UKC

I've only ever bought things on ebay before, and never taken part in a bidding process. It's always seemed to me (maybe prejudiced) to be a quite shitty process, and tonight my worst fears were confirmed. I put in some final bids as the seconds were running out, including one, with just 5 secs to go, that had quite clearly won. Nothing happened for about a minute and a half and then I was told that I had been outbid. The closing time of the bids was quite clear (21:07:19) and my final bid was five seconds within that. The 'winning' bid came in a minute later, and was backdated by a day. Suspiciously 13p more than my final bid. Obviously a very creepy use of software going on here, that backdates a bid after the event. That final bid (with false time, and 13p above my final bid) was obviously put in AFTER my final bid, and possibly even after the end of the bidding time - yup, we all know, dishonesty reigns supreme.

Won't be trying another ebay bid any time soon. Total slimy crap. Perfectly suited for people who love 'collecting' but never reading or studying anything (and probably not even looking at what they collect). Just bullshitting.

Means an extra trip now to RAF Hendon.

In reply to Gordon Stainforth:

Actually I think you may have misunderstood ebay's bidding system. Not that I use often, so it could be me who's wrong here, but my understanding is this: When you bid, you enter a maximum bid, but that doesn't mean the price shoots up to that straight away. If you win, you actually pay slightly more (5p or whatever) than the second highest bidder. So if you're the second bidder, you put your number in and the price shoots up to just a bit more than that, which looks dodgy, but is how it's supposed to work. If on the other hand you put in more than the other guy, then it goes to his highest bid plus 5p, and if someone else bids then your bid automatically goes up to your limit before they take over.

In reply to Gordon Stainforth:

I aint an expert on ebay but that could be the ebay proxy google automatic-bidding (since the url gets blocked).

There are sniping tools/websites which stick in a bid at the last minute or seconds but cant see that being backdated. Unless ebay got kooky over timezones or something weird. Unlikely though.

In reply to Gordon Stainforth:

I'm not an expert, but i'm guessing this is what happened:

ebay only bids to beat other people, up to your maximum bid, e.g

person A puts in bid for £3
person B puts in bid for £6
ebay will place person B in winning position with bid of £3.10 or something
person C tries to sneak in with £4
however person B still has precedence, and their bid is automatically updated to £4.10 or something
person B wins at £4.10 despite placing bid for up to £6

There is still kind of an advantage to bidding at the last second. Stops other people having time to reconsider and actually deciding they want to pay more to beat their old maximum of what they wanted to pay for the item.

In reply to Jack B:

No, I get all that. That all seems fine. What happened in my case was that my final bid was exceeded (probably by a piece of software) in the last second, by 13p ... so it knew what I had just bid. What bothers me is that I am not convinced that it was done before the closing time. When everything else is so instant, why did this take a minute and a half after my closing bid to tell me? All the other bids were recorded instantly. Why the delay? And then, just so that you won't get annoyed, it claims that that bid (a few pence above your final bid, with 5 secs to go) was made two days ago. Pull the other one.

Obviously some very sneaking piece of automatic bidding software is being used here. One is, of course, tempted to enter into this shitty little game, but what on earth happens when one piece of such software is competing with another.

A sick world.

In reply to Sink41:

I'll post a screenshot of the final bids. Using an old lap top at the moment so may be a minute or two.

In reply to Gordon Stainforth:

I've bid for lots of stuff and never had a problem, apart from sometimes being outbid of course. It sounds like it was working how it is designed.
Suppose an item is at £10 when I bid and I bid a maximum of £20, I'll become the highest bidder at £10.50 (or whatever the minimum increment above the previous highest bid is). If other people then all bid at the last minute (as they do) and the highest of them is £19.25 I'll still win with a bid of £19.75 but it will be dated when I put in my bid not when it automatically jumped to that price.

The system stores your highest bid in case its needed but only shows the minimum needed to stay in the lead. The minimum increments above the current bid vary and increase as the price gets higher.

