Not really OT: Ebay question

Um... how? Legally, ethically, or is this just your personal opinion?

Celine (not seeing any difference from here)

Personal feeling I'm sure (not even opinion, just feeling). Probably I see being there to make the most of your transaction as "work", and using the artificial method of using snipeware as a trick. On the other hand I've noticed some people feel the opposite.

Tina

Kyla, I often say things that are wrong, and am always grateful when someone corrects me. And I'm sure most people here areglad for the heads up that eBay reps aren't as reliable as one would expect. Also HAW is not a laugh at, it's just as likely to mean ah-HAW. It refers to the situation, not the individual.

Take it easy, hon. And thank you for bringing this up so we could 1) explore the issue, and 2) learn not to trust the eBay reps.

Tina

Sooz, you can't let misreadings of you determine how you will act. If someone reacts inappropriately (which she later says she did), that's her problem, not yours.

Now both of you behave yourselves. Or I'll have to give you a really bad example of posting!

Tina

"Dr. Sooz" wrote

vj found this in rec.crafts.beads, from "Marisa Cappetta" :

]It's one of the reasons I don't do auctions, I'd rather pay a ]fair, but set price, I can determine if a price is fair by shopping around a ]bit. I'd rather BIN, commission or buy from a website when it comes to ]online shopping.

AMEN!

----------- @vicki [SnuggleWench] (Books)

(Jewelry) ----------- The measure of the menace of a man is not what hardware he carries, but what ideas he believes.-- Jeff Jordan

Both statements incorrect. This is what eBay says about sniping:

"There are many things the Investigations department doesn't investigate, including simple misunderstandings, failure to communicate, and interpersonal disputes over which eBay has no control.

Here are some examples of what eBay doesn't investigate:

Bid Sniping (last minute bidding)

We always recommend bidding the absolute maximum you are willing to pay for an item. eBay uses a proxy bidding system, so you may bid as high as you wish, but the current bid that is registered will only be a small increment above the next lowest bid. The remainder of your Maximum Bid is held, by the system, to be used in the event someone bids against you."

At no time does eBay refer to sniping as "inappropriate". It is simply listed on this page because it is something that many members complain about. Sniping is simply a late proxy bid, and is perfectly legal. There is nothing inappropriate about it. No bidder who understands eBay's proxy bidding system would ever complain about sniping.

Soozala, you can come and go as often as you want---I for one love having you around whenever you choose to be here. Sarajane

Sarajane's Polymer Clay Gallery

'struth. She does, and it's like leavening in bread. Sure, sometimes things get a little puffy, but its never flat!! Sarajane

Sarajane's Polymer Clay Gallery

HAW!!

Tina

hmmmm....ya never know. We'd have to test the theory!!! Sarajane

Sarajane's Polymer Clay Gallery

GETTING in the CAR! GOT no GAS!!! BETTER find aNOTHER one to HAUL MY.....

(should I look for a "shell" station??) Sarajane

Sarajane's Polymer Clay Gallery

You crack me up. Dont forget St Cheesus on the dashboard. Diana

Never!!! wouldn't risk that....

Obligatory Bead Reference: My DH's musical buddy loves tacky icons. We found a 2'x3' 3D Virgin Mary on two layers of pressboard and pine (with the Mary figure cut out of one of the two images which were glued on the wood, one then place an inch above the other so it sticks out). Covered with green, gold and blue glitter, shining in the sun, we saw it at a garage sale in our neighborhood while out walking last year. At $2.00, we KNEW that it was a Sign From Heaven, and we got it for his friend. Took it home, and we crafty wives spent several Tuesday sessions glueing on MORE glitter (there's over 300 colors available at:

) and gold Beedz around the spikes of light from her head, gold braid around all the raw wood edges, variegated gold leaf over the raw pine edges of the rough frame, and another fancier gold braid around the outside edge, which I then tied multicolored tiny disco-ball bead ornaments to the scallopy parts to hang down. Also hanging at the bottom is the pull switch for the blue neon-ish light that we glued all around the edge of the her robe. (this is great stuff----several colors too!!) We gave it to my DH's friend for his birthday, which is right after Xmas. He loved it...I'll try to get pictures. Sarajane

Sarajane's Polymer Clay Gallery

On Wed, 7 Jan 2004 11:16:43 -0500, Sjpolyclay wrote (in message ):

I so want one. DH wanted to put a statue of the Blessed Virgin in our front yard (I call them "Madonna on the Half Shell", since they're invariably set in an old bathtub stuck in the dirt.) I told him that it was fine with me, as long as I could give her some pink flamingoes to feed.

Then there were the yard gnomes we saw in the Czech republic. They looked just like normal lawn gnomes, except they all had their weiners in their hands. We didn't get ny of those, either.

Kathy N-V

vj found this in rec.crafts.beads, from snipped-for-privacy@aol.comeatspam (Sjpolyclay) :

]We gave it to my DH's friend for his birthday, which is right after Xmas. He ]loved it...I'll try to get pictures.

PLEASE!

----------- @vicki [SnuggleWench] (Books)

(Jewelry) newest creations: ----------- The measure of the menace of a man is not what hardware he carries, but what ideas he believes.-- Jeff Jordan

well, if the people up the street have another yard sale and I see the start of one, I'll grab it!! Sarajane

Sarajane's Polymer Clay Gallery

It's called "proxy bidding". You make a bid for the maximum amount you would be willing to pay, and the system remembers that amount and raises the bid incrementally by the minimum amount until you either have the highest bid or are outbid by an amount higher than your maximum. That way, you only have to deal with bidding once, but you don't have to automatically pay your highest amount UNLESS it gets bid up to that amount. Does that make sense? Nobody else knows your maximum because it's none of their business what you'd be willing to pay.

Say Joan has a pair of shoes at auction, and the starting bid is $5.00. Billie wants the shoes, and would be willing to pay up to $10 for them, so she puts in a bid with a maximum of $10. The auction now stands at $5.50. Alice puts in a bid with a maximum of $7.50, and what happens then is the proxy system increases the bid by .50 until it reaches $8.00... Alice was outbid by Billie's proxy, but Billie still doesn't have tp pay $10.00. Then Janna comes along with a $20 maximum, the auction goes up to $10.50, and ends. Janna gets the shoes, Billie's OK with that because she didn't want to pay more than $10, and Janna's REALLY happy because she would have gone up to $20 but didn't have to.

If people could see each other's proxy maximums, all kinds of unpleasant scenarios could ensue; Alice would never have bid at all, so the auction wouldn't have increased. What if no one else had seen the auction? Joan wouldn't have gotten a fair price. Or, after getting outbid, Billie could have gone back and bid the auction up to $19.50 just out of spite toward Janna. Auction "shills" working for sellers could bid everything up to just under the bidder's maximum, artificially raising prices. Proxy bidding wouldn't work at all, and we'd be back in the good old days when people had to sit in front of the computer at the end of auctions, incrementally raising the prices themselves, (which is good for sellers! People bid more that way because they get emotionally involved in the auction) and you STILL wouldn't know what someone's maximum was, because it would be in their heads.

I absolutely agree that if you don't want o try to outbid the current high bidder, look to see if there's something else you might like. From a seller's perspective too, it's nicer if people pay a little less on each auction, but more auctions sell. Then everyone's happy. :)

That's one of the (several) reasons I switched to stamps.com insurance, and I state it on my auctions: the insurance is NOT marked on the package!