Another Ebay Query

[Cryptos]

I am sure this must have happened to a few people here but this is a first for me so...

 

Had a place-marker bid on a snakeskin Mabie Todd. Several days still to run on the auction and I was hoping to prevent any backchannel 'deals'. However, I received an email from eBay today telling me that my bid was cancelled and on searching for the item (they were kind enough to give me the listing number) I find a note saying the item has been yanked because there was an error in it. The seller has not re-listed the pen.

 

Anyway, apart from a bit of frustration, I am curious as to what this kind of action signifies, if anything.

 

Thoughts?

[Chrissy]

It happens a lot unfortunately.

 

The seller may have advertised it in more than one place, and sold it via a different source.

 

Sellers on ebay UK now have to pay final value fees on the highest bid, if they pull auction listings. So that should put off some of them from pulling auctions in this way. I don't know if that applies to all ebay sites though.

[Left FPN]

Ebay only provide 4 choices for reasons to cancel. You can select any one you like. It may be true or false because the op has no other near choice. They obviously don't want to add 'sold elsewhere' cos it will NEVER be selected.

[Sasha Royale]

Friend, Jerry, listed a Waterman Kultur with flames pattern. His fox terrier got hold of it.

Terrier uninjured. Pen is 100% loss. I laughed and choked on pretzels. I'm okay, too.

(Thanks for asking. )

[Left FPN]

Friend, Jerry, listed a Waterman Kultur with flames pattern. His fox terrier got hold of it.

Terrier uninjured. Pen is 100% loss. I laughed and choked on pretzels. I'm okay, too.

(Thanks for asking. )

That dog needs glasses....

[northlodge]

I have noticed an upsurge recently in the kind of message shown at the foot of this ebay listing:

 

201330740199

 

Seems to be a few out there who are constantly fishing for the seller who does not know what they have. Another, called Stephanie if I recall correctly, has been offering £50 BIN for a good number of pens worth at least double that amount.

 

For each one rejected I am sure a sucker has been gullible enough to end the sale early.

 

Oh, credit to the seller of the above item ;-)

Edited April 15, 2015 by northlodge

[Gloucesterman]

Recently I noticed a discrepancy between the written description and the pictures for a particular item. Something was advertized as 14k and it was not (understandable if one knows the history of the item). I was interested in the item and messaged the seller about the issue.

 

The seller responded, thanked me and took the item down. I was hoping that they would re-list with an accurate description and they never did.

 

So sometimes it's a real issue.

[FarmBoy]

C_T

I did have a chat with eBay on the auction you pointed me to with the user that has a high bid retraction rate. I too had a recent run of auctions in which I was a bidder with a bid retraction and re-bid. We also discussed these. With the way all the IDs are now well hidden (which may be partially my fault) I can't link the patterns together very far. They didn't promise any quick action but they were intriquged enough to discuss the issue. I suspect they saw more than could be admitted to.

 

WRT to this one, my favorite is 'item is no longer available' which means someone closed the auction with what appeared to be a good offer. Snakeskin MT wouldn't be a low end pen. Usually the seller loses out. Risky if eBay gets wind of someone selling outside the system.

 

FB

[ian1964]

"Risky if eBay gets wind of someone selling outside the system."

 

How so? I am genuinely interested in the answer.

 

Surely all they can do is ban the seller which is in effect a bit of a Pyrrhic Victory. For me, I find Ebay anything other than helpful in selling and am not surprised some sell outside the system. I dabbled for a while selling on Ebay and found them far to controlling to carry on. There are many other routes to sell these days and at much better value. Many sellers drop a flyer in the box with the product and encourage me to save money and buy direct...which I do.

[Effin1]

I just closed an item, admittedly I had no bids, but I had listed and then found out it had a hairline in cap. My son spotted it not me. Pulled it immediately. I am going to relist in a job lot and disclose the hairline but I need to include a few more pens. I also withdrew 1, again with no bids when I realised it was a colour I did not have in my collection. Sage green snorkel. I have never pulled to sell back channel.

[Cryptos]

C_T

I did have a chat with eBay on the auction you pointed me to with the user that has a high bid retraction rate. I too had a recent run of auctions in which I was a bidder with a bid retraction and re-bid. We also discussed these. With the way all the IDs are now well hidden (which may be partially my fault) I can't link the patterns together very far. They didn't promise any quick action but they were intriquged enough to discuss the issue. I suspect they saw more than could be admitted to.

 

WRT to this one, my favorite is 'item is no longer available' which means someone closed the auction with what appeared to be a good offer. Snakeskin MT wouldn't be a low end pen. Usually the seller loses out. Risky if eBay gets wind of someone selling outside the system.

 

FB

 

Thank you for following this up Farmboy. I have noted that particular 'buyer' hardly ever wins anything. Benefit of the doubt and it's just a hopeful lowball fisher versus high suspicion that they may be something a lot more sinister. The bid retractions alone lead me to fall on the side of suspicion.

 

 

I didn't think the snakeskin MT would be a low end pen but it was listed at a very low starting price and I had the sneaking feeling - nothing more - that the someone might try to 'get at' the seller. So I opened the auction to try to prevent that. Didn't work apparently (in the absence of any actual facts about what really happened). I had a rummage through the sellers previous sales comments and noticed that there were no other pens sold out of 170 or so comments from buyers, and everything was mostly very low priced goods.

[Left FPN]

"Risky if eBay gets wind of someone selling outside the system."

 

How so? I am genuinely interested in the answer.