If you search about on the website you can find a full explanation .

In reply to Gordon Stainforth:

If you bid what you thought it was worth then you have avoided paying too much for it.

if you would have paid more for it then it's best to bid at your limit - you bid won't be raised to your limit unless someone else thinks it is worth more and they have already placed a bid to that amount.

eBay simply couldn't survive if it was possible to beat bids by fudging the time.

It's always worth checking your PC is displaying the correct time.

In reply to Gordon Stainforth:
I don't think you'll be able to post a screenshot on here, it seems to block all links to ebay, presumably so people can't advertise they're selling stuff instead of using the UKC For Sale forum.
As for the date of the bid being 2 days ago, that's presumably when the winner actually entered their bid.

In reply to Gordon Stainforth:

Well of course it does. That's how eBay works! Someone was prepared to pay more than you and the automated systen did its stuff.

Bext time just put your highest bid in hours, days, weeks before, it doesn't matter. Then walk away. If you win you get an email and the price you got the item at. All this last minute stuff us just emotional games and quite unnecessary.

In reply to pec:



You may say so, but we at Stainforth.inc (or should that be eStainforth? yuck) can do that:

http://www.gordonstainforth.co.uk/images/Picture%203.png

What bothers me is not the time the bid was set, but the amount, that was obviously automatically entered milliseconds before the bid closed. My problem is, apart from the dishonesty of it (like any old trick goes), is how on earth can you beat that? So, as I said earlier, I've no intention of entering such a bid again, against such sophisticated software because I can't see how I can win. And, anyway, life's too short for this kind of crap.

In reply to Gordon Stainforth:




By bidding more than the next person is willing to pay. Its quite simple! (And there is no dishonesty).

In reply to Gordon Stainforth:

So did you ever have a green "you are the highest bidder" banner? Why dio you say your bid had "quite clearly won"?

To me that looks like i***y placed a bid on 15th Jan
You outbid him on 19th so he then entered a bid (at 17:23 on 20th) of £15.13
Despite your late bids, none of these passed his maximum bid of £15.13 so he won (and because his bid was placed first he didn't have to be 50p / £1 clear of your highest bid).

In reply to MG:

"Pray" tell me how one piece of automatic bidding software (one's own) beats another?

In reply to Gordon Stainforth:

Looking at that, my guess is the person who beat you had a maximum bid of 15.13p, which is canny as there are guessing many people (such as you) will be bidding in whole pounds. Had you put in a max of 15.14 last week, I reckon you would gave got it

In reply to Gordon Stainforth:

FFS read how EBay works! It's not your (or their software). It's eBay's automatic bidding system.

Chances of this going viral: man rants against eBay system that has been in place for 2 decades.

In reply to Gordon Stainforth:

Well done on getting round the UKC ebay ban, its links to ebay itself that won't work.


That's how it works, you entered your bid in the last few seconds and it trawls through all the other bids and finds one higher which wins. It has to happen right at the last second.

Its not dishonest, someone bid higher than you so they won. You can beat it by bidding more than them whether that be 3 seconds after them or 3 days before them doesn't matter.

In reply to Ron Rees Davies:


Yes, that message was on ebay the whole time, for days, even today. Suggesting i was in with a very good chance.



OK, i outbid him on 19th for 10 quid ... not sure what you're saying. We're talking about 15 quid today with 4 seconds to go. He outbid me today in those seconds, obviously thanks to some high-speed piece of software.

My question is: Is there any point in buying this automatic bidding software oneself, because, really, I can't see how one such piece of software beats another?

and, as a I said earlier, really life is too short for this level of hysteria.

In reply to Gordon Stainforth:

For sniping software then it would be more about the hardware eg server based software based near to the ebay servers on a decent connection. With redundancy options. Basically a poor mans High Frequncy Trade.
However in this case it does look to be the ebay auto software, as mentioned multiple times, it even gives a helpful message hinting at it.
So the solution would be to use it as well. No cost involved.

