Why are people stupid? Ebay and Porsche Parts - 986 Forum - The Community for Porsche Boxster & Cayman Owners

Perfectlap · 11-08-2006, 08:52 AM

ok so I'm looking for a certain Porsche item and I notice that this particular part is a no reserve auction for an item that is large and can't be shipped.
Meaning: the pool of bidders will be small
Days before the acution close I noticed a few bone heads are bidding up the price well up.

My question:

WHY DO PEOPLE DO THIS???!!!!

so you have a price in your head of what you are willing to pay. Why not just wait until the day of the auction and post your bid a few hours (TOPS) before the auction close.
What is the sense of bidding up the price DAYS[U] before the auction close?
Generally I mark an absolute highest price I'm willing to pay and if I'm sitting near a computer before the close I'll submit ONE bid with a few minutes to go. Sometimes I've have to drive off the highway and duck into a Kinkos to bid on the auction at one of their computers.

There must be a term for a bone head who bids up a price and doesn't end up bidding at all on the day of the auction. That stupidness only helps the seller in a no reserve auction. grrr....

03b0x · 11-08-2006, 09:07 AM

i know what you mean..i hate/love e-bay.

in an auction i'll say to myself with a few days left. alrite i'll bid 50 bucks for this item. then the few minutes left of the auction i see it go up and i say alrite i can go up a little thats fine. within seconds i see myself bidding and trying to outbid buyers and i end up spending 100 dollars when i told myself i was only going to spend 50 haha

maybe im not the only one?

maybe those guys have better self control then we do :P

Perfectlap · 11-08-2006, 09:18 AM

with 20 bazillion people on ebay, bidding before the day of the auction in general seems dumb! Even if you bid let's say $50 for those clear tail lights a few days before the auction, what are the chances that your highest bid will stand for two days with thousands of other watching that same item?? SLIM...
Bidders are working against themselves and in favor of the seller and the Ebay(for their commission) for what reason? You aint winning anything until the day of the auction!

The only time I bid on an item before the auction close if it's a newly listed item with a good 'buy it now' price. Getting an email notice for this is often smart as you see it before most actually search for it.

I'm just completely dumbfounded why people bid on items with days to go. This
is essentialy eliminating the "good deal" area to a very small margin.

I should start my own ebay, one day auctions only, no reserve prices only and each bidder is allowed only one bid. Oh yeah and my website would actually have the outlandish idea of a 1-8000 customer service line.

SD987 · 11-08-2006, 09:25 AM

"I'm just completely dumbfounded why people bid on items with days to go. This
is essentialy eliminating the "good deal" area to a very small margin."

Couldn't agree with you more. For high-demand items, I'm one of those people who comes out of nowhere in the last 30 seconds with a "blow-everyone-out-of-the-water" bid. I've found this to be the most effective strategy, as other bidders are lulled into a false sense of security and I rarely end up paying even close to my bid amount because no one else has time to react.

djomlas · 11-08-2006, 09:30 AM

well if people are putting their max proce, and if urs is higher....if they pist it days or hours before the end, and urs is higher, you will win either way.

but if it wasnt for people like that we wouldnt be able to win some parts/things the way we do.

but i do feel ur pain w the idiots

chiefsalami · 11-08-2006, 09:44 AM

The problem (and it might be the case with this item) is that oftentimes you have newly registered bidders that are on there solely to frustrate and try to screw the sellers. Ebay charges sellers a fee based on a percentage of the final value, and if someone with 0 or small feedback comes in with a massive bid and wins the item, the seller gets stuck with a big bill and nobody to actually pay for the item. Of course, the seller can file a dispute and have the fees refunded, but the process takes about 10 days, you then have to relist your item, and you may have lost that real buyer who moved on to an item that they did win. I've had all this happen to me on multiple occasions. My question is why people even waste time doing this crap - what do they get out of annyoning someone else?

I would have an ebay rule that bidders with feedback under, say 10, would not be able to bid in the last hour of an auction. Kind of an incentive for the sellers because they won't have to deal with this crap, and the bidders would need to "prove themselves" as responsible buyers on ebay.

David N. · 11-08-2006, 09:51 AM

Don't forget tho, there's a whole 'nother side to ebay, the non-high-demand item side. The logic behind the non-high-demand item market is simple, pay only what you want to pay for any given item. Say I want to buy a certain book or game for $5. I go out once a week, hunt for any auctions of that item, and bid $5 on the best looking one. Come back a week later and see if I won, no? Ok, search again, repeat at will until I win it.

I think ebay was originally designed with this sort of system in mind. If the system was really built on actually bidding in the final hours/minutes, it would deny all the people with jobs and schedules that conflicted. So they made the automatic bidding process to allow people to put in their maximum right from the start and it would work it's way up to that by itself.

Bidding at the last second might be necessary for high demand items, but seems like the only people you are outbidding are people who don't properly use the system. People who instead of putting in their maximum willing pay price, will try to step it up a dollar at a time (and end up running out of time). When all the dust clears, it's just about putting in your max willing pay price and hoping for the best.

-David

Travis · 11-08-2006, 09:11 AM

Not all the time it is a stupid bidder but "friends" of the seller making false bids to jack up the price.

Then again you do have the manic compulsive bidder who can not stand to be outbid no mater that the cost of the item is now $10.00 more than at the store

03b0x · 11-08-2006, 09:14 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Travis

Not all the time it is a stupid bidder but "friends" of the seller making false bids to jack up the price.

Then again you do have the manic compulsive bidder who can not stand to be outbid no mater that the cost of the item is now $10.00 more than at the store

thats me!

Travis · 11-08-2006, 09:22 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by 03b0x

thats me!

I started to reply before you had posted and got distracted, then after I submit I read your post and I thought "Oh ********************" I hope he did not think I took a jab at him.

But I think we all get caught up in the bidding in the final moment. I know I have paid more than market on a few items

-cheers