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eBay - Have I Been Shilled ?

DRD

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Oct 26, 2014
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Newark
I put the opening bid in for a set of 7 jamo thx surround sound cinema speakers plus 15" sub last week for 600. I would collect in person and test with my own av amp. New these things would have cost 3k plus 10 yrs ago

My bid was topped within about 30 mins by 20. This was suspicious as this item had not attracted any bids for a few days

I then put in a 700 bid about 15 seconds before the auction closed that was again topped by 20.

I have just been offered the goods on a second chance basis at the level of my second bid.

How can I tell if I am being scammed here ? I am tempted just to make a cash offer?

Any thoughts ?

*****(1283) £720.00 1 Apr 2018 at 6:59:24PM BST
c***v( £700.00 1 Apr 2018 at 6:59:21PM BST
h***i( £666.00 30 Mar 2018 at 10:04:14AM BST
c***v( £600.00 30 Mar 2018 at 9:18:14AM BST
Starting price £600.00 25 Mar 2018 at 6:59:27PM BST

Thanks
 
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I put the opening bid in for a set of 7 jamo thx surround sound cinema speakers plus 15" sub last week for 600. I would collect in person and test with my own av amp. New these things would have cost 3k plus 10 yrs ago

My bid was topped within about 30 mins by 20. This was suspicious as this item had not attracted any bids for a few days

I then put in a 700 bid about 15 seconds before the auction closed that was again topped by 20.

I have just been offered the goods on a second chance basis at the level of my second bid.

How can I tell if I am being scammed here ? I am tempted just to make a cash offer?

Any thoughts ?

*****(1283) £720.00 1 Apr 2018 at 6:59:24PM BST
c***v( £700.00 1 Apr 2018 at 6:59:21PM BST
h***i( £666.00 30 Mar 2018 at 10:04:14AM BST
c***v( £600.00 30 Mar 2018 at 9:18:14AM BST
Starting price £600.00 25 Mar 2018 at 6:59:27PM BST

Thanks
Probably had his mate bidding and then his mate won,lol.
I'd wait because it'll be back up due to timewasters...blah blah


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It's pretty cetain this is a shill bid up. if you really want them offer them the £600, but insist they relist it on ebay as a buy it now, so you can buy and receive the full ebay buyer protection etc.

it happened to me a few months ago with a pinball - the guy tried the same scam twice, he failed both times. He hasn't dared to list the machine a third time, cos he knows I'm on to him.
 
Generally I believe in life that if you smell a rat, there is a rat.

There was no reason for anyone to up my original bid until the late stages of the auction. Surely, the only strategies on eBay are a first bid to make it harder for the seller to pull the goods, the late bid to secure them and the cash offer to end it early?

The hassle is that good quality, acoustically matching, 7.1 thx speaker packages don't come up that often. So it might be a couple of months before another appears
 
Personally I would walk away from it

Then wait till it's re listed in a week or two .

Then bid on it in the last 2 seconds of he auction closing , so to stop the counter offer happening , I do this myself all the time now !!
 
You "cannot" offer one bid below a winning bidder that has proved to be a time waster is you response to the seller.

Your original 600 bid is your max!
 
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Yeah £600 max. He’s been caught out trying to squeeze a few more quid out of you.

I would offer to go and collect outside Ebay but test them before handing over any money..
 
I would be very careful about talking to him via ebay saying you will do an offer outside of ebay.

Not long ago I had someone who approached me with an offer - that I did not accept and told him I wouldnt take less than £x. He then reported me to ebay for trying to deal outside ebay and they actually banned me for two weeks. Well 2 hours after I phoned them!

I would send an email message to him and say 'if you relist on a buy it now for £xxx I will click that and pay you when I have collected and verified they all work 100% with my amp and cables'. Make the xxx the maximum you will pay.

That way - you are covered. You are not going to alert the ebay police. the worst thing for him he will have to pay fees which we all have to do it we sell on ebay.
 
I would be very careful about talking to him via ebay saying you will do an offer outside of ebay.

Not long ago I had someone who approached me with an offer - that I did not accept and told him I wouldnt take less than £x. He then reported me to ebay for trying to deal outside ebay and they actually banned me for two weeks. Well 2 hours after I phoned them!

I would send an email message to him and say 'if you relist on a buy it now for £xxx I will click that and pay you when I have collected and verified they all work 100% with my amp and cables'. Make the xxx the maximum you will pay.

That way - you are covered. You are not going to alert the ebay police. the worst thing for him he will have to pay fees which we all have to do it we sell on ebay.
Exactly - this is the correct way to do it. Agree 100%
 
I was pretty sure I was shilled on a TV once but it was still a great price and I paid it. Much as I hated the principle, I wasn't going to cut off my nose to spite my face. I've walked away from several of these that weren't in my interests though.
 
Maybe I'm just too trusting (I am), but I don't see shilling here. Your original bid of 600 was outbid, correct. But that outbid was for £666. That's not typical of shilling. They normally just bump it up by the minimum amount, then bump it up again if you still outbid them and so on. Also no reason for a second person to shill bid. More likely someone else just playing the same game as you, trying to bid at the last second.

Saying 'oh they only bid £20 more than me' is not true. You don't know what the other persons max bid was.
 
Maybe I'm just too trusting (I am), but I don't see shilling here. Your original bid of 600 was outbid, correct. But that outbid was for £666. That's not typical of shilling. They normally just bump it up by the minimum amount, then bump it up again if you still outbid them and so on. Also no reason for a second person to shill bid. More likely someone else just playing the same game as you, trying to bid at the last second.

Saying 'oh they only bid £20 more than me' is not true. You don't know what the other persons max bid was.
Well my principles don't allow me to have a non paying bidder (who by not paying in the first place is a tosser) raise my price.

Why on earth would you allow time wasters to boost you to paying one bid behind a time wasting ponce?

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The most important thing is how much are you prepared to pay for these?

Regardless of the way the bidding went - if you think that £700 is a fair price for these then pay it. You say they used to be 3k 10 years ago, plus they are unlikely to come up for sale again for another few months (if they do at all).

By all means contact the seller and offer him the £600 of your original bid, but I wouldn't (as has already been commented) cut off my nose to spite my face.


As an aside:
The tea urn that has been to the majority of Midlands meetings over the last few years I bought off eBay - brand new and boxed. My winning bid was just £10 with free postage. The seller then contacted me and said he didn't realise postage would be so much and would have to withdraw the sale. I offered to pay the postage for him once it had arrived with me. It meant I ended up paying £20 for the urn which has considerably under what I would have had to have purchased new.
 
Whilst I agree with the above, everyone wants to get a fair deal. Feeling like you could've paid less money without the shill bidding is not a good sensation, even if you happened to be prepared to pay more originally.
 
I'm all for fair play and paying what is right and just. Paying additional postage in such circumstances is obviously ok too.

Whilst we all like a good bargain, non of us are theives I'd hope.

BUT, rewarding shill bidding by paying one bid behind a fake bid promotes the dodgy peeps who employ such tactics.

Hence, discredit all bids from the non paying bidder and offer one bid above any other bidder "apart from" the non paying bidder.

Otherwise your teaching chancers to try it on with the rest of us!

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