In reply to Gordon Stainforth:

Ron Rees Davies appears to have explained it.
Unfortunately your last bid of 15 quid was 13p less than I****y bid that had been placed some days before.

EBay only shows the current highest bid - not the max bid, and if you want to try "sniper" bidding in the last 5 secs then you may find that in the time eBay takes to update and you to see that your "sniper" bid was NOT actually enough to win, the auction has ended.

Had you bid £50 as your last bid you would have won the item for around 15.65. ie I***y's top bid plus 50p (or whatever the bidding increment was.)

In reply to Gordon Stainforth:

Keep going Gordon. If you say it enough times this magical software will appear and then you can use it. Or alternatively you could read ebays own help pages that explain how it works.

In reply to Gordon Stainforth:

Are you actually reading any of the many replies explaining this to you?

In reply to MG:


Probably not, they're being generated by some software that is creating these replies in the past after he already won this thread.

In reply to pec:

There is only evidence that there were two of us in this race. All I am asking is: can someone please explain how this automatic bidding software works (because that is clearly how he won). Or do you really think a bid of 15.13 at the very last millisecond is a complete coincidence? Purhlease.

In reply to Gordon Stainforth:

There is this other newfangled thing called Google. Try, ooh, "eBay automatic bidding"

In reply to Gordon Stainforth:

eBay uses your PC clock. If you set it back 5 minutes you get longer to bid. It's why you quite often lose out to US bidders on some items, they get 5-8 hours extra. Just pity the Aussies, they go to bed thinking they've won and wake up,to find themselves outbid 12 hours after it ended.

In reply to off-duty:



All i can say is: I must get in touch with this guy as being potentially a v useful clairvoyant.



That's a useful tip (at last).

In reply to Gordon Stainforth:

Your right. Its pricey though. I have a copy. Send me £30 each time you want to bid and I'll let you use my copy as a one off. It can even do Hawaii time.

In reply to Gordon Stainforth:

The bid of 15.13 was NOT made at the last second. It was made at the time and date indicated and was I****ys maximum bid.
As the auction closed you were not the "high bidder" hence why you upped your bid to 15 quid.

Unfortunately you leaving it till the last seconds meant that by the time EBay updated the auction was over. If you had bid 16 quid or even 600 quid as your final bid then you would have won the auction for 15.65 (as before I****ys max bid plus the increment of 50p or whatever the bidding interval was)

In reply to off-duty:

No no no. Its *obviously* special software.

In reply to Philip:


Phew, someone else at last saying something quite useful, which could explain it. But I'm not sure. My problem is the clairvoyancy of the guy who outbid me, apparently 2 days ago, by just 13p. We were talking much smaller numbers then. It's quite obvious - isn't it? - that his automatic bidding software did the trick.

In reply to Gordon Stainforth:

I bid on a few things ,competitively ,last year .and lost.

Was quite an eye opener. And a bitter pill to lose the auctions.

Right there I said ; "fu#k that ! .not wasting time doing that shit again."

The bidding process is a little addictive ,and you can get caught up in it and get carried away.

If I remember right , I believe the fancy bike parts I lost out on would have ended up costing more (with postage) than if I had bought the parts from one of the big bike online supermarkets!

Ebay is in the bin now and not in my thoughts.apart from some great shops I found through them.

I'm an Amazon sheep

In reply to off-duty:

Can you explain that strange figure of £15.13? Oh great guru..

In reply to Gordon Stainforth:

>> So did you ever have a green "you are the highest bidder" banner? Why dio you say your bid had "quite clearly won"?

>>Yes, that message was on ebay the whole time, for days, even today. Suggesting i was in with a very good chance.

The "13p in the last millisecond" thing is just how the normal automatic bidding works, not any flashy sniper software. The only strange thing is the "You are the highest bidder" message.

