The Steel Guitar Forum

Five or six years ago I was bidding on quite a bit of music related items on e-bay and it always went smooth.
In anticipation of my first pedal steel purchase I'm visiting e-bay again and have placed bids on a number of items. (Some bids have been on piano and guitar related items also along with recorded music) How is it that after I place a bid and almost always get outbid soon after, the new bidder will have a zero feedback rating? I bid higher and another zero feedback bidder will jump in and go higher. I have bid on items in the last 30 minutes of an auction with no bids received for 5 or 6 days and within 10 minutes a bidder with ZERO feedback jumps in and places a higher bid.
Is this not unusual now on ebay? From bidding and buying on ebay years ago this now seems strange.
Really strange is when in the last 10 minutes 2 0r 3 bidders with different usernames and zero feedback will get into a bidding war with you as if they hope you win but at a much higher price. It seems that way.

Check the auction after it is over. Link to the winner and see if feedback was left. That will usually determine if it was a legit sale. If someone is having shill bids made on an item to drive the price up and the shill bidder wins.....the seller loses. He is out his ebay fees and does not sell the item.

For every item you see newbies bidding on, there are zillions more where you don't.

I'll do that Bill. That makes sense. It just seemed some funny business was going on but maybe there are alot more newbies bidding than I used to see. I still like buying the "regular way" better. Face to face if at all possible.

when i'm interested in an item on ebay, i write to the seller asking him for his fone # so i can check him out
no number, no bid
i've got a list for my own reference on fo'bros who are on ebay
obviously, i prefer dealing w: them if i can

a well known scam on ebay is the seller gets a buddy to bid above those who bid in order to get the stakes up
if i feel that what's happening i let 'em have it

last but not least, never bid higher than what yer prepared to pay for the item
there will be more like it sooner or later

the first time you get burnt, it is'nt yer fault
but the second time it is

Yep. If an item goes higher than what I would pay I back out. I can't do that with gasoline but I can with ebay. Thanks...

Crowbear is right. I'm sure there are all sorts of scams to bid up prices on Ebay. If you know what you want to pay and that IS your maximum price, you won't get burned on the price. It does suck when that happens to something you really want.

EBay is different now than it was a few years ago. The bidding is automatic. You have to figure out what the item is worth to you before you place a bid. There is no point in advertising your bid way ahead of time. If other bidders think no one else is bidding, their bids will be lower. Wait until the last 15 minutes or so. You place a single bid that is your maximum. That wont show in the bidding. Ebay will automatically place your first temporary bid a few dollars above the last bid (the exact amount of increase will depend on the price range). If other bidders have entered a maximum higher than your temporary bid, Ebay will automatically increase their bid by the same small increment. If your maximum is higher than that, a new bid will be placed for you in the same small increment. It will continue that way very rapidly until the highest of the maximum bids is reached.

If you get outbid in this process, you have nothing to complain about. The item went for more than it was worth to you. Sit back and watch for another similar item you want. It is really just a matter of luck in terms of who else is bidding at the time. If there is no one else bidding with a higher maximum than yours, you will get the item for a bargain that is less than your maximum. That will happen if you are patient. If someone else gets the item, that is not your problem, the price was more than it was worth to you. If the seller placed scam bids (using another name, possibly a new one with zero purchases) and wins his own item, he loses time and money.

Now, here is the scam to watch out for. If "someone" outbid you and it was the seller, he may contact you and say the top bidder backed out and offer it to you. Do not buy it for anything close to the "winning bid." Review the bidding history, and don't go much over what your last temporary bid was before the automatic bidding ran away with the bidding. Under those circumstances, I would not even buy it for what my maximum was, because there may have been no real person bidding it up to your maximum. Whoever the winning bidder was, go back to the last bid before that person entered the bidding.

If you can, agree with the seller on something reasonable to pay. Don't buy the item on the side, off of eBay. Have them immediately replace the item on eBay with a Buy-it-Now price that is the one you agreed on. It only takes a few minutes. You will be watching for it, and there is little danger anyone else will have time to see the new item. Then you can take the item for the BIN price and conduct the whole thing through eBay. If the seller is a reputable seller with good history, they will have to conduct the BIN properly to keep their good history. If the seller does not want to sell the item this way, then tell them to just put it up for bid again - and stay away from them.

I've become more of a Craigslist fan.
I like to see it in person, and negotiate a win-win buy/sell/trade in person.
I've only bought one thing on ebay, a few years back, using buy it now (an LXP-1).
That deal went fine, and the item was perfect.
I do use ebay for their completed auctions info, as it is used by some to establish item value.
`pb

Here's anothe way to do it. Bid once and go about your business. It's called sniping and gets you out of the bidding game.

https://www.powersnipe.com/signup/premium1.cfm?i=126690

Crowbear and David have it. Personal discipline and patience--the buyer's, and no one else's--are the keys.

I might add, "powers up - not tested" is a disqualifier, along with anything where no clear statement is made as to performance: either is no-brainer ground for a seller to avoid accountability.

Pete Burak is also on. Craigslist allows not only more direct, commo with sellers, but also, given locale, opportunity to view (test?) merchandise; however, this doesn't affect caveat emptor in the slightest.

I bid a lot on ebay for pedal steel and I have not seen what you could call a real bargain on Steel guitars.
The bidding always goes higher than they're worth and within the last min. I've seen the bids raise the price as much as double. The best buys I've seen have been on the Forum but you have to be quick to have a chance.

Another explanation may be that the 0 feedback guys are less experienced bidders, and often drive the price up initially. More experienced bidders will wait and snipe. Maybe.