 

Surely all they can do is ban the seller which is in effect a bit of a Pyrrhic Victory. For me, I find Ebay anything other than helpful in selling and am not surprised some sell outside the system. I dabbled for a while selling on Ebay and found them far to controlling to carry on. There are many other routes to sell these days and at much better value. Many sellers drop a flyer in the box with the product and encourage me to save money and buy direct...which I do.

In the conditions, they, ebay, can still charge the 10% fee.

[Cryptos]

I don't believe it! Happened again. This time on a 45 Insignia that I was in the process of making an offer on. I was countering their counteroffer - if you see what I mean - and when I went to check this evening the listing had been yanked. The BIN wasn't terribly high, just outside of my range hence the haggling with offers.

 

No biggie. I was fishing really.

[Barkingpig]

Some people are not receptive to "countering their counter offers" I suppose. I have always heard tales of dealers @ shows after offering their lowest price to a customer & hearing them react in a negative way simply "SMASH" the item if it was indeed of a breakable sort. Sometimes followed with a response of "Well I guess I didn't REALLY need to sell it after all." Perhaps this was a similar circumstance.

I have never minded accepting reasonable offers nor been embarrassed to tender them BUT I can see how some people might "take offense" @ "lowball" offers as indicative of their sale merchandise quality. I suppose they thinks if such offer is reflective of their item's quality then what makes the customer PERSIST in attempting to purchase said item? Probably witnessing such behaviour is one reason I have never had any interest in selling @ a show.

[Cryptos]

Perhaps, though in my case my offer was mostly based on historical prices for this particular model of pen, not a low ball offer per se.

[Dickkooty2]

I have found a very good list of sellers of German vintage pens who always seem to have interesting offerings. I have bought whether through the bidding process if that is how the item is listed, or the buy it now/make an offer method. I have found either method satisfactory. I usually follow through with the seller to thank them for making the particular pen available to me. I also pay very quickly which I am sure is an attractive characteristic to someone looking for cashflow to consider some pretty low offers to some items where the value is really in the eye of the purchaser rather than an established market value.

 

That Dick in Hood River

[ThomasB]

ebay has recently (last year or so) made some attempts to curb this type of action, but the scope only applies to a subset of listers...WARNING--This may take a while and bore you: About 3 yrs ago ebay instituted a program under the title of Top Rated Seller. As part of this move, they changed the effective ebay final value fee from 7% of final value to 9% of final value for collectible items, BUT the carrot for a discount of the fee was to meet the criteria of the "Top Rated Seller" program and thus get a 20% reduction of the value fee. At the time, the criteria was relatively easy to meet ( I don't recall the specifics) and a lot of sellers qualified so by the math no harm no foul. Fast forward to I think August of 14 and they instituted new criteria for the program centered around "Defect Rate". Long story short--you have to maintain a less than 2% defect rate in order to maintain the Top Rated status. There are seven categories in which a listing can have a defect, including neutral feedback, a rating of 3 or less, return of item, ENDING A LISTING EARLY, etc. With these changes, it has become much harder to maintain the status as our hobby has a very subjective condition/performance rating system (a topic of lengthy discussion over the years). For instance, a recent "defect" of one of my listings is that a buyer purchased a pen with a FINE nib (clearly pictured and described), but realized later that they wanted a stub/italic nib ( in their words, "wrote thin lines across and thick lines down") and filed a return request with ebay. So, if a seller wants to maintain Top Rated status and receive the 20% discount, it is in their best interests to not end listings early as it may put them over the 2% threshold. In my case, the 20% discount represents about ~$1400/year, so the motivation is there.

Edited April 18, 2015 by tbickiii

[Dickkooty2]

From the post above:

 

In my case, the 20% discount represents about ~$1400/year, so the motivation is there.

 

WOW! What a Byzantine system! It is so much easier to be an ebay buyer! Thank you for sticking with it, all you sellers with the great selections of vintage pens and ad materials, quality gravure photography examples, stamps, and the great number of things that come to mind and for which ebay is a great source.

[MrThoth]

 

 

Some people are not receptive to "countering their counter offers" I suppose.

 

As someone who does a great deal of buying on eBay, I have to say that few things bother me more than sellers who list a "Make Offer" price but then never bother to respond to offers at all. Simply rejecting all offers with no explanation or counteroffer is bad enough, but never replying to them is intensely aggravating. "Counteroffers" that involve dropping the original price three or four dollars also fall into the "you deserve to win the Red Foreman Swift Kick in the Ass Prize" category.

 

If you don't want to negotiate in good faith, that's fine by me. But if that's the case, don't advertise that you're willing to negotiate in good faith.

 

In particular, I'm thinking of one pen I've had my eye on for nearly a year. The seller keeps relisting it, month after month, for the same price, with a "Make Offer" option. I've made at least a dozen offers, and he literally hasn't so much as responded to a single one. As a result, instead of getting a nice chunk of my money months ago, he's getting nothing -- because another one of these pens finally came on the market for under half of what he was asking and I bought it right away. What's more, because that seller was so responsive and friendly, when it turned out he'd underestimated the shipping prices from the UK I was happy to chip in a little more to cover the cost. Despite what they say about nice guys finish last, I think fair dealing and a pleasant attitude will usually get you a lot further in the long run.

[MrThoth]

 

 

Perhaps, though in my case my offer was mostly based on historical prices for this particular model of pen, not a low ball offer per se.

 

I've made such offers in the past, and explained my reasoning to the seller. In one case the offer was accepted. In the other, the seller, a commercial dealer, said he simply couldn't afford to sell the pen for that little, and we parted on amicable terms. That's the way to do it. I don't hold anything against that seller and would be willing to try to buy from him again even though that particular deal didn't work out, because he was up-front with me about the situation.