I would be suspicious that your computer wasn't updating the item page, so was still showing you the outdated page from 19th when you were in the lead, rather than showing the actual status after 20th when i***y would have been in front.

Anyway, don't give up on ebay.

For future reference, rather than bidding up in increments like you did, just decide what your highest bid amount really is - the amount where at a penny more you would walk away - and enter this as your bid in the last 5-20 seconds (depending how fast your computer / connection are). Avoid this bid being an obvious round number like £15 - go for something higher and more random like £15.76 (or £15.13)

In reply to Gordon Stainforth:

READ THE THREAD!!!!!!

Option A) Gordon is a victim of new EBay fraud that looks like normal eBay behaviour
Option B) This is normal eBay behaviour everyone else knows of and recognises.

Your call

In reply to Gordon Stainforth:

The £15.13 figure is the sort of figure many of us enter for just this scenario - people new to ebay often put in a nice round figure, so by bidding (guessing) the same round figure "plus a little bit" you have a higher chance of "beating" your rival.

In reply to Gordon Stainforth:


Quite simply.
I****y - entirely reliant on the normal functioning of ebay, decided that he could afford to pay about 15 quid for the item.
Being aware of human nature he reckoned that if he added 13p to that then he would outbid anyone who happened to put their max bid as 15 quid.
Especially if that person tried to work eBay as if it is a "traditional auction" in some way, and left it till the last minute before bidding.

In reply to Gordon Stainforth:


Or maybe someone is taking the piss?

In reply to MG:


Yup definitely taking the piss. Any proper ebayer knows to set their clock back by a day and not just five minutes.

In reply to Gordon Stainforth:

This thread is hilarious.

How can anyone not know how EBay works? Its so well explained on the site and there's no illegal software involved.

I love the idea that I can bid my maximum and then walk away for 7days. Of course I often lose the item, its no big deal. It just means that someone has deeper pockets than me.

In reply to MG:





I have been, plus looking up 'ebay automatic bidding' - which all makes it sound much more open and user-friendly than the way i experienced it. Plus some v useful tips from other people. Thanks.

In reply to Babika:




Who said I walked away for seven days? Nothing to do with depth of pocket. It kept on telling me I was the highest bidder.

In reply to Gordon Stainforth:


Not me. I was simply illustrating the brilliance of the Ebay bidding system which means you don't have to hover over a screen in the last 10seconds of an auction.

If your pockets are super deep then just put in a whacking great maximum bid, relax for the days of the auction and you will definitely win without any stress.

In reply to Gordon Stainforth:

Wait for the day when you wake up in a panic in the morning, thinking "What the f*ck did I buy last night?"
Then wallow in the relief that you got outbid on everything!

In reply to Babika:

One problem I've had is that my main computer crashed before Xmas, and i've been having to use a dear old Mac iBook of 9 years vintage (otherwise I would have been stuffed ... plus, Dropbox has saved me). On this little laptop last night, and this morning, it was still saying I was the highest bidder on that ebay bid. It's just possible then that it was a memory issue on my browser. Because, factually, I now know that that was not true. The weird thing was, you could still click on all the bids, and that much higher bid of £15.13, from allegedly a day ago, did not show up. Well, the website warns you about hidden 'automatic bidding', but I can't see any point in raising that subject again now having been ridiculed for even daring to mention it.

In reply to Lusk:

Nice one! Yeah, I'm £15 better off )

In reply to Gordon Stainforth:


I do that every bid on ebay. I'll work out my maximum, say £15 as in your example, then I'll add a few pence on just as a bit of wishful thinking, so my max bid would be £15.15p.

In reply to Gordon Stainforth:

Can you not see the hypocrisy in your bidding technique?
You were putting a bid into ebay at the last second (presumably in the hope that another user wouldn't get a chance to return with a higher bid). This is exactly why the automatic bidding system has been put in place, to stop people using ebay like you, to snipe purchases from people who have put a genuine highest offer in.
its a system that works very well, and it's explained in great detail on their help pages.