Here's the answer to your question:

Ebay has new rules concerning buyer information going out to the general public, hence the other bidders will usually have only the first and last characters of their usernames with asterisks inbetween as precaution (against what I have no idea). Unless the buyer changes this setting by personal preference, neither their name or their feedback history is revealed until after the bidding is done, thus most high bidders will show as having a "0" feedback score. Click on one of these 0 feedback bidders username and a screen will come up that says:

"To keep eBay a safe place for buyers and sellers, member-specific information is not displayed in the bid history."

I was wondering the same thing myself and just put that together. At least I think that's right...

I clicked on several "0" feedback bidders usernames and although I don't see the message about member-specific information I do see that the 2 bidders that outbid me in the last week were new members. Both had only been members for 2 days and had feedback scores of 0. I have seen that ALOT lately and that was making me wonder.

I got a SPAM email a few weeks back asking me to be an E-Bay bidder. I'm sure this is where these guys are coming from.

Many sellers now say they will not accept any "0" bidders. But I don't know how effective that is in keeping them from bidding.

Do not buy it for anything close to the "winning bid."

The only legit way they can contact you to do this is through eBay's "second chance" bidder system. If they used some other form of contact 99% of the time it's a scam.

I agree eBay's changed a lot in the last few years, but the same basic buyer rule applies - don't pay more than something is worth. Don't get caught in last-minute "bidding wars".

As a buyer, I don't play bidding games; I either use "buy it now" or eSnipe, where your bid is placed automatically in the last few seconds. It keeps me from overpaying.

David Doggett wrote:Many sellers now say they will not accept any "0" bidders. But I don't know how effective that is in keeping them from bidding.

As a seller, you can't keep anyone from bidding. You CAN, however, cancel their bid, if previously stated in your item description that you would do so. I always ask for contact first. I figure we all had to start And if somebody's sincere, they'll get back to you. I know, I just sold a bunch of effects pedals, and a couple of bidders had "0" feedbacks.
And, as Jim says, the way to buy stuff is through eBay. It's possible that the second highest bidder doesn't want to be offered a "Second Chance." I got hit with that one too, when I sold a Les Paul, and ebay pulled the winning bid as being a fake. I gotta get a job---I'm learning WAY too much about eBay...

RC Antolina wrote:Here's anothe way to do it. Bid once and go about your business. It's called sniping and gets you out of the bidding game.

https://www.powersnipe.com/signup/premium1.cfm?i=126690

I agree. Sniping is where it's at. Your select a maximal bid @ any time during the auction which is entered about 6 seconds before the end. It's kinda like poker....you don't tip your hand until absolutely necessary. Also you don't get into that emotional bidding frenzy. You bid and check back after the auction to see if you've won or lost.

I use..... http://esnipe.com/. It's cheap, easy and you can edit/delete your bid anytime before the auction ends.

As a seller, you can't keep anyone from bidding.

Actually, that's not quite true.

You can prevent bidders with certain levels of negative feedback or unpaid item strikes; ones without Paypal accounts; anyone from outside the US and a few other restrictions. You CAN state in your terms that zero-feedback buyers must contact you first, and as Steve says cancel their bid if the ignore you. You can also refuse to sell to them - you may get negative feedback, but this is the one situation where I received a neg and had it removed, since it was clearly stated I sold only within the 48 contiguous states and a guy from Italy "won".

The biggest seller mistake is NOT writing up your own terms and conditions...and if you do, make sure to follow through and cancel bids that don't comply AND block the bidders (another feature many do not use - I have a 300+ member "block" list!)

SORRY DID NOT SEE IT

I have been on ebay since 1998 and when it comes to instruments, guitars, pedal steels, and so on . if you are a seller and dony offer international bidders a chance to bid you are losing out. most bidders these days wait till the last 10 min to bid I have seen my auctions go say from 200.00to 500.00 in the last ten min. so hold back and wait with them.

if you are a seller and dont offer international bidders a chance to bid you are losing out.

Thanx a lot for that Joseph !
that means a lot to us who are out there in far away lands

shipping stuff abroad is'nt any harder than sending to canada, hawaii or alaska
i've run quite a few ebayers through that as well as french wanting to buy in the good Ol'
reminder : a phone call works wonders

How does a seller cancel a bid? And can that be done automatically during that last 6 second automatic frenzy? That's when all the fake bids occur.

I never sell internationally except to people I know personally.

I did three times a few years ago. Every one was a disaster - one whined because he had to pay brokerage fees to the shipper (that I had clearly mentioned in the listing), one sent an invalid form of payment TWICE, then wanted to send a personal check; the other bid even though I stated at the top of the listing "NO INTERNATIONAL SALES - THANK YOU" (this was before you could lock out countries you don't sell through), went berserk because I refused to take his payment or ship it to him, and finally left me a neg that eBay would not remove (my only neg with over 400 positives). I also try to use flat rates for shipping, do all my paperwork on-line and just leave the package at a drop point; can't do that with international sales...someone at the post office has to physically take the package. My local Post Office has NO parking, so it's not worth my time and effort.

I state clearly in the listings on eBay that I won't sell internationally and I still get questions like "how much is shipping to Botswana?" That leads me to the other issue - communication difficulties. It's hard enough to get Americans to actually READ auction listings; throw a non-English speaker in the mix and it's a mess.

To those who insist the MUST have the item I'm selling but are out of the US, I tell them to use a friend in the States to make the purchase and transship it to them. Yeah, it's more shipping costs, but on a "must-have" item it's the only solution.

Based on historical sales numbers I don't think I've lost a dime restricting myself to US-only sales, and I've saved myself a ton of hassles.