Want to see EXCESSIVE?

[jbwelda]

check it out:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/171887681445?_trksid=p2060353.m1438.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT

 

currently sitting at 400$, 57 bids, and a day and a half to go.

for the Aurora 34 Ford kit.

wow.

check out the bid history...one dude has hit this thing 40+ of those 57 bids. that's crazy. and I rarely truly believe fraudulent, but this one certainly sniffs of it just a little. course, the guy in the lead did have to place a 400$ plus bid. and he has been doing it sensibly, thudding down a sizeable bid, not like the other guy who is nickel and diming him to death.

but mr. nickel and dime may be back. the seller is sittin in tall corn counting his money!

jb

 

[slusher]

I Have seen sellers relist items that sold for good prices 3 or 4 times.  Hard to believe 3 or more people didn't pay the same seller 3 times for the same item..

[jbwelda]

so does that mean you think the "high bidder" was actually the seller or his shill? and that the game was to run up the price of the item up but not so far they actually "win" it but instead take a gullible bidder, who has in good faith placed a high bid on something he wants enough to pay big money for it, and run the current bid up to his high bid?

because that really doesn't make much sense. much more likely they will end up having to relist the item because they just "bought it" from themselves and if they don't challenge the auction ending, they end up paying ebay fees...for nothing. and if they do challenge it and claim non payment or some other excuse, ebay pretty much figures that little scam out pretty quick. so they will get away with challenging a few auctions and then ebay will pull the carpet. not likely that's a very good business plan.

or if you have some other scam in mind, I am all ears. I just never have been able to figure out the logic of supposed scams like bidding on your own item without ending up still owning it and having to pay ebay for the pleasure.

jb

 

[Petetrucker07]

I've had this happen to me, a few times. Just not on such high priced items like this. I get out bid, the item runs up my max, I get out bid. Then a few hours later I get an email with an offer to buy it since I was second highest bidder.

 

[chitownbri]

I"ll guarantee you the bidder thats doing the nickel and dime bidding is the seller, I see it happening all the time.

And if the seller ends up winning his own item all he has to do is cancel the auction, that way the item can be relisted

and the faux buyer is off the hook.

[Ace-Garageguy]

The incremental bidder also has a rating of only 13. I've seen, many times, low-number bidders drive prices up idiotically like this, only to see the item re-listed later, and the bidding stay at realistic numbers.

Shill? Little twinkie bidder who doesn't realize a bid is a contract, or maybe thinks it's cutesy fun to do this, and has to get mommy to get him let off the hook? Who knows?

Anyway, last time I followed these Aurora '34 kits, they went for $60 to $120 usually, depending on the day, who's bidding, and exact condition. I bought one for $75.

And anyone who thinks they're going to "win" an auction by bidding low, early, is delusional.

 

Edited August 18, 2015 by Ace-Garageguy

[BigTallDad]

Note that a lot of the bids are auto-bids too, which would account for the high number and low-dollar amounts

[Crazy Ed]

What'd make this more Fun'd be if the listing indicated "Hasn't Met Reserve"!

[modelercarl]

I have done quite a bit of bidding on EBay and never understood sellers setting a "reserve" price.  If a seller has a set price they want for an item why not cut out all of the useless bidding by making their "reserve" the staring price?

[jbwelda]

so what the majority here seem to be saying is that once this auction is completed, instead of the item disappearing to the high bidder, one of three things will happen:

1) the auction will be cancelled and then restarted, and the item will ultimately sell for a lot less than what it is sitting at right now. because the artificially high price is all the product of one person, the person with 13 feedbacks, who is obviously a shill and will ultimately win the auction, or

2) the auction will end but the high bidder (in this case the guy with 13 feedbacks) will cancel his high bid and the guy with 400 feedbacks will "win" the auction (but one major problem with this case: he DOES NOT HAVE TO BUY the item and of course in that case its pretty obvious he has been had by a shill bidder and would not buy it in that circumstance anyhow). so, presumably, the auction will be resubmitted and will ultimately sell for way less than this auction finished for,  or

3) the auction will end with the guy with 400 feedbacks placing the high bid and will be stuck paying an unreasonably high price for the kit (the wished for result from the perspective of the seller/shill bidder)...cheated by the seller who has shill bid him into bidding way more than the kit is worth. and since the guy is presumably not THAT stupid, the auction will be invalidated and the item offered up again, and will ultimately sell for way less than this auction finished at.

this,  I submit, is pure fantasy.

note that the high bidder, with 400+ feedbacks, has since submitted another bid, upping his current high bid of four hundred dollars. actually that is not strictly true because we did not and do not know what his previous high bid actually is, or was, just that he has submitted another bid on top of that one since I pointed out this auction.

one might also note that the seller, the purported unfair player who is bidding on his own item here, has been an ebay user for five years, and has 751 feedbacks, the vast vast majority of them positive. I doubt someone with this track record is doing something as obviously against the rules like shill bidding. there is also no indication of his ever cancelling auctions after they closed...something ebay notes on the users page when it happens.