When you see a product on eBay decide what your maximum purchase price is. Place a bid, wait for an email which tells you if you have won, and what price you are expected to pay.

If you do win, you'll be a few pence higher than the second-highest bidder and we'll keep an eye on UKC for a thread stating that they've been scammed by st*****rth using his magic sniping software.

In reply to Gordon Stainforth:

There's nothing sneaky about the bidding process; you decide how much you are prepared to pay and you place your bid. Somebody else is prepared to pay more than you and they win. What's sneaky about that? It's called an auction. Tough luck, another item will come along soon and at least you didn't pay over the odds so be grateful.

In reply to Gordon Stainforth:


It is not 'clairvoyancy' The guy was prepared to bid £15 for the item because that is what it is worth to him/her. Knowing that many people bid in 'round numbers' he might decide to add 1p to the £15 (I've done that) but knowing that this is common knowledge to regular bidders he might think 'lets add 2 or 3p', however, knowing this is common knowledge too... You see where it ends? He could have bid £20 but he only wanted to pay £15 but he wants the item so an extra 13p is not too much (I have done this too and I am not clairvoyant but I imagine it might have miffed people I have outbid by a couple of pence)

In reply to Gordon Stainforth:



Yes:

It is not 'clairvoyancy' The guy was prepared to bid £15 for the item because that is what it is worth to him/her. Knowing that many people bid in 'round numbers' he might decide to add 1p to the £15 (I've done that) but knowing that this is common knowledge to regular bidders he might think 'lets add 2 or 3p', however, knowing this is common knowledge too... You see where it ends? He could have bid £20 but he only wanted to pay £15 but he wants the item so an extra 13p is not too much (I have done this too and I am not clairvoyant but I imagine it might have miffed people I have outbid by a couple of pence)

In reply to MG:





Would it be fair to say that Gordon is not one of our 'younger internet-savvy' UKC posters?

In reply to Philip:


Naughty boy Philip!!

In reply to DubyaJamesDubya:

Thanks for your answer (and deacondeacon above). It was certainly a fortunate bid by the other guy. The only oddity was that yesterday morning, and again at lunchtime, I was told I was still the highest bidder (when I wasn't) - I think this was because that webpage on the temporary Tenfourfox browser I'm having to use at the moment on 9-year old laptop - while my main computer is away for repairs - didn't refresh when I pressed Refresh. So I completely misunderstood what was going on. It looked as if the other guy was outbidding me at the very last moment - when he wasn't. And I'm certainly not savvy with ebay having only ever bought bargain deals on it, and never having taken part in a bidding process before.

In reply to Gordon Stainforth:


Always bid what you think it is worth to the nearest pound plus random amount of pence. When thinking about what you think it's worth be honest and imagine someone just beating it by about a pound, if you do that you don't need to bother with last minute bids. There's automatic software but they put a max bid into that too, it only helps by denying other people the opportunity to reconsider their max bid.

In reply to Gordon Stainforth:

In all fairness I've been caught out by not fully understanding what was going on with the bidding process myself so I sympathise with your annoyance but I'd say my worst experience was 'winning' something that, with hindsight, I realised I'd hugely over-paid for.

In reply to DubyaJamesDubya:

Well, i've just rung eBay to ask them to explain that page that I took a screenshot of yesterday (and posted here at 23:13) and a v helpful guy rang me back and said that that page was misleading ... and blamed it on my Tenfourfox browser (as i suspected). Interestingly he said that I was indeed the highest bidder up to very near the end and the other guy outbid me at the very last moment, and, amazingly, put in that bid of £15.13 with just two seconds to go. He couldn't explain why that bid came up (retrospectively) as having been over a day before. He said it must be something to do with my browser. And it was not correct. I was simply outbid at the very last moment. Umm.

