End Of Auction Notice -- discussion and observations

[Kooljock1]

Big,

If this guy was a shill, and like you I wasn't convinced until he de-listed his posts, he used us for our information. Many actually took time out of their busy schedules to look up their price guides to answer his questions. In that sense, we were used. Other than that, I have no problem with the whole deal.

Jon [8D]

[Anonymous]

BILLbraskey went back and deleted his posts. Isn't that somewhat suspicious?

[3railguy]

Shills are hard to detect. They hide behind screen names. Many times they are legitimate buyers in other auctions but pull a few shill jobs with sellers here and there so they look legitimate.

Hyping the common rocket car with the rare variation in another auction on these forums smelled like a rat to me.

The winning bidder has two negatives, this is one: "Never paid!4 emails, 1 phone call. Says he'll buy, never did. VERY POOR EBAYER "

We will never know, there is lots of misrepresented, phony, and/or overated junk on ebay and lots of BS and scams to get people LQQkING. In most cases people are wise. Or some people think its worht that. Prices are determined by how bad a person wants an item. My rule is never buy an item over $50 over the net unless I know him well through past dealings.

[Big_Boy_4005]

Gee Jon, were we really "used" or simply informed of the sale?

I'm still not totally convinced that Bill was the seller, but the fact that after being confronted on it he tried to remove the topic, is suspicious.

Beyond that, I have to completely agree with HighIron. Leaving a large margin out on a proxy bid is a dangerous play. It opens you up to bumping and probing to push you as high as you will go. If this is done by a shill, and nobody else bids, the seller simply pays the fee and relists the item under a different name, and the process begins again.

The only thing we can do as honest buyers is set our own personal limits as to what we are willing to spend, and bid no higher. If we win, we win. If we don't, we keep shopping.

I'm lucky, I'm a bargain hunter, not a collector of high buck stuff. I buy common cars from recent production, and try to pick them up for less than retail. I know my limits.[swg]

[Anonymous]

Well, I see no obvious problems. But for the money that was thrown down for this item they had better be factory mint.

I refuse to put up that kind of money for this item. This was between people who had alot of money and a desire to own this item. (Collectors)

I do a