tomyou Posted June 1, 2002 Share Posted June 1, 2002 Yea it is easy to see both sides so I don't think either is completley wrong. Personaly I have never approacehed anyone about ending an auction early and I won't but thats just my choice. I have been approached tons of time about ending my auctions early and choice never to do so as it wouldn't be fair to all my regular customers that may be watching the items. Anyways no need to start a war over it so I guess it's just a person choice thing. It is easy to see both sides of the issue Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sylentwulf Posted June 1, 2002 Share Posted June 1, 2002 There IS an option most people don't know about on ebay. If you are the seller, and someone makes a personal offer, you CAN end the auction early, pay ebay fee's, and leave feedback. Sellers have the option to end their auction from a personal offer. I've only asked 2 or 3 peoiple to end their auctions early, and I have told them about this feature. Neither of the 3 people opted to choose that option, which is at their discretion. But anyways. I agree with ya Alex on both points you made, saying enthusiams is dying was a low blow, and I won't be posting anymore of my ebay finds. What's done is done, Glad to see ya on here Tom! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bloatedmonkey Posted June 1, 2002 Share Posted June 1, 2002 I guess what bother's me about all of this is that it's like going to a real auction and having the auctioneer say "gone" after the first bid. You have your hand in the air ready to bid, but there's been some shady deal, and you're locked out. Outside of the auction, deals are perfectly fine, but the whole premise in an auction is that "an item will sell to the highest bidder at a prescribed time" I hate checking on an auction to find it's ended "because of an error in the listing." Now you can say, "You can do it too". But if we all start doing that, then I'm going to have to be sending about 10 emails every day, just to get my offer in. That's just a pain, and in my opinion, not fun. As it is now, I feel I have to send emails to people with rare items asking them NOT to accept any personal offers. Not fun. On a separate issue, I've noticed that Sylentwulf personally accounts for about 20% of all 2600 auctions. That's alot of listing fees. Do you actually make money? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jahfish Posted June 1, 2002 Share Posted June 1, 2002 quote: Originally posted by Bloated Monkey: I guess what bother's me about all of this is that it's like going to a real auction and having the auctioneer say "gone" after the first bid. You have your hand in the air ready to bid, but there's been some shady deal, and you're locked out. Outside of the auction, deals are perfectly fine, but the whole premise in an auction is that "an item will sell to the highest bidder at a prescribed time" I hate checking on an auction to find it's ended "because of an error in the listing." well you can't really compare. on real auctions YOU are paying the fees after you left a bid. but ebay decided to flip that, and so sellers have to pay them ... so you never get the ammount you actually sold, but instead you loose quite a lot of dollars on ebay ... that way, they manage not only to make money on sold items ... but also on every listed item ..... .... can u smell the rip-off? you can turn this topic into another "Ebay bitch session" again ... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andrew Posted June 1, 2002 Share Posted June 1, 2002 I seriously have to disagree. Uh, if many people on this board feel that eBay is a "rip-off" for charging fees for selling items, why does everybody still use it? And for the record, in a live auction setting, the auction house generally gets a commission of a percentage of the final sale cost for the item paid by the seller. Items that do not get sold are either thrown in the dumpster or charged a "handling" fee for wasting their time -- sorta like a listing fee. When you really look at it, eBay is no different than any other type of live auction. If you don't like it, don't use it. And where did the original thread go on the sister message board. Is someone trying to cover their tracks, Sylentwulf? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jahfish Posted June 1, 2002 Share Posted June 1, 2002 quote: Originally posted by Andrew: why does everybody still use it? because YABE is like crack! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RangerG Posted June 1, 2002 Share Posted June 1, 2002 I don't know Sylentwulf, but I can say that people get too worked up about selling stuff on Ebay. A few friends know that I sell extra stuff I find on Ebay. This pretty much lets my hobby pay for itself (and maybe even tickets to a convention). When some people find out that I paid $2 for an item and then sell it for $50, they act like I am ripping off the poor at the flea market. I even had a minister friend suggest this was a sin. My point -- it takes LOTS of effort to sell on Ebay. You spend hours searching for items to sell (often you buy stuff and it doesn't even work), hours cleaning and testing stuff, hours putting together auctions, and then hours making sure you shipped everything correctly and leaving feedback. You need to be on top of all your auctions because otherwise someone will leave you negative feedback. You spend lots of time, take risk, and hopefully make a little bit of money while enjoying hunting for stuff in the wild. I am a very small fry compared to Sylentwulf's auctions, but he seems to have good feedback and sell some nice stuff. [ 06-01-2002: Message edited by: RangerG ] [ 06-01-2002: Message edited by: RangerG ] Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andrew Posted June 2, 2002 Share Posted June 2, 2002 Someone strikes again... this is real disgusting. It's almost not even worth searching for games because you can never bid on them now. http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewI...item=1357256880 Waterworld, Miner 2049er Vol II, and 72 others... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jahfish Posted June 2, 2002 Share Posted June 2, 2002 stop crying man .... there is tons of waterworlds on ebay. and miners too ... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KAZ Posted June 3, 2002 Share Posted June 3, 2002 He's not talking about NOT being able to get swordquest waterworld or miner....he's talking about how NOONE was able to even bid on this auction because someone made a shady deal on the side. Makes it pointless to even have an ebay when stuff like this goes on. I now realize the error of my ways, I was being selfish for trying to buy certain games in a large lot of games, not realizing the impact it has on Ebay as a whole. This auction illustrates this point, and it can get WAY out of control. Therefore, I think ebay should somehow lock people into selling their products. If they list their product, they MUST sell it, or receive really bad feedback saying they ended it early. Imagine a real live auction. And imagine if someone in the front row whispers over to the auctioneer, and makes a deal. Noone else in the entire place can hear the deal, but the next thing that happens, is the auctioneer yells "THIS ISN'T BEING AUCTIONED ANYMORE!" I've been part of the problem, and I'm 100% certain it is now wrong, and is certain to make Ebay worthless in the long run. The term "Auction" will no longer mean anything. Or maybe they should have it clearly stated: "This is an Auction site, but shady deals are encouraged on the side. If you make a really nice shady deal, please let us know, and we will congratulate you." [ 06-02-2002: Message edited by: KAZ ] Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bloatedmonkey Posted June 3, 2002 Share Posted June 3, 2002 Well, y'all can hate me if you want, but I emailed the seller of this last one and let him/her know my guess at the final selling price had the auction not ended. I don't know if it'll help the situation, but it makes me feel better. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rpmxxipt Posted June 3, 2002 Author Share Posted June 3, 2002 Nice looking bunch of carts! Looks like the bidding was up to $45 before the seller pulled it. Anyone's guess as to what transpired to "change the seller's mind", but given the number of bottom feeders on eBay - PROUD bottom feeders at that, as some posts here indicate - some sort of deal was probably made. If not, we'll see if that seller becomes an "Atari dealer" overnight, complete with colorful templated listings and $199 BIN's. (Or perhaps someone told the seller about the 2600's great gameplay, and he's sitting on a vinyl beanbag chair in front of his 30" Curtis Mathis console right now, trying to wrap the score on Q*bert) Actually, the Atari sleaziness I see on eBay more and more reminds me of another sleazy dealer-driven business, baseball cards circa 1986, before the greed of the dealers made dealers out of everyone, and popped the balloon on that hobby. KAZ, you're exactly right. What is it going to come to, is every casual reseller like this one going to wake up to a hundred e-mails after he lists, with every Atari collector who "spotted the Waterworld" mewling and begging for confidential buying rights like a crowd of third-world urchins begging for change? At least with eBay BINs, or thrifting, or flea markets, there's still some CLASS involved in a transaction. The seller has delared what he expects, and caveat emptor. Ah well, at least my son may enjoy the games his crazy ol' dad is getting for him at Goodwill when he gets older. - RPM - Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Osbo Posted June 3, 2002 Share Posted June 3, 2002 quote: Originally posted by Sylentwulf: One way, when you go to the "end your auction early" page you can either cancel all bids, or sell to the current high bidder. I believe at that point you can enter the amount it is to be sold for, making it a legit ebay transaction. yes, you are right, I did that once with a electronic chess game, I found it in Goodwill for $2 dollars, put it on eBay, and a guy from Canada offered me $80 dollars for it, and then a guy from Germany offered me $100 dollars for it, so it went to Germany, I didn't even know the value of the game. Same happends with a HP calculator, got it in Salvation Army for $1.50 and I sold it to a guy in Taiwan or Japan, for like $80 bucks, I cancelled all the bid, said "I'm sorry" and that was about it. Just my two cents Osbo Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rpmxxipt Posted June 3, 2002 Author Share Posted June 3, 2002 Osbo, Out of curiosity, if you knew you had two interested bidders for an item like the one you mentioned, why wouldn't you have kept it listed to make them (or someone else) bid it up higher than either of those two offers? - R Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Osbo Posted June 3, 2002 Share Posted June 3, 2002 quote: Originally posted by rpmxxipt: Osbo, Out of curiosity, if you knew you had two interested bidders for an item like the one you mentioned, why wouldn't you have kept it listed to make them (or someone else) bid it up higher than either of those two offers? - R i didn't because those were two good offers, and they ask for it, and i just said 'yeah, why not?' Osbo Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jahfish Posted June 3, 2002 Share Posted June 3, 2002 ask my father what value has a 2600 system ..... nothing! same for my mother and billions on this planet who don't give a damn about 20 year old game systems ... the value of such an item is very relative ... some people will be happy to get 20$ for a box full of games ... they might have thrown it away too ... you never know what value people put on such an item ... that's the first point! every cart is worth 1$ ... unless you're a collector. and as there's more than just one collector, these fight for certain carts that are rarer than other. with guns? with their fists? knifes? no, they fight with money. so these big sums come up for some carts .... but even these are just relative, guides don't make fixed prices/values for those ... a funny example of that is magicard: i know one person who baught it for 5$, one for 50$, one for 500$ and one who nearly placed another 0 behind ... the only thing that is not ok is to retract people's bids on a running auction ... your buyer should place a high bid to lead that auction, then after a few hours i'd stop the auction. so you have a legitimate winner and actually more security for the deal. it would actually be stupid to retract them, as you may waiste a good chance to get more out of it ... those high $$$ buyers often place large bids right from the start. i think every seller has the possibility to watch auctions in a certain category before he auctions his item on ebay ... who he can see what his item might bring aproximatively. and there's many sites that provide approx. prices. so if he's really willing to make money, he should know what he's got. and if he just wants to make an ammount X that satisfies him, then let a collector have a good deal .... i bet some of those complaining here have "only" 100-300 carts .... well when you're near 1000 or over, there's not much carts left to bid on, and it starts getting real expensive. i fear none of the titles i'm missing is under 10$ ... so those hardcore collectors who don't have a big bank account have to find ways to finance that hobby. buying big lots is a good way of course .... now don't think we're getting rich from that. first ebay gats lots of fees, then making pictures, auction texts, checking the auctions, sending payment requests, packaging and mailing the item are pretty time consuming. if you would count in a few bucks for the time you "worked" on those sales, it would be a negative deal for you. at the end, you waiste a few of your free hours and get a few carts for free out of that. nothing evil about that, as it seems to some ... the way i see things, the seller is the auctioneer, and ebay is only the platform where the deals happens .... so it's all about the sellers decision ... you can't really be mad at collectors who try to make a cool deal. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jaybird Posted June 3, 2002 Share Posted June 3, 2002 I did a little research on eBay to make sure what was right & what was wrong (at least according to eBay): quote: Fee avoidance - Circumventing eBay fees. Examples: * Canceling a listing to sell the item to anyone who contacted the seller through eBay, or became aware of the item through eBay * Ending a listing early to sell the item at a higher price to the winning bidder If you've experienced any of these selling misuses, please report offenses to Investigations. Disciplinary action may result in the indefinite suspension of a user's account, temporary suspension, or a formal warning. eBay will consider the circumstances of an alleged offense and the user's trading records before taking action. Here's the link to where I found that if anyone is interested. eBay So it looks like the seller would be the one violating eBay rules, since eBay wouldn't know who technically "won". I don't know how they'd know that an auction was ended early because of this unless, of course, someone bragged on a message board I can see both sides of the debate, although it's not something I personally would ask a seller to do, nor would I end an auction early and sell outside of eBay. I like the little shred of security eBay allows you in a transaction completed through them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alex Posted June 3, 2002 Share Posted June 3, 2002 quote: Originally posted by jahfish: the way i see things, the seller is the auctioneer, and ebay is only the platform where the deals happens .... so it's all about the sellers decision ... you can't really be mad at collectors who try to make a cool deal. I think the frustration stems from people who don't want to abuse the system either out of fear of reprimand from eBay or simply because they don't think it's right. These people lose out simply because they're playing fair. I think they are allowed to be mad about that. From the same page linked above: "Buying Offenses See other offenses: If you've experienced any of these issues, please report offenses to the Investigations link below. Disciplinary action may result in the indefinite suspension of a user's account, temporary suspension, or a formal warning. eBay will consider the circumstances of an alleged offense and the user's trading records before taking action. [*] Contacting a seller and offering to purchase the listed item outside of eBay." Isn't this what we're talking about? Now I don't really care personally as I can't remember the last time I bought something on eBay, but I can understand why people are upset. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bloatedmonkey Posted June 4, 2002 Share Posted June 4, 2002 quote...so it's all about the sellers decision ... you can't really be mad at collectors who try to make a cool deal. In these situations, the sellers probably don't know what they're losing out on, but the collectors know exactly what a deal their getting by being sneaky. So I can be mad at the collectors if I want. Actually, mad's not the word. Disappointment, maybe. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Philflound Posted June 4, 2002 Share Posted June 4, 2002 It's total bullshit in my opinion. But you know what? I don't care anymore. I'm sick of people making side deals. If this auction wasn't even posted in this thread, I would never have seen it, or possibly would have seen it in a few days. Oh, well. I do need the Miner II, but Ebay doesn't give two shits about you. They are making their money. If of course I was the high bidder and the bastard cancelled the auction on me to sell to someone else, I'd freak. But you can report this guy to ebay and most likely they will do jack about it. Why? Because they are making tons of money and don't care about you. I wouldn't doubt if it was Sylent who did the buyout again. Though I know he wouldn't brag this time. Phil Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Philflound Posted June 4, 2002 Share Posted June 4, 2002 Oh, the one thing I forgot to mention was when Sylent said, "What if I paid $200 to pull the auction". He then says he didn't pay that high, but the better question is this, what if I was willing to pay $200 for the auction. Then you wouldn't have gotten it for whatever you paid, and maybe I needed some of the games too! Phil Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rpmxxipt Posted June 4, 2002 Author Share Posted June 4, 2002 For the record, I believe I recall Sylentwulf saying on DP (before he killed his thread) that he ended up paying $67 for the Obelix lot that he scotched. Also for the record, I have NO problem with Sylentwulf's auctions or products (although I wish they'd be a little less frequent).. I bought a few commons from him recently, and I wish ALL of my eBay transactions were as professionally shipped and forthcoming. I guess I just have a problem with the amoral fashion that some people go about procuring what they want on eBay. If that's what dips people's bobbers, I guess that's fine.. but in my eyes, it's not much of a collection that was accumulated through deception or illegal practices. It would be an interesting exercise to set up a few stings on eBay, auctioning off a grail (if I had any) amongst a bunch of commons with a $1.00 starting bid, then turning over transcripts of ALL unsolicited e-mail side deals to eBay as they come in. It might level the playing field a little over time. I guess that's enough. Peace. - RPM - Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KAZ Posted June 4, 2002 Share Posted June 4, 2002 That's a great idea! But as was stated before, I intuitively agree with another that said Ebay doesn't give a dam about that. Like every other business institution supposedly, they care about money and profit. Ebay would probably secretly encourage side deals...because the seller had to pay the first fee to list, and another fee to resell the games he has left after a shady deal. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KAZ Posted June 4, 2002 Share Posted June 4, 2002 Sylentwulf deleted his original topic precisely because he knows he has competitors who (tho they wouldn't say it out loud), would probably like the idea if he weren't around selling games, and cutting into THEIR profits. So he withdrew the topic, so none of his enemies (I mean competition) would narc on him to Ebay. Considering that sylentwulf takes up a sizable portion of game selling, if he weren't in the picture, it would give other sellers a chance to raise their prices. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sylentwulf Posted June 4, 2002 Share Posted June 4, 2002 Actually that last auction that was ended WASN'T me heheh. I could mention a couple names as to who I THINK it was, but I'm not like that (Noone on the boards, but I'm still not gonna say anything.) I'm not lying when I say in 3-4 years of ebay, this is only the second time a seller sold to me outside of ebay, the other time was about 1-2 years ago (Gas hog and 20 commons for $35 including shipping, nothing spectacular obviously) and that seller had me bid and then end the auction to comply with ebay's rules. I don't run around offering sellers money all the time 2 other times I offered the sellers a buy-out price and they declined, 1 of those times, I went on to win the auction by LESS than what I had offered him to begin with. He took it pretty well, laughed at himself and said "oh well, guess I should have sold it to you when you offered, no biggie" Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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