In reply to Gordon Stainforth:
Well they should know and I can't believe it's in their interest to lie about it (conspiracy theorists input now).
The £15.13 thing isn't as odd as you might think as I too have made last minute bids a few random pence above the 'round figure value'. There is a good chance that your valuation and the other person's valuation will be quite similar so a few pence difference when both bidding at the same time is not as odd as it might seem.
I'm impressed that you could get through to them by phone.

In reply to DubyaJamesDubya:


I'd say it was very predictable if Gordon's bid was a round 15 quid. But Gordon wasn't to know I made the same mistake when first using ebay... human nature.

In reply to Gordon Stainforth:

It's good of ebay rang you back. That phone call probably cost them more than they made on the sale of the item in discussion so does direct thoughts that ebay aren't doing anything sniddy here.

I'm a big ebay user, buying far more than selling. Ebay is geared up to give the buyer great pretection but does leave sellers out cold (unless you have a super massive hong kong drop ship thing going on)
A common scam I've seen a few times is done by the seller. He's selling an ice screw (say) and starts his auction at £10 hoping he'll get 20-25 for the item. You put in the first bid of a tenner. In actual fact, you really want the ice screw so you actually put in a bid of £25 but the ebay bidding system shows you as the first bidder of £10 (but are prepared to go up another £15)
The seller, upon seeing he now has a first bid placed, logs on in a different user name or gets his mate to log on. He bids £11 and if he is out bid straight away by you for £12 he knows then that you have entered a max bid and he can hike up the price of his own item, trying to second guess what your top price is. This can go wrong but the worse that can happen is he 'wins' his own item. In fact, in reality he'll just relist it and all he's lost is the seller fees for that item but on the other hand, he knows he's gonna get at least £20 for the ice screw so bids £20 on his own item and ebay will automatically bid you up to £21. He can sit back knowing he has now got the minimum he wanted for the screw and it still has a week to run so the chances are it'll get even higher. He's protected himself agaist the possibility of only you bidding for the ice screw and him having to sell it for a tenner.

In general terms, good quality item that are honestly described and photographed will sell themselves and the best approach if you want the item is enter the max you are prepared to pay for it. If you win it for a little less than your max then its a bonus. I've found ebay to be a great market place where the price of items is natually found by what people want to pay - not what shops and supermarkets tell us things cost.

In reply to DubyaJamesDubya:


They have this very good system where you can ask them to ring you (once you've told them in advance what the question is about). You are then put in a queue. In my case it said 'estimated waiting time: 2 mins'. In fact they rang me about a minute and a half later. And, as i said, were v helpful.

In reply to wilkie14c:


Well, that's certainly what I'll be doing in future.

In reply to wilkie14c:


I agree Ebay can save you a pile of cash if you know what you want plus an avenue to sell unwanted stuff.

If you're looking for a "genuine armani leather belt" then I would probably give ebay a wide berth.

I'm led to believe there was even a batch of Arcteryx fakes doing the rounds.

cheers

Gaz

In reply to Gordon Stainforth:

I remember reading on some "tips and hints" page about bidding on ebay to enter bids at oddly specific numbers. The logic - if I can remember it correctly - is that the majority of people will bid round numbers (10 pounds, 15 pounds etc). So if you want the item at 15 pounds you should enter a bid of 15 pounds and thirteen pence to beat everyone who bids 15 pounds.

In reply to wilkie14c:
This "common scam" you describe is strictly outlawed by Ebay and I would be surprised if they didn't have some sort of software to check for individuals or their mates doing unnatural bidding against themselves.

But I agree it does happen,

The key is to bid the maximum you are willing pay at the outset AND STICK TO IT. Don't be swayed into upping the maximum all the time when you're outbid.

A few times I have lost an item (mobile phones mainly) and been told by the seller that they were "let down" by the eventual winner and would I like to match it as the second highest?

I always refuse. These are almost certainly the scammers accidentally winning their own item!

