Strange bids on Ebay, first time I see this case.

[Bruno]

Hi,

 

Yesterday I bid on a showa era blade from a well known seller. I bid twice on the very last seconds.

 

My first bid was at $605 and the second at $630. I lost the auction. 

 

The strange part is on the Ebay bids historic. It says the best bidder (winner of the auction) put $950 and I am the second best bidder at....$940!

 

What bothers me is that I have never bid $940, my max bid was $630. One more weird thing, is that none of my real $605 and $630 bids appear on the bids historic, only the fake $940 bid.

 

Has this ever happen to anybody else here?

 

Thanks

 

NB : I am following this seller's sales for years, and I know pretty well at what price his swords used to go. And this one went for way more than usual considering its condition.

[b.hennick]

EBay is strange. My login name and associated email and my 300+ positives disappeared. When I contacted them, they said that I hadn't used the account for more than two years. I provided #s of items purchased, or emails to me from them, etc. They have done nothing. I stopped using ebay.

[Bruno]

36 minutes ago, b.hennick said:

EBay is strange. My login name and associated email and my 300+ positives disappeared. When I contacted them, they said that I hadn't used the account for more than two years. I provided #s of items purchased, or emails to me from them, etc. They have done nothing. I stopped using ebay.

I agree Barry, Ebay is strange and opaque. I won't bother to write them as like in your case, they won't do anything.

 

That's too bad as there are from time to time interesting deals there, when you know what to look for. The one I bid on was one of them...

 

Hopefully it was a scam bidder and the seller will re-list the sword.

[John A Stuart]

I only use 'buy it now' from trusted sellers and rarely at that. It is too much shenanigans for me. John

[Bruno]

20 minutes ago, John A Stuart said:

I only use 'buy it now' from trusted sellers and rarely at that. It is too much shenanigans for me. John

 

Yes John, one is never too cautious on this website.

 

Not sure what exactly happened in my case, wish I could know.

[16k]

Bruno, are you sure the discrepancy doesn’t originate with the Euro/$ conversion?

[ChrisW]

30 minutes ago, 16k said:

Bruno, are you sure the discrepancy doesn’t originate with the Euro/$ conversion?

It is probably having to do with this. You were probably viewing an item in your currency, but were expected to pay in the converted currency. This happens a lot.

[Bruno]

JP and Chris, yes I thought that too, but have checked the conversion, it does not match at all.

 

I am sure I did bid in $ and not Euro. And I bid two times whereas historic shows only one bid.

 

Still strange...

 

 

 

 

[Rich S]

Problems with Ebay and Paypal are why I left Ebay years ago. Just not worth the hassle.

Rich

[Bruno]

Seller just told me the winner of the auction was....SHOWA22. That makes it even harder to swallow!

 

He will ruin the sword again with his acid polish and resell it. 

[Curran]

When it comes to sword fittings, there was a time when good bargains could be found on Yahoo!Japan.

Now it has gotten quite dangerous and too many bidders that bid on anything looking half decent.

 

The last year or two, eBay has been interesting. People have been so burned by it that there is very little competition for when a good tsuba comes up.

I'm not saying they come up that often, but I've been a bit stunned. An extremely good Hoan tsuba, another tsuba from one of the Big Collections, etc..   not obvious bling ones, but good ones. I was stunned to pick a Yagyu off there recently. Sort of a plain jane one, and I doubted it until it came out of its packaging, but there it was.

 

 

[Bruno]

I agree with you Curran. Ebay is risky but there are still some interesting deals.

[Curran]

I narrow my search to North America and Europe.  That takes it from 5000 items to about 500.

    Too many arbitragers and dealer posts from Japan listing large amounts of rusty junk, or cross posting things from Yahoo!Japan.

[Ken-Hawaii]

Cross-posting is to be expected, as many use one or the other platform. I've seen something similar on my bids, Bruno, but not as far apart as yours, & always in Euro.

[Surfson]

eBay is deep water, but there are still some big fish.