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01 Jul 02 - 01:14 PM (#740157) Subject: eBay shock horror From: fogie I've got to talk about this. My first sortie on the ebay auction. I saw a musical instrument which looked OK and its bid was a low £36 . I thought I'd try bidding at £50 and wrote £50 . ebay didnt accept this as you're not supposedm to use £ signs etc. so I wrote 50,00 I was horrified when ebay shot straigt back with, "your bid of £5,000 has been accepted. I tried to cancel the bid but got completely lost, and couldn't find where to communicate with them. So I contacted my Visa firm who thought that it would be OK but to let them know if the money was claimed, and they would contest it. I have also just managed to get an e-mail to ebay to explain what has happened. I dont know what will happen, and I'm pretty twitched. Any words of comfort out there? Oh I did remember to print off the two pages with the figures on. How on earth they made that jump I dont know. |
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01 Jul 02 - 01:27 PM (#740165) Subject: RE: BS: eBay shock horror From: annamill I'm not positive about this, but I think the seller has the right to cancel any bid that he might not like. For instatnce, if a bidder has bad feedback he can delete the bid. Try writing the seller and explain. They might be able to help you. Hope it all works out. The worst that can happen is you will get 1 bad feedback, which you can respond to. Maybe the price will not go to high and you will win. Annamill |
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01 Jul 02 - 01:36 PM (#740172) Subject: RE: BS: eBay shock horror From: katlaughing fogie, if you click Help, at eBay, then follow the links for Buyers to the Buyers' Guide, then to Retracting a Bid, you will find the following information on Bid Retraction (my emphasis): Exceptional Circumstances Only There are, however, a few exceptional circumstances under which you may retract a bid. These are if: You accidentally enter the wrong bid amount. For instance, you bid $99.50 instead of $9.95. Note: If this occurs you must quickly re-enter the correct bid amount right after you retract your bid. Otherwise the retraction will be in violation of eBay's policy and could result in your suspension. The description of an item you have bid on has changed significantly. You can't reach the seller. This means that you tried calling the seller but his or her phone number doesn't work, or you have tried emailing a message to the seller and it comes back undeliverable. Timing Matters There are special rules about retracting bids, depending on when you originally placed the bid. If you place a bid before the last 12-hours of the auction: You may retract that bid before that last 12-hours, if your situation meets the above description of exceptional circumstances. You will not be allowed to retract that bid during the last 12-hours of the auction. When you retract a bid before the last 12 hours of an auction: you will eliminate all bids you have placed in that auction. If you are correcting a bid error, you will have to bid again. If you place a bid during the last 12-hours of the auction: You may retract the bid only within one hour after placing the bid (and if your situation meets eBay's exceptional circumstances description). When you retract a bid within the last 12 hours of the listing: You will eliminate only the most recent bid you placed. Bids you placed prior to the last 12 hours will not be retracted. If you are not allowed to retract your bid during the last 12-hours of the auction, you may contact the seller to request that your bid be canceled. The seller will have the discretion whether to cancel your bid. Accountability Your total number of bid retractions in the past six months is displayed in your feedback profile. eBay will thoroughly investigate bid retractions. Abuse of this feature may result in the suspension of your account. Bids retracted within the last 24 hours of listing can be viewed as bid shielding, which is a serious violation of our policy. Kat here, again. I am sure when you explain they will help you straighten it out. Good luck and let us know how it turns out, please? kat |
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01 Jul 02 - 02:08 PM (#740193) Subject: RE: BS: eBay shock horror From: Anglo The info above is all good and correct and I trust everything works out for you. This is just a reminder that you put a _period_ (i.e. a full stop) NOT a comma between dollars and cents, or between pounds and pence. |
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01 Jul 02 - 03:31 PM (#740231) Subject: RE: BS: eBay shock horror From: Kim C They usually send you a bid confirmation, which has instructions on how to fix it. I would try contacting the seller first, if it isn't too late. |