In reply to Babika:

Yes most certainly. Can be sellers with several items the same, they sell one and email everyone else in the auction if they want a 'second chance' letting them believe they are buying the item they bidded on not knowing the sellers has 20 of them. It saves the seller listing and final value fees.

In reply to Babika:

Other people do get caught up and bid more than the item is worth though. Personally, if I really want to buy something, I think carefully about what the most is that I'd be willing to pay and then set up a "snipe" to automatically bid that amount at the last minute. (I use lotsnipe for that, via their website: http://lotsnipe.auctionstealer.com )

Having done that, I'll not look again until the auction is over.

If there's no bid on the item, sometimes I'll also put in a low-ish bid above the reserve so that the seller is (theoretically) committed to seeing the auction through until the end.

Ebay is clearly set up to encourage people to get caught up a sort of competitive mindset and bid more than they really intended to. Their terminology: "winning" and "losing" an auction is nonsense, you don't win or lose you merely buy something or you don't.

Sniping is not cheating, it's just a perfectly sensible way to avoid being drawn into a competition to bid more than the other guy regardless of what the item is actually worth.

In reply to wilkie14c:

If they can persuade the buyer to arrange the sale outside of ebay/paypal, it can also potentially save them the bother of actually sending the item they've been paid for...

In reply to Philip:

I'm calling BS on this one. Auctions end at a set point in time. Just because the clocks are different somewhere else in the world does not mean that anyone gets longer to bid.

This whole thread is so funny. "Man bids in auction but lost because he did not bid enough money". Awesome.

In reply to Babika:


I disagree that your method is the best.

I think the correct method is to follow the item and any similar items - particularly as sellers often list multiples and one finishing in the night can sometimes be cheaper. Bid almost your max near the end, to test the water in terms of automatic bidding increases. If you're not winning at almost the max then you decide if you stay until the end and bid, or look for one that ends at a different time.

In reply to knighty:


That you even thought it worth replying make me laugh.

In reply to Babika:

Can agree on that - I once sold an used DD Hammock for more than it was worth on their own website. I don't use eBay often as I hate their fees, though.

In reply to knighty:


That wasn't the issue at all, as you well know (or hope you do, otherwise you haven't bothered to read this thread properly.) When I spoke to the v helpful guy on eBay today he said that I was indeed right to query it. In fact the screenshot I sent him was so odd that he said he would need to go back and look at their own records of exactly what happened. He came back after a few minutes, and said it must have been a fault of my Tenfourfox browser that I'm having to use on ancient laptop because my main computer is being repaired. He confirmed that what I originally thought was correct, that I was indeed the highest bidder right up to near the end of the bidding, and the other guy got his higher bid in with 2 seconds to spare. I have absolutely no quarrel with that - but with that strangely misleading report that appeared on my browser after I had lost the bid. This eBay help guy was extremely ... helpful, unlike quite a lot of people on this thread.

End of subject.

In reply to Gordon Stainforth:
If you read the thread, I think you See will everyone was trying to help but when you simply ignored the advice and starting insisting it was *obviously* "special" software and some terrible conspiracy, people naturally enough started to take the piss!

In reply to PPP:


Brilliant.
I once sold 6m of very old climbing rope that had been laying in the garden for years as I was tempted to see if I could get money for old rope as a bit of a joke......

Needless to say it sold.

In reply to Babika:
Brilliant and funny thread. I love Ebay, its full of the most amazing bargains as well as complete rip-offs. Like any auction you have to know what you are buying and its value to you and get a feel for the item and seller through the description and pictures, and then, as many have said above, bid what you are prepared to pay with no regrets. As a seller I think its a bit stacked against you and the commission is quite high, but its a great way to recycle stuff, and possibly get some money as well. I just sold something I bought for 12 quid a few years back, and never used, for 200 quid - to buy one new costs about 650 so probably the buyer is still happy.

In reply to DubyaJamesDubya:


Exactly what I do, see above.