I’m sure many of you are familiar with the “Second Chance” feature, where, if you were the runner-up in an auction, and the winner backs out of the deal, the seller can offer the item to you. Let me break down how this worked in a recent auction:
Bidder A bids a max of $25.
I (Blowero) bid a max of $42.
Bidder B bids more than $42, thus winning the auction at $43.
Bidder B subsequently flakes out on completing the transaction.
Seller offers the item to me for $42.
What’s wrong with this picture? If Mr. Flake-o (Bidder B) hadn’t put in his bogus bid, I would have won the auction for $26. If someone bids with no real intention of buying the item, I consider that an invalid bid. I should be offered the chance to buy the item for $26; why should I have to pay my maximum bid, when it was only bumped up to that price due to the sham bid by Bidder B?
Now some of you are probably thinking: “But Blowero, why would you bid $42 if you’re not willing to pay that much?” My answer to that is that there is a reasonable expectation that you might get the item for less. If there wasn’t, what would be the point of having an auction at all?
And when you think about it, this system is easily abused. If the seller and the sham bidder are in cahoots, they can succeed in raising the price to the high bidder’s maximum bid. After the sham bidder drops out, the seller can then offer the item to the person as a “Second Chance Offer” and thus always be guaranteed to get their maximum bid amount.
Blowero tells the seller to piss off, he can have it at $26, relist the item, or send a second chance to someone who will pay $25 or less.
You can also opt out of receiving second chances, if they bug you that much. I’m also surprised that eBay does it this way, it’s an invitation to shill bidding and fraud.
It’s not that it bugs me to get the email; it’s easy enough to disregard. Your latter point is the reason I wrote the thread. I don’t agree with the way Ebay handles it.
As a longtime eBay seller, when I send a second-chance offer, I send it at the losing bidder’s highest bid. After all, it is what you appeared to be willing to pay for it, right?
In most cases, the buyers have just taken the offer, completed the deal, and we’re done, but sometimes the buyer wants to know if I’m willing to negotiate. Well, hell yes, I’ll negotiate. I don’t have shill bidders running up my prices. When a bidder backs out on a high bid, I’m getting screwed, and most of the time I’m perfectly happy to come to an agreement with the next-highest bidder.
(I say “most of the time” because there was an instance where the next-highest bidder accused me of shill bidding, which pissed me off and caused me to withdraw my offer.)
So, email the guy, Blowero. Worst that can happen is he says “no.”
I disagree with your logic there. My maximum bid remains hidden from the seller unless another bidder bids higher. Were it not for the bogus bid, the seller never would have even known what I “appeared to be willing to pay for it”.
Are you sure this is true? I believe that after an auction is over, all bids are public. It’s certainly the case that you can see what other people’s bids were when you have participated in the auction.
Since we’re on the subject of eBay: I was just browsing through auctions for DVDs and came across one asshat of a seller who was charging $7.00 for “flat rate tracked shipping.” Seven fucking dollars? :eek: :rolleyes: :wally
You can see the bids, but not the maximum bid. The maximum bid is shielded. The only time it becomes public knowledge is when someone outbids you, because the system will automatically bids for you up to your maximum amount. But if nobody outbids you, your maximum amount is known only to you.
I’m pretty sure that’s how it works. In every completed auction I’ve ever seen, the high bid is equal to the selling price. People quite often win auctions for less than the maximum amount they entered, but the bidding history never shows a final bid that’s higher than the selling price.
I once got the “second chance” notice, literally seconds after the auction ended. Seconds.
On the off-chance that he wasn’t actually trying to rip me off, I didn’t tell him to go fuck himself, but I was close. I sure let him know what I thought about that practice.
Sellers wanna keep pulling this shit, then more and more people like me are growing cold on Ebay. I guess they keep growing, but as a buyer, I just NEVER feel like its fair anymore.
I agree that the dirty bidding thing is bad but Second Chance offers are sometimes just that. I sell something that I have a dozen of one at a time but if two people drive up the bids I will happily offer the losing bidder one of my items at their last bid.
I hate to see people disappointed and I loves making money.
It kind of goes hand in hand with my other Ebay pet peeve: The fact that they aren’t serious enough about discouraging non-paying bidders. In a real auction, your bid is a contract. If you win a live auction, you better believe you’re gonna be paying them. But Ebay’s ‘barely a slap on the wrist’ policy does little to discourage non-paying flakes. Since these non-paying bidders are so common, I think they should be treated exactly the same as a retracted bid. If Bidder A bids $25, I bid $42, and Bidder B bids $43, BUT THEN BIDDER B RETRACTS HIS BID, I don’t have to pay $42. It reverts to what I would have paid if Bidder B hadn’t bid at all. So why should I have to pay more just because Bidder B is too stupid to retract his bid before the auction ends?
It would have shown as $26 until the last 20 seconds or so.