier for some crazy BS messing with peoples auctions, posting feedback that was obscene and just outright attacking people on the eBay forums. I have managed to find out at least 3 others also had this happen to them, if it was for more than a $30 item I would be fighting this way more but it just isn't worth it to me.

cards651 · February 7, 2011 9:49AM

wow. that's a fairly sophisticated scam. I think you have to alert eBay. Everyone complains about all the fixed price cards and lack of auctions on eBay but this would seem to be a good reason to avoid auctions as a seller.

CrazyMind2017 · February 7, 2011 9:49AM

<< <i>Can someone even retract a bid with 30 seconds left?

Especially when he left it 2 hours prior?

Not sure this is possible.

Hopefully I understood you properly lest I get lambasted.

Steve >>

I haven't read up on the specific ebay rules lately, but I'm pretty sure a bidder has up to one hour to retract a bid that is made in the final 12 hours of an auction. So the two-hour window as described above is probably not plausible, but a 58 or 59 minute window would be, and that difference wouldn't have much practical impact on the answer to the hypothetical question posed.

brendanb438 · February 7, 2011 9:50AM

To add if you think this was a scam and you don't care about a negative feedback tell the person off.

jwilson6204 · February 7, 2011 10:02AM

It's very possible that bid was placed in the last hour of the auction and was subsequently pulled minutes before the auction ended. I believe it served it's purpose of scaring off potential bidders and allowing someone to pick up the card at a hefty discount. It's possible it was truely a mistake, but I doubt it. If I accidently make a bid that is 30% higher that the previous high, the price would only go up to slightly more than the previous high. This took 2 people. just my opinion.

storm888 · February 7, 2011 10:25AM

Time restrictions for retracting a bid:

Listing ends in more than 12 hours

Retraction allowed. When you retract the bid, we remove all bids you placed
on the item. If you are correcting a bidding error, you must bid again.

Listing ends in less than 12 hours

Retraction allowed, but only if you retract the bid within one hour of placing it.
When you retract the bid, we remove only your most recent bid. Bids you
placed prior to the last 12 hours of the listing are not removed.

........................................................

Historically, a bid had to be retracted 12-hours b4 the end of the listing.

EBAY simply opened a new avenue for buyers to harm sellers.

.

brendanb438 · February 7, 2011 11:59AM

Does eBay even notify us via email anymore if a bid is retracted on an auction we post or do we have to manually check every auction now?

bobbyw8469 · February 7, 2011 12:08PM

If that crap happened to me, I would not honor the sale.......and I recommend you do the same......

Toro · February 7, 2011 2:07PM

If this becomes more common and happens to me and my property, the buyer can come to my house and pick the item up.

ndleo · February 7, 2011 2:36PM

It seems like we know how to come up with a lot of scams, I hope the bad guys don't read this forum.

I only list my high dollar cards in auction form during free listing periods. I start them out at a price I can live with. Free style auctions do not make sense or worth the risk.

stevek · February 7, 2011 4:49PM

<< <i>I ran into this a few months ago and wanted to see how others handle it. I assume the answer is report it to Ebay and block sellers, but wanted to get the boards' opinions based on their experience. Assume I'm selling a card that with an average VCP price of $1,000 in an auction. Two hours before the auction will end the price is up to $750 and for ease let's assume that was as high as the top bidder was willing to bid. Along comes scammer #1 who bids $1,150. Minutes later scammer #2 bids 1,160. For the next 2 hours no one comes near my auction as the price is higher than they deem the card is worth. Finally, scammer #2 "realizes" he entered the wrong amount and pulls his bid 30 seconds before the auction ends allowing scammer #1 to win the auction for $760.

I guess I could have disallowed the scammer #2's bid. Hate to think I would have to monitor every single auction like that. Any thoughts would be appreciated. >>

That's an interesting scam, I've never seen it done before, and it's good you pointed it out.

One thing I'd say for sure, if you figured it out, ebay has likely figured it out long ago, and ebay probably even has a term for that scamming technique...and as mentioned, if you see that happened to you, don't honor the sale and report the scam to ebay.

WinPitcher · February 7, 2011 6:23PM

Plus, some people could have left snipes earlier in the week pushing the item back up to
market value, that too would only need two people.

jwilson6204 · February 7, 2011 9:15PM

thanks for the thoughts. I'm glad to hear this isn't a frequent thinig on Ebay. When I initially wrote this, I was fully expecting people to point me to similar threads as it was a common occurence.

How do you avoid the following scam as a seller?

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