Ebay Moves In Mysterious Ways (Again)

[mikeyv]

Watching an RX300 going cheap, £700 for a tidy looking 2001 with about 15 minutes to go, was thinking of popping a bid in at that kind of money, bearing in mind the seller needed rid quickly by the sound of things.

Anyway, the bidding then went mad, with over 20 bids taking it to around £1700 with a couple of minutes still to go.

At this point my genuine interest turned to mild curiosity as to where it finished.

Would you believe, that when the page turned to sold, the price had dropped to £1550, and the number of bids was two.

Item no was 321671146838

Here's a link to the auction, showing the bidding history, see if you can work out what was going on.

http://offer.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewBids&item=321671146838&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2565

[Bluesman]

Seems to be a huge number of retracted and cacelled bids, looks a little odd. Mike

[mikeyv]

Exactly.

That number of retractions would be odd if spread over the whole three days of the auction, but as you can see, most of the action takes place over the last twenty minutes of the auction.

Funny place, eBay.

[Bluesman]

Hadnt looked at that but that makes me think even more the cancelled bids are odd. With 20 mins or less left people are bidding on something they then cancel within minutes of bidding. Really odd. Mike.

[janet]

I am about to sell my sportcross on eBay, first time selling a car on there, I suppose it might have been friends of the seller or others thinking they would buy the car and then changing their mind at the last minute? still, won't happen with mine as I have no friends!!

[steve2006]

I think eBay call it "schill bidding" or something like that, sellers either have multiple identities or get friends to bid up the price then retract at the last moment. Seller obviously wanted more than the bid had reached just before auction end.