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01 Jul 02 - 05:36 PM (#740293) Subject: RE: BS: eBay shock horror From: mmm1a Email the seller also and explain why you are retracting the bid. I am sure they will understand. mmm |
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01 Jul 02 - 06:58 PM (#740350) Subject: RE: BS: eBay shock horror From: IvanB One other hint: If you want to bid an even dollar (or pound or C$ or DM, etc.) amount, you can just enter the amount without the decimal. The system will then add the decimal and trailing zeroes for you. |
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01 Jul 02 - 07:01 PM (#740355) Subject: RE: BS: eBay shock horror From: IvanB Jeesh, shouldn't submit without proofreading. I realized my statement could be misleading. What I meant was to just enter "50" for $50.00, £50.00, C50.00, etc., whatever the auction currency may be. |
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02 Jul 02 - 04:54 AM (#740568) Subject: RE: BS: eBay shock horror From: fogie Well I still dont know whats going on yet. Thank you kat for your explanation, but the UK version doesn't appear to say what youve said about wrong amounts bid, and I tell you, when you're in a panic it's very difficult to read things logically. The present upshot is that the auction closed with a top bid of £155 ??? which I think is my bid??? and so Ive e-mailed the seller with questions about what to do, and await communication. I'm so pleased that it isn't as bad as it appeared, (or is it?), that I'm quite prepared to consider the consequences of this bid, but I havent a clue how the price was achieved. If you are interested I'll keep you informed |
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02 Jul 02 - 09:27 AM (#740673) Subject: RE: BS: eBay shock horror From: katlaughing fogie, if you want to PM one of us the exact auction info, so that we can take a look at the actual bidding, we might be able to figure out how it happened, etc., BUT it seems you've done the right thing by contacting the seller, so maybe it will get sorted. Good luck and yes, please do let us know how it turns out. kat |
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02 Jul 02 - 03:25 PM (#740866) Subject: RE: BS: eBay shock horror From: Bobert Fogie: The way it happened is that you bid a mximum amount you were willing to pay for the intrument. Their is an inciment amount built into the bidding that allowed you to maintain a 5 ound advantage over those who were bidding against you. Its kind of like giving your wife(bad analogy, I know) 25 pounds to go the grocery store with to get a list of foods. If she spends 20 pounds then you get 5 back.) You made 2000 punds available but it only took 155 pounds to keep you 5 pounds ahead of the next bidder, once the reserve was met. In other words, the second highest bidder was at 150 pounds. If you still don't understand, PM me and I'll try again. Bobert |
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02 Jul 02 - 03:52 PM (#740880) Subject: RE: BS: eBay shock horror From: GUEST Fogie, Unless you want to pay the £155 don't. There is nothing enforcable there. Ebay uses 'customer references' to find out how trustworthy someone is, which is useful for people who use the service a lot. If you intend to become an ebay regular, log in with a new name, and start over. Whatever, don't get intimidated by anyone saying that you owe them money. You don't
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02 Jul 02 - 03:59 PM (#740890) Subject: RE: BS: eBay shock horror From: Ferrara Fogie, You probably wouldn't even have to change your ebay name, actually. I suspect just printing this thread and send copies to the seller and to ebay would keep you from getting a bad rating. To err is human, eh? Rita |
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02 Jul 02 - 04:22 PM (#740913) Subject: RE: BS: eBay shock horror From: Little Hawk Boy, that must have been one sickening jolt in the pit of the stomach... I have always been awfully careful when placing a bid, for just that reason. - LH |
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02 Jul 02 - 04:26 PM (#740917) Subject: RE: BS: eBay shock horror From: GUEST There's no need for a 'sickening jolt' You can always back out of mistaken deals It's no different than the real world If you don't want to pay, don't |
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05 Jul 02 - 06:02 AM (#742759) Subject: RE: BS: eBay shock horror From: Mr Happy fogie, any more news? |
