What give with strange anomalous high prices on ebay

That happens with a health product I buy on Amazon regularly. Every once in a while it will be out of stock and at an absurd price, then a week or two later in stock at $59.95.

I’ve seen so many in the last week I’m beginning to thnk there is a strategy to it, having to do with being seen as the top result on a search for “Highest price.”

Also there is a thing I notice in myself where I get a notion to buy something and the whole sample I use to figure out what a good price is is just what’s on ebay that moment. It’s skewed. I wonder if this is another human hack that we are subject to.

Then there’s “my wife told me I had to sell one of my guitars” so I’m offering a Vintage Piece o’ Crap® for the low low price of $5,000…

I think it’s often just sucker fishing. Amazon.ca’s marketplace is full of vendors selling things for outrageous prices. Not just books, but all kinds of products. A projector bulb that is $289 retail might be in the marketplace for $800. I recently saw an older ATI graphics card (not rare, just a couple of years out of date) listed for $4300. I was going to buy a watch that was $89 on Amazon.com, and some joker on Amazon.ca was selling them for around $500. I think MSRP on them was around $150.

I have certainly seen examples of canned food items – sometimes coffee – being priced way above normal. I have wondered if some sellers think that a foreign prince will think that price = quality. Why sell hundreds of bags of coffee for a 10% profit when once a quarter or so, you can sell one bag for a 10000% profit?

I just got a Facebook notification about someone selling Brugmansia cuttings (stems you can use to raise new plants):

"(…) added 15 photos in Brugmansia Marketplace: “Cuttings $123,456,789 - Dallas, Texas”

That seems a bit pricey, even if they drive a tractor-trailer full of cuttings to your house…

No. Highly unlikely. Unless of course these high prices are sold, in which case, more using stolen cards, etc.

Yes, that’s a good article. However, it really isn’t money laundering, per se. It just using stolen cards. It’s fraud more than money laundering.