ebay auction cancellation's

[zonker]

for those interested i received a email from the seller of the canseco bat and i was informed that it sold for 225.00. don't know about any of you? but i would have paid more for it personaly . the seller responded they had no idea what it was worth ? so they sold it for what the buyer stated the going rate was for a canseco bat. look's like somebody got there "amatuer". do you guy's think this is an acceptable practice? for example i agree it was a good thing what the seller of the leather face helmet awhile back received for thier item, i'm sure they were surprised just as much as me! and a few other's on this forum. would it have been fair a forum member here to contact the seller tell them what thier item was worth and bought it for that price? cause that's what is happening here on this forum from some of it's member's. this forum is here to educate and be a place where you can expect honesty from it's member's , i do belive and it's member's if they truely are here to better the hobby and address it's problem's should in some way lead by example and not practice the thing's that are wrong within the hobby , just to beat the next guy to it . then post there trophy's here. cause this just fuel's the fire. i appreciate everybody's opion's on the subject although my initial question wasn't answered, who should be held be held accountable? you know to fight for something you believe in and truly want to make it better, 1st you have to pick a side.

[34swtns]

wow! so forget the rules! it's dog eat dog and the dog that can't go the distance for the prize is the winner? and it's something that you admit you enjoy beating people out of a chance at adding something to the collection the good o'le fashioned way (the honest way! ) and love to swindle money out of a bussiness. even if it is ebay. wow!

Uuuummmm.....yeah.

And don't bother being a cheerleader for ebay.....trust me, they don't give a rat's a$$ about you. Don't believe me? Try to open a dispute about an item's authenticity that you've paid good money for only to find it isn't what the seller said it was. See how far that gets you. My history with that company and it's lover Paypal goes way beyond what your young imagination can comprehend. They are the farthest thing from a "victim", no matter what the situation. They've taken PLENTY of my money over the last 8 years. Any day I can keep some of my money out of their pockets is a perfect day.

[zonker]

belive me i already know. i bought the dimaggio hat, hodges bat, amoung other jewel's lasy year i spent over 30,000 last year and about 20% was bad i opened many dispute's how many were resolved by ebay 0%, so how much did you lose to them last year? i can't stand ebay's policy! i feel they should be held more accountable! i'm no cheerleader ! i put them right up there with walmart and lowe's on a morality scale. i know they don't care! but that doesn't drive me to be dishonest in my collecting of item's. i was more worried about the practices of some of our member's here and there outlooks and opions on these practices "you know, "practice what you preach" these individual's make comment's on the fault's with the hobby and express thier opions, stop auction's on bad item's, to help stop people from being ripped off,which is great, but then turn around and undermine the sale's on the legit stuff so the so called "amatuers" can't have any. i think if the person is willing to pay for it they deserve it, there not just jacking up the price on your stuff. i'ts not your's till you win it! let the auctions run there course! is all i'm saying on that subject. i just wanted to know who everybody thought should be held more responsible for this practice? i am just curious!

[TNTtoys]

I find that a lot of times I am chasing an item only to see it ended early but with a "buy it now"... trouble is:
1. the item never had a buy it now price from the get go.
2. the buy it now price is significantly less than I would have been willing to pay.
It appears that some sellers obviously do not know the market value of what they have, and are being convinced by a prospective buyer to add a buy it now to the item. The seller is then being duped out of half or even most of the money they would have gotten for the item. Buyers like myself lose out as well at the chance to add the item to their own collection.

As far as the practice of ending items early because of deals cut outside of ebay, my thoughts are as follows:
1. if you are serious about the item, you do not want to lose it to the next guy who cuts a deal, so make early contact with the seller. At least the seller will know that someone out there is serious and they will not consider ending the auction early.
2. if you feel that you have no other choice but to cut a deal outside of ebay, MAKE IT FAIR. Don't take advantage of the other person.
3. sellers should not cancel existing bids on their auctions. They truly do not know how high their bidders will go, and they are doing them an injustice.
4. if a FAIR deal is cut, the item should be fair game to everyone at that point (i.e. NO BIDS). There might be watchers on the item, but in the end, nobody is holding a gun to the seller's head to end any item early. I have been there before where the item has MANY watchers and no bids, and by the time the item is finished, nobody wound up bidding. If I were to receive a FAIR offer on an item when there were no guarantees it would sell, I would seriously consider it. (course this is not the norm -- the offers I normally receive in this position are normally laughable)

On another note, does anyone out there know what the ebay pulse is? Does anyone seriously use this as a tool? a gauge for the interest in their items for sale?