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05 Jul 02 - 07:37 AM (#742796) Subject: RE: BS: eBay shock horror From: fogie Yes in the end I contacted the seller, and have agreed to pay £155 for the trombone. I suppose I was so relieved at the limitation of possible damage it changed my view. The seller seems a nice bloke, who told me stories of his ebay previous problems, and said he'd pay for the p.&p. I know what happened. My bid for 50,00 was read as £5,000 maximum bid, and I suppose I was lucky someone didnt know my maximum bid or I could have been financially crippled. I still dont know if the £155 was a manufactured bid by the seller, but I will give him the benefit of the doubt, and I now know the value of CORRECT PUNCTUATION, thanks for your support, and I have learned my lesson, if it cost £100 to do so. I wonder if that trombone is as good as it looked in the advert . Thanks KMH |
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05 Jul 02 - 08:38 AM (#742810) Subject: RE: BS: eBay shock horror From: Peter K (Fionn) So long as you realise you didn't need to do the deal, fogie. I recently gave away an old noarrow-bore trombone (oosey & Hawkes) - a pig of a thing I was glad to be rid of. (But not as glad as I was to be rid of the Otto Langey tutor manual that went with it - nearly an inch thick of tedious scales and exercises that I had to grind through in childhood. I went to eBay about three weeks ago, also in search of an instrument. I wasn't sure if I was already registered from way back, so I entered my email address and was told there was no password associated with it. I then started to register but backed off when I saw their uncompromising terms about use of my email addresses - as I now remember doing on an earlier occasion. As a direct consequence (or so it seems) of this tentative sortie into eBay, I am now for the first time in eight years plagued with spam, some of it addressing me as "eBay user" etc. Is this par for the course? |
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05 Jul 02 - 09:51 AM (#742837) Subject: RE: BS: eBay shock horror From: katlaughing I don't ever get any spam because of ebay. I think there was something I ticked off on my personal page to prevent it. |
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05 Jul 02 - 11:37 AM (#742890) Subject: RE: BS: eBay shock horror From: JulieF I've been using E-bay for a couple of months and have received only 1 unexpected piece of mail. On the whole I'm very happy with it. The only thing I did was when buying immediately, I bought then lost the page and then refreshed and found I had bought again. As it was only a very cheap item and I was able to use two I let it go but I'm sure that the seller would have been OK with it. All the best Julie |
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05 Jul 02 - 12:12 PM (#742913) Subject: RE: BS: eBay shock horror From: fogie Well Fionn I await to see if my new buy is your narrow bore trombone. No spam yet. Any ideas for a good easy start tutor, is there a tune a day? I play most things except brass, and thought it was time I understood how they work. |
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08 Jul 02 - 08:42 PM (#744749) Subject: RE: BS: eBay shock horror From: Peter K (Fionn) The trombone is obviously not an ideal introduction to the brass family as a whole, fogie, as it's the one that's different. It does however have its moments. The real reason I gave up on it was that my eyesight changed after some ops, and on the rare occasions when I got the music where I could see it through my fiendishly inefficient bifocals, I was inclined to swipe it off its stand every time I went for a "C" (or a "D" in transposing mode). Once equipped with Otto Langey, many years ago, I never looked for another tutor. There IS a Tune a Day book, but it's worth casting around to see if you can find someone with a copy of OL that's giving them nightmares. (It may even be still in print for all I know.) Work through that from beginning to end and you'd be a fine player, but obviously you'd go at your own pace. I got about halfway, over 15 years or so. |
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08 Jul 02 - 09:03 PM (#744760) Subject: RE: BS: eBay shock horror From: Dicho (Frank Staplin) Never been bothered by EBay spam, but if you buy from some large dealer through them, there is a chance the seller will peddle the names. As a collector and member of packrats anonymous, I have some 100 buys on EBay, without problems (except for a $5.00 manual for a camera which was torn and badly taped- from one of the larger camera dealers, too). Several months ago (or more?), EBay provided a chance for you to review your bid before finalizing it. It is pretty hard to make a mistake now. |
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09 Jul 02 - 05:07 AM (#744958) Subject: RE: BS: eBay shock horror From: fogie Well ebay sent me a nice e-mail to tell me what to do ,but it didnt arrive till 8/7/02 when it was all over, and then they sent me a questionaire about what I thought of their help service .I was underenthused about the lateness of their reply. |