Does eBay always suck?

[Spiff]

I'm mainly talking about bidding on eBay. The automatic bidding feature makes bidding such an unpleasant and time-wasting experience. It lets people place automatic bids which you can't see (until they have been outbid). So the highest current bid is rarely the real actual high bid. You never know what the real actual high bid is. So everytime you submit a bid, an automatic bid outbids it. What's really bad about this system is how it lets people stack automatic bids. You can place as many as you want, and people always do. So really, the first person to place their automatic bids is the person likely to win. Typically people do this as soon as a new item is posted, so it's all about timing and luck.

 

[mark1111]

Yes, ebay does suck. I hate it when I see something, Ramm just recently, and put a bid on it. Everything is fine for a few days, then when there is only hours left, WHAM, someone comes in at the last second and wins it!

 

[muttley]

I sell things on ebay and bought as well. What I don't like is when the buyer doesn't leave you any feedback! I hate that. I send stuff out the same day the payment is received so the buyer will get it asap and then I send a follow up email asking them if they received the shipment. Most of the time it takes a few days for them to respond and then!!!! still no feedback! ugh! I hate that! I always leave feedback. Great seller or quick payment stuff...
OH YEAH!! and I was trying to sell my old Action Replay cartridge and ebay kicked out my auction due to copyright issues. I sent them a response that there were many other Actioin Replay items for sale, the moderator told me that it didn't matter and if I had a problem to report it. ugh!

 

[Spiff]

The automatic bidding only benefits the buyer.

or more precisely, the buyer that places the automatic bid. For all the other bidders it just wastes their time. Why does eBay bother displaying the current maximum bid when it usually is false? I don't want to bid on anything if someone has already stacked a bunch of automatic bids which I can't see. There is a "display automatic bid" feature, but it only displays automatic bids that have been outbid (thus worthless info to me.) It does not show all the other automatic bids which have not been outbid yet. Really this system renders the regular bidding system useless.

 

[LaloGS]

I used to buy and sell on eBay but got fed up with their attitude toward their users. From both sides. I also got tired of all the scams from sellers when I bought something. I tried to buy something a few months ago because I couldn't find it anywhere else, (a bust of Beethoven) and the seller took my money, said he shipped it, but couldn't provide a FedEX tracking number. Needless to say, I never got my Beethoven. I reported him to eBay, but he's still selling there. Last time I'll use eBay for anything.

 

[Spiff]

No one is really stacking automatic bids that would be redundant.

Yes they really are, nearly everyone does it. That's the eBay "game". What I mean by stacking is this. If the starting bid is $1, somebody will place a bunch of automatic bids all at once for $2, $3, $4, $5, etc. up to the real maximum amount they want to bid. eBay does let you enter multiple automatic bids at once. When a person does this and are the first to enter the bids, they are pretty much guaranteed to win (if 2 automatic bids for the same price are encountered by different people, eBay gives it the earliest posted one). The only thing that can beat them is if somebody placed a bid more than their highest automatic bid. But they don't know what that is because one can't see the bids.

eBay will only bill them with the lowest automatic bid that beat the last bid. But in a real auction, the highest bid (automatic or not) is what should be applied. If eBay did this, it would discourage stacking.

If I knew your maximum bid I could just bid a penny more and beat you out.

and that's exactly how it should be. That's how real auctions work. A bid is a bid. It shouldn't matter if it was automatic or not.

What does it hurt to bid if you don't know what there maximum bid is? You bid your max and it tells you right away if you are the high bidder or not. If not you just move on.

When there is a hidden stack of automatic bids it is extremely annoying. You enter a bid that is more than the displayed highest bid (which is not the highest automatic bid). It immediately tells you that you have been outbid ("you we're outbid 2 days ago!"). So you enter a new bid, it tells you the same thing. You keep on entering a bunch more bids in small increments, it keeps immediately telling you have been outbid by automatic bids. I'd be a fool to just enter a really high bid that would surely beat the highest hidden automatic bid.

 

[barefootbob]

ahh but if the $100,000 buyer backs out, then doesn't it go to the next lowest bidder which in this case would be your friend with a bid of $99,000 ?

 

[BluesDog]

actually, ebay works exactly like a live auction, at least for high-value stuff like fine art--- a lot of buyers have a proxy bidder on the site with instructions to bid up to a certain amount. Ebay acts as your proxy bidding in increments up to your predetermined limit.

 

[mike_n_herrin]

i thought craig'slist was the new ebay? or at least that's what the cool people tell me.