[beavisrules]

I guess I take the middle of the road on this issue - if I see a newly listed item posted that I am really interested in, then I will ask the seller if he/she has a "buy-it-now" price; I get a wide variety of responses to this, including anything from no response to "make me an offer" to sellers actually amending their auctions with a buy-it-now price formally posted; the difference for me is I never make a formal offer without asking the seller if that is something they would consider or are interested in - I guess mainly because I hate it when someone sends me a low ball offer through ebay unsolicited and wastes my time

-beavisrules
Always looking for Notre Dame memorabilia

[aeneas01]

sellers of all kinds (not only memorabilia) are approched every day on ebay and asked to end their listings early. as a matter of fact, ebay makes the process of ending a listing early so easy (even if the listing has multiple bids) that it's a miracle that it doesn't happen 90% of the time.

the funny thing is that it has become so rampant that i have actually seen sellers end an auction early after accepting an offer only to quickly relist the item because another potential buyer contacted them and said "i hope you didn't accept less than "x" for it because if you did you got robbed!"

frankly, i'm sure that there are many people that conduct at least a part-time business checking new listings on ebay every day and making low-ball offers to unsuspecting sellers and then reselling the items. while such an approach is certainly not consistent with the spirit of an auction, is there really anything morally wrong with it assuming that you don't attempt to circumvent ebay's fees? i mean isn't it ultimately the responsibility of the seller to know the value of what it is he/she is selling?

i've made many wonderful contacts on ebay and often have sellers that i have purchased from in the past contact me to let me know that they will be listing something on ebay that i might be interested in - or that they have something already listed and would be open to an offer. what never ceases to amaze me is how many of these contacts are willing to forego a couple of extra $100 bucks for a quick and uncomplicated sale. i mean they know very well that their item would most likely go for much more if they let it ride but dealing with someone they can count on (as opposed to a new ebay buyer that they don't know who may renig after two weeks of b.s.) and making a quick transaction seems to outweigh the extra cash as far as they are concerned.

one ebayer in particular, who is one of the kindest guys you will ever want to meet and who always has the highest quality merchandise available has struck several mid-auction deals with me in the past. but unlike other sellers that end auctions early and then sell the item to a buyer behind ebay's back thus avoiding fees, he will accept my offer and then have me bid a huge amount to ensure that i'm not outbid. then, regardless of what price the auction eventually ends at, he honors our agreed price, pays ebay their fees based on the ending price and sends me the item. several times it has been embarrassing as the item would have gone for 2-3 times what we agreed on. but this never seems to bother him as he never fails to contact me when he gets something he thinks i might like. of course it probably also helps that i have spent thousands with him in the past and that he also picks up all of his stuff at estate sales for incredible prices.

last year i came across an authentic 2004 rams game helmet on ebay - these are very rare and being a huge rams' fan i didn't want to lose out on it. i contacted the seller and offered him a very fair price as i didn't want to queer the deal by getting greedy. the seller responded that the helmet was being auctioned to raise money for a st. louis high school and, as such, he didn't feel right ending the auction early. i wrote that i understood entirely and that i would probably just bid on it. well the seller, clearly new to ebay, did a horrible job on the tem description and the helmet attracted only 3 bidders including myself - i ended up winning it for $200-$300 less than what i had originally offered. and, get this, the seller contacted to me to ask if i would consider honoring my original offer, the offer i made to end the listing early, given that it was a fundraiser for a high school! i passed.

gotta love ebay!

[TNTtoys]

That last post brought up an interesting point that has happened to me before as well...

As I indicated in my earlier post on this topic... if you approach a seller to end the auction early, make it FAIR. Well, I did just this, and offered the seller market balue for an item I was looking to add to my collection. I just didn't want to take the chance of losing it due to how much it meant to me at the time.
Well, we all know how many "bargain hunters" there are out there in the ebay community... and I probably don't need to finish the story... but...
The seller declined my offer to let it ride (his perogative, of course), and then I wound up winning the item for less than half of my offer. I got a big laugh out of the outcome, and simply followed through with the transaction accordingly.

[33bird]

I do it a lot too. I've accepted offers as a seller as well. Guess what? Ebay still gets money even when you cancel it. Not as much of course, but they still collect on the listing fees, etc. Ebay knows it happens everyday. The only reason they care is because they want MORE money. Trust me they make enough.
Greg