Dodgy Auction

High guys.

I need an opinion from a seasoned vet. I was recently following what I saw as a fantastic lot in an EBAY auction. Many great razors from an old barbers collection. The auction was suddenly cancelled with about 22 hours to go! There seemed to be regular bidding heading toward a possible war, which I had heavy artillery prepared for. Many of you likely came across it, as I did, and watched in anticipation, only to have the plug pulled (citing an error in initial bid or reserve). Surely this is wrong. Is this common place? I messaged the vendor asking about a relist with no reply.
I smell a rat. What do you think?:mad:

I have had the same thing happen, guy made an excuse and never relisted it. Someone probably emailed him and offered him a good enough buy out price that he yanked the auction.

Happens all the time. You're not supposed to do this but ebay gives a couple of reasons that justify early ending. You can quote one of those, no one checks.

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Originally Posted by M1ke

I have had the same thing happen, guy made an excuse and never relisted it. Someone probably emailed him and offered him a good enough buy out price that he yanked the auction.

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Thats kind of what I thought had happened. Its such very poor form... Where is the honour or sense of fair play in that? I am keeping the photos of the razors from the auction as a personal record of unfairly purchased razors.. my own little black book of ebay cheating shame razors:boohoo:

You're right,it is about Honor or Fair play.When I sold a few razors a while back,I would always get email asking me to end the auction early if I pay you x-dollars for it.I always told them"Sorry,NO that would be unfair to the other bidders".They always try,and sometimes the seller goes for it.

By it's very nature, the whole idea of ebay is to get as much money as you can for what you are selling by marketing your item well and getting maximum exposure. So I'm not really surprised that sellers cancel auctions early when they think they are getting an amazing offer. Doing this is as much of a gamble for the buyer as it is for the seller, unless one knows significantly more than the other about the supply and demand for the particular item.

Its just bad form to end the auction early, if youve got the highest bid you will get the item, why pull the auction early other than simple greed.

In the past I've had a few different nicknames for ebay (such as fee-bay, which is my favorite), but now I'm thinking greed-bay will be added to my list. I know it's "capitalism," but isn't that just the name of a system driven by greed designed to maximize profits and minimize expenditures?

All is fair in love, war and razor collecting. :cool:

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Originally Posted by JimmyHAD

All is fair in love, war and razor collecting. :cool:

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I think so too. You'd be surprised at how low of a price the seller let me have that lot for :)

Kidding of course. I have made offers in the past but I always request that the buyer change the auction to a Buy It Now so I could buy it right then. But once bidding starts, it can't be done

Bummer :(

I sold a 27 razor lot on Monday and I got the same type of message, someone asking for a BIN. In the end, they said they'd have offered $100 more than what the final price was. I told them that the items are listed and the auction would run its course. I agree that's in poor form.

I'm not an Ebay veteran, but I'll say this. In the relatively small number of items I've sold on Ebay and received similar offers in the past, and which I refused every time to pull an auction to sell to a party outside the auction, not once would the private offer have ended up being MORE than what the item/s ended up actually selling for. I wonder if things have turned? Meaning, I wonder if we as a group are a lotta lookers now given the economy and not as aggressive or willing to be buyers.:shrug:

Here's my opinion for what it's worth since I've bought AND sold some razors on Ebay. We're all looking for the deals. We're looking for listings from antique dealers or private parties that DON'T know even the approximate value of razors. I think we'd all have to admit that. There's nothing wrong with it. The few times I have sold razors on Ebay, since my aim is to sell it/them rather than give them away I've smiled at the fact that there are so many lookers and few that will pay what I think they're they're actually worth. I'm guilty of it myself, case in point:

Of the excellent condition, near mint razors in my small collection that I've amassed, I've gotten sweet deals on most all of them. I would probably not have a single one of those razors in my collection if I would have had to pay what I and I would venture to say most others who collect and use razors would put their actual value at (remembering razor monetary value opinions are only opinions).

Interesting stuff this collecting.

Chris L