Dealer offing to cancel auction (1 Viewer)

[jomartvr]

Hello,

I recently had a bid on a KC vehicle. Prior to the end of the auction the vendor sent the following email to me, "Hi, I see you are bidding on the Vickers, I am open to offers to end the item early if you want to make one, many thanks."

Has anyone had a similar offer before? Seems really suspect.

Any thoughts would be appreciated.
Benjamin

 

[The Military Workshop]

I thought once the bidding had started had to be completed unless the is a Buy It Now Option also.

 

[jomartvr]

I thought once the bidding had started had to be completed unless the is a Buy It Now Option also.

There was no buy it now option.
Benjamin

 

[ostrein]

Obviously the seller was satisfied with the current amount and the number of interests and wants to avoid the eBay charges by cancelling the auction and sell it privat.

eBay doesn't allow this but when you have up to 10% commission to them people are looking for ways to avoid this. I'm not judging this kind of behaviour, but have also stopped selling high value items on eBay because of the high fees.


Oliver

 

[mikemiller1955]

I thought once the bidding had started had to be completed unless the is a Buy It Now Option also.

on an auction that has already received a bid...there is an option to "end item"...

you can remove it for various reasons..."broken"..."lost"..."sold"...etc...

or just stop it...and sell to the highest bidder at that time...

I have done it before for a buyer that was adding it to a group of auctions he had already won...

his earlier ending won auctions had not been shipped yet...so this way he could combine it with their shipping...

I did it as a favor...I could have let the auction play out...and maybe he would have been outbid and lost (where I would have made more money)...

but he had made such a large purchase already...so I didn't mind closing it immediately for him so I could ship it all together...

 

[Larry Allen]

Hello Benjamin;
As Mike just mentioned, sometimes sellers will end an auction if a "favorite" buyer is bidding and they already have something waiting to ship. I have had that happen three times. I won a couple of figures and was bidding on a third that was ending in three days. He PM me and said the he will end the auction and let me have it for that price. Saved him time and me shipping.

So in my cases it was fine. If you use Paypal or some other secure payment you have some sort of safety net. Does the Seller have a good rating?

Larry

 

[mikemiller1955]

Hello Benjamin;
As Mike just mentioned, sometimes sellers will end an auction if a "favorite" buyer is bidding and they already have something waiting to ship. I have had that happen three times. I won a couple of figures and was bidding on a third that was ending in three days. He PM me and said the he will end the auction and let me have it for that price. Saved him time and me shipping.

So in my cases it was fine. If you use Paypal or some other secure payment you have some sort of safety net. Does the Seller have a good rating?

Larry

you said that well Larry...better than I did...

 

[jazzeum]

No one has mentioned the situation that I have seen most frequently: a rare item pops up, it draws some bids and then the auction ends with the notation that the item is no longer for sale. What happened is that the seller received an offer he couldn't refuse. I remember a super rare K & C item being on eBay which of course went on everyone's watch list. The auction then ended. We all knew what had happened. I ran into the seller in Chicago a week later and he told me with a big smile that he had gotten a super ridiculous offer that he couldn't pass up.

 

[jomartvr]

No one has mentioned the situation that I have seen most frequently: a rare item pops up, it draws some bids and then the auction ends with the notation that the item is no longer for sale. What happened is that the seller received an offer he couldn't refuse. I remember a super rare K & C item being on eBay which of course went on everyone's watch list. The auction then ended. We all knew what had happened. I ran into the seller in Chicago a week later and he told me with a big smile that he had gotten a super ridiculous offer that he couldn't pass up.

Gentlemen,
Thank you for your insights. By the way the dealer has a good reputation.
Benjamin

 

[BK Trade]

No one has mentioned the situation that I have seen most frequently: a rare item pops up, it draws some bids and then the auction ends with the notation that the item is no longer for sale. What happened is that the seller received an offer he couldn't refuse. I remember a super rare K & C item being on eBay which of course went on everyone's watch list. The auction then ended. We all knew what had happened. I ran into the seller in Chicago a week later and he told me with a big smile that he had gotten a super ridiculous offer that he couldn't pass up.

FYI: I have been selling on eBay since 1998. I have over 16,000 positives. And everytime a buyer offers me a high $$ amount to close an auction early, I first thank the buyer for his interest, tell him "I am sorry but all my auctions are for specified time periods, for maximum viewing by bidders". AND EVERYTIME, without a doubt, THE ITEM SELLS WELL ABOVE THE OFFER TO CLOSE THE AUCTION EARLY. Tom

 

[PanzerAce1944]

IMO, once an item is listed by a seller with a given starting bid or buy it now price it should be left alone for the bidders to handle it.

 

[Gideon]

I've ended items early for various reasons. sure, i've received offers i couldn't refuse, i've made a deal with offline with somebody, sometimes the nature of the deal means that ebays fees would prevent me from being able to accommodate somebody's requests for certain services like personal delivery, etc. Personally, I don't see anything wrong with it. It's not exactly like sitting in an auction house bidding and suddenly they pull the item (which is done all the time). If somebody lists something and doesn't see any real bidding activity and somebody comes along with an offer, to the seller it can seem like there's not much interest so they go ahead with the offer. Seems people are more and more waiting till the last second to bid. That makes a seller worry that there's no interest.

Here is an interesting scenario I encountered two months ago. I sold a very rare tea pot, I thought it was perfect. Turned out there was a chip so the buyer and I agreed to a partial refund. Refund was recorded but the final value fee remained the same. So, I called ebay and they told me there was no way to adjust the FVF so I should just cancel the transaction. Strange but true.