also note the high bid is now 430$ due to the guy with 13 fbs coming back and hammering the guys bid up once again. if this is the seller cheating, he certainly is not being subtle about it.

so I don't see the scenario described in the three options  I described above happening, not at all. once this auction is finished I believe it will stay finished. lets all wait and see...I will post further developments here. meanwhile I will take any and all bets on that not being the outcome. PM me, here is your chance to take this sucker for his money. you people who are so positive you know what is happening, and that what is happening is larceny, be sure to hang around so you can explain how what you predicted did not come to pass.

jb

 

Edited August 18, 2015 by jbwelda

[aurfalien]

Ah JB, you are a poet and you know it.

Wouldn't it be hilarious if it was his snipping software gone amuck and he's on vacation and out of pocket meaning unable to recieve electronic correspondance of any kind?

OMG now that would be funny and sad.  But then again humor is humor due to being sadly funny?

[jbwelda]

I mean this to be a separate post but it will probably get merged with my previous post

>Note that a lot of the bids are auto-bids too

none of the shown bids are "auto-bids", not unless you click the "show automatic bids" text and then you see the automatic bids, all from the guy with 400 fbs and all resulting in his incrementally raising the current high bid in response to the guy with 13 fbs hammering him. NONE of the 13 fb guy's bids appear to be automatic.

also the reason for the reserve price vs a high starting bid is largely psychological. theoretically a high starting bid will stop people from bidding while a low start bid with a high reserve encourages people to bid and often results in a bidding war that causes the price to go over the reserve where it might not if it were stated as a starting bid. I also believe (don't really know because never use reserves myself) using a high starting bid causes the seller to pay higher fees for the auction than if he starts with a low bid with reserve, or has some other less than obvious ramifications. "reserve" is largely something carried over from real live auctions to the virtual auctions of ebay; something that makes more sense in a live auction than its virtual cousin. in a live auction, a high starting bid often guarantees no bids at all, whereas a low starting bid with a secret reserve encourages bidding whether the item ultimately sells or not.

jb

[aurfalien]

Very true, auctions and bidding are VERY phsychological.

A case in point as I'm sure many here have seen;

I saw an auction go up for an LS Porche Carrara 6.  The bidding got heated and eneded at $50.

The following week I snagged 1 for $10.

The bidding frenzy almost got a hold of me as its both exciting and competative.

 

[Russell C]

... Note that a lot of the bids are auto-bids too  none of the shown bids are "auto-bids", not unless you click the "show automatic bids" text and then you see the automatic bids ...

 I hadn't been paying attention to bidding pages like that before, but sure enough on this one:  http://offer.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewBids&item=171887681445&showauto=true

I did a quick copy 'n paste of the "r***j" / "a***l" bids into the wordcounter.com site, and the score is 49 to 48 so far on the bid count between the two.

[jbwelda]

this appears to be a dream auction for the seller: two bidders with deep pockets bidding on the same item, both with a willingness to bid way more than the kit "usually" goes for. I am interested to see how this pans out. I think it is a 100% legit auction; the only thing I question is whether the challenger, as it were, is really meaning to bid it up this high...but for sure the guy in the lead has placed a massive legit bid on the item.

I also did not mean to rule out sniping software on the part of the challenger...the only problem with that is sniping software usually only goes into effect in the last bit of the auction, not days out, or it would not be effective. I just have the picture in my mind of someone sitting at the keyboard hammering away a 10$ bid at a time but it could be he has some sort of auto bid software going on there. and at some point I know you have to state max bid even for sniping software so the guy theoretically at least has stated a very high max for this item. I personally do not see any signs of fraud or cheating in this auction at all, just two people bound and determined to get this kit in this supposed condition...again a sellers dream.

we will see today...will the auction complete without being cancelled, will the bids go significantly higher, will the auction be cancelled after it closes and the item get relisted...only to ultimately sell for way less than what is happening here so far...all very good questions.

jb 
 

[GLMFAA1]

Sad to see 'what you see is what you get' The darn thing is missing a lot of parts esp the brass plated tree, hood, lots of stock parts

I guess the box might be worth it.

greg

[b-body fan]

I've noticed selling on eBay that some of my hard to find vintage items brought strong money from the foreign markets. (I'm in the U.S.). Some things are very hard to get overseas and just cost more because of it. 

[aurfalien]

This is indeed a strange auction, now at $440.  I suppose there may be hard to find items in foreign markets but still seems off.  That is to those of us who work for a living.

It could be some one on orders to buy this model at all costs for say, some sheik etc...

I've worked for ppl who simpy throw money away, more so than water.

