Pay close attention to bidder r***h (5). He always appears at all of his auctions but never wins.
LA: 1969 2800 CS - $15K
- Thread starter Markos
- Start date
Pay close attention to bidder r***h (5). He always appears at all of his auctions but never wins.
2-hours left and a new phantom bidder with zero feedback is pushing the price artificially up and the poor honest bidder is falling for it and playing the game unknowingly.
I deal with this on a daily basis with Copart. There are dealers and individuals that are sellers and you know they're increasing the bid, but if you have your number and you stick to it it really doesn't matter. In the case of Googooguy, they may run the price up but if it doesn't go up they won't sell it anyway. Bottom line, you have to stick with what you can pay.
Yes and you just might hear back from the seller when the high bidder doens't come through.
Which works out fine sometimes. I'll bid a car up to $2800 and it "sells" for $2900, then I get a phone call from Copart five minutes later. I know how the BS works so I ask why they're contacting me so soon after the auction when I'm second highest bidder? They usually say the winning bid is in South America or something like that and are hard to finalize the transaction with. This is total BS since the high bidder would be furious if this really happened. I play the game and he says "The Seller really needs $3400 for the car, can you go any higher?". I always so no. Sometimes we end up with the car and sometimes we don't. Doesn't matter either way since we know what we can pay. Insurance cars are handled by a different group within Copart and this doesn't happen that way.
Exactly!
restart
Well-Known Member
Swimming with sharks
Pun intended
Pun intended
Too bad Ebay changed their policy a few years ago and hides the identity of the bidders. No way to warn someone that they may be getting ripped off.
Not directed at you but I don't understand why people think a buyer is getting ripped off when you should only be bidding what you want to pay anyway. Having a "fake" bidder run up the price is not much different than having a high reserve. If you stop $2k below what they want to sell the car for they won't sell it anyway. If the seller bids the car up and you stop $2k below what he wants to sell it for what's the difference? The only advantage the seller might have bidding up the car is that it's a live auction and sometime bidders get too excited and bid higher than they originally thought, but those original thoughts are usually "If I can get it for this I'd be happy (getting a deal)".
Your logic makes complete sense, coming from a seasoned professional buyer. Unfortunately auctions by design (especially eBay) cater toward emotion. When I buy gas at the ‘76 station, I don’t “win” the gas. There isn’t someone at the pump, be it a valid customer or gas station hype man with cash in hand offering to pay five cents more per gallon if he can pump first. So with all that said, buyers aren’t ripped off by auctions with shill bidders but they are taken advantage of.
Shill bidding sux, but in reality, it's no different than having a reserve. It's just sneakier and false that there is no reserve.
Doesnt RM Auctions et al have shill bidders in the house?
I disagree because you enter an auction with the idea that you will be getting an item at fare market value based on legitimate bidders being involved. Even though my budget for example may be $30K I would still be disapointed in knowing I may have had the car for maybe $20K but ended up paying $30k due to phantom bidders. At that point it is not a legitimate auction but a fraud by seller with the intent to take you for as much as he can. I would much prefer a reserve on an auction so I know the seller has a set price rather than being fooled into beliving I got a good deal at an auction when in reality I was defrauded.
I understand your frustration. One of the auctions we buy from, although not nearly as much anymore, has a policy that feels kinda like what you've described. The insurance company has a reserve of $3000. I pre-bid at $3200 but the live auction only gets up to $2500. They take our pre-bid at $3000 because that's what their reserve was. This scenario can be argued different ways. I was willing to pay up to $3200 so I should be happy, but if I were high bid at $2500 the insurance company might have let it go for that and helped my margin. Because of the way they do it we only bid live auctions with them now, which is WAY less than we used to. The key to buying at auction is doing homework.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/1969-BMW-2800CS-/282771664825?vxp=mtr
I am shocked this got relisted!!!! Said no one.
I am shocked this got relisted!!!! Said no one.