eBay 2nd Chance Offer Scam

[Kip Dynamite]

So I bid on a 4runner Center cap on Ebay last night. I didn't win the auction.

There was one other bidder who won the item for $.50 over my high bid amount.

Within hours I have a second chance offer from the seller for my high bid amount. Something smells fishy to me. Has he given the "winner" enough time to pay him?

Anyone else have this happen to them? The "bidder" who beat me has 33% of all of his bids with the seller.

 

[SV_Dude]

So I bid on a 4runner Center cap on Ebay last night. I didn't win the auction.

There was one other bidder who won the item for $.50 over my high bid amount.

Within hours I have a second chance offer from the seller for my high bid amount. Something smells fishy to me. Has he given the "winner" enough time to pay him?

Anyone else have this happen to them? The "bidder" who beat me has 33% of all of his bids with the seller.

If the bidder has most of his bids or wins from that seller, then most likely the winning bidder may just be a secondary account from the seller or a friend of the seller that does nothing more than bid high on the selling item to raise the price?

It does seem fishy and I would steer away from it. How is the sellers feedback? Does he have a lot of feedback from various sellers?

 

[Jed]

So I bid on a 4runner Center cap on Ebay last night. I didn't win the auction.

There was one other bidder who won the item for $.50 over my high bid amount.

Within hours I have a second chance offer from the seller for my high bid amount. Something smells fishy to me. Has he given the "winner" enough time to pay him?

Anyone else have this happen to them? The "bidder" who beat me has 33% of all of his bids with the seller.

The seller may have more than one center cap to sell. If your bid was only 50 cents less than the winning bidder, then he's probably just trying to sell another center cap without creating another ebay auction. I see that happen all the time.

 

[broncosi]

If he had more than 1 to sell then it would have a quanity count on the auction. Two things could be happening here. 1)the winner emailed once the auction was over and said he was not going to pay for whatever reason(ie he already found one, mistakenly bid, bid and didnt think he would win) that happens to me all the time.

OR

2)Shill bidding. This is where there is a secondary account and the other user will go in and bid until they are the highest bidder. Then they can either second chance offer to you OR the seller can cancell that last bid by the 'fake' buyer, now knowing how high the highest bidders bid was. Then they go back into the 'fake' buyers account and rebid, pushing up to the other buyers bids without going over so you are still the highest bidder but paying up to your maximum bid.

I hope that makes sense.

Here is a LINK on shill bidding.

 

[Jed]

If he had more than 1 to sell then it would have a quanity count on the auction.

Not necessarily. It doesn't make sense to sell them all on a listing that is being bid (not a "Buy It Now" listing) because the seller might not be willing to sell all of his caps to the winning bidder, especially if he started the bidding low and doesn't have a reserve price set.

I've done that myself on several occasions. I'll list just one of my items to determine what ebay buyers would be willing to pay. Then I'll list the others using "Buy It Now" for a price that I think buyers will pay.

 

[broncosi]

instead of guessing or assuming if he has more than one, why don't you just ask him if he does?

 

[Kip Dynamite]

instead of guessing or assuming if he has more than one, why don't you just ask him if he does?

I emailed him about this morning and haven't heard back yet. Shill bidding is what I was looking for earlier... didn't know there was a word for it.

Regardless of his response it still seems like Shill bidding to me. Probably won't deal with him though his feedback is respectable.

 

[SV_Dude]

If in doubt, leave it out!

Better to be safe than sorry, especially when dealing with online buying/selling.

 

[Uneek]

IMO, second chance offer is legit. I usually will only bid upto what I'm willing to pay and never get into a bidding frenzy with others. So if a second chance offer is made to me, it's at the maximum price I'm willing to pay for the item originally.

I've bought a couple items using second chance offer.

 

[MikesToy]

Ebay is like a bidding and buying game. :biggrin2: If there's something that i really want and need, i call the seller and settle from there. If the seller wants to wait, then i'll wait 'til the last 5 seconds (pretty much how long it'd take me to type in the numbers). 9 x of 10 i win.

 

[4runr30]

If you decide to buy, which I prob would. Be sure to use paypal. The account is free to buyers I believe. They covered my back when a guy refused to ship my FJ struts because he miscalculated the shipping by $20 and I wouldnt pay the difference. Paypal solved the claim within 24 hrs. Good luck.