Edited August 19, 2015 by aurfalien

[jbwelda]

>I did a quick copy 'n paste of the "r***j" / "a***l" bids into the wordcounter.com site, and the score is 49 to 48 so far on the bid count between the two.

you do realize thought that "rj" has not really been making all those bids, those are automatic bids ebay has placed to counter the actual bids placed by "al". "rj" has only placed four bids:

Aug-16-15 09:54:36 PDT  200$

Aug-17-15 17:57:07 PDT  300$

Aug-17-15 19:09:29 PDT  440$

(could be higher, we do not know at this point what this actual bid was)

Aug-18-15 05:17:59 PDT  for we do not know how much at this point because he was merely raising his prior bid.

 

note that if there is shill bidding involved, this raising of ones own bid is a flag to the shill to bid some more because the guy obviously has a

higher bid than even his current bid was (and at this point you really don't know what that bid was...just that it was >= 440$)

and he made that obvious by raising his own bid. this is stuff you learn after you track auctions for a while, its

not really obvious on the face of it until you realize how things work.

 

this is one bone I have with ebay and its bidding reporting...used to be if you raised your current winning bid it did not show in the bid analysis

and thereby kept it a secret that you are raising your own bid. the way it is now, with the bid history showing you upped your own bid, leaves you open to predatory bidding by others just to get your bid up higher

if they want...either through malice (just want to see you pay more for the heck of it) or because they are actually shilling for the seller. there are other hints

about what a bidders true bid is but I won't bore you with the details now.

 

jb

 

Edited August 19, 2015 by jbwelda

[jbwelda]

sold for 440$, lets see if anything further happens like the auction gets cancelled and relisted or other red flags...

meanwhile the seller has got to be fist pumping the air and the buyer wondering if in fact all the parts are there. as someone mentioned, they are not, but the seller did show exactly what was included and indicated so in his auction text so to my standards anyhow, that is fair

why the heck one person, not to mention two, ever thought this kit was worth that amount of change, I will never know. as has been pointed out here and elsewhere, the kit is basically a pile of carp even if it were complete, and not being complete...well, it just boggles the mind. I was originally watching it and hoping I could grab it for 50$ or so, if only just for the box and bodies. I got disabused of that notion rather quickly, like a swift kick in the rear end.

jb

 

Edited August 19, 2015 by jbwelda

[Ace-Garageguy]

Maybe it's the very last one in the universe. Usually, there's at least one of these things on ebay, but there aren't any now. Fer shur...some folks are going to be asking stupid opening bids for these if this auction remains in force.

I have seen this kit complete, unstarted, in the original plastic bags internally, with a very good open box go for about $120. I paid $75 for 100% complete, with about 5 parts glued, good box.

I'm very familiar with this kit, and it DOES appear to be complete or very close to it. (There was no "brass plated tree" ...mentioned above...as part of this particular kit, by the way). The black stock hood top and both sides are present as well. The green version had no hood included in the box. Ever.

Both chrome trees are present, and even all 4 cycle fenders are there (one's loose).

Still, $120, tops. heck...I would have paid $120 to get another one.

Edited August 20, 2015 by Ace-Garageguy

[Tom Geiger]

Amazingly stupid bidders.... all of them! Even the guys who bid under $100 early on, just bid on eBay and let their cards be shown! And some of them have over 1,000 feedback so they're no newbies.  Just stupid.

The newbie with 13 feedback was chipping at the other guy's proxie bid $5-10 at a time to see where he was.  I've seen this same thing done for a dollar a bid.  It looks like RJ put in a $200 proxie bid and when newbie chiseled at it until he got to be high bidder,  RJ came back and put in a proxie bid in excess of $440.

Now if RJ was smart and sniped the auction,  newbie would have sat tight at $102.50 since he was the high bidder at right after RT's $99 bid.  He would've sat fat, dumb and happy until a smarter RJ swooped in with sniper software with six seconds left and would've only paid $105. 

That auction is a perfect example of how important it is to bid with sniper software!  

 

 

[GLMFAA1]

I stand corrected about the parts, I missed the other pictures, but the box cover does mention chrome and brass plated parts

greg

[aurfalien]

That auction is a perfect example of how important it is to bid with sniper software! 

Well its a good thing I don't snipe as I was bidding on 1/24 Resilient Resins Honker Can Am Slot Car body plus donor kit and parts.

But my heart wasn't into it and I'm glad to have lost.  I'll leave scratch builds like that for a much later time as I already have a few that I'm not yet ready for.

[jbwelda]

where was there a "proxie bid"? I didn't see anything about that. the guy who ultimately won placed four bets as I outlined above. its not a "proxie bid" to do that. I am not even sure what a "proxie bid" is, but I am pretty sure that is not it. he bid, he got outbid so he bid another good chunk and he continued to do so until he ultimately prevailed. got taken for a ride, but prevailed.

and that scenario you depict forgets one thing: if the price stayed around 100$, instead of jumping to 400 as noted here, others would have been bidding and raising the ante.

sniping software ought to be banned. it is one of the features that has near ruined ebay, along with ridiculous buy it now prices.

jb

 

Edited August 20, 2015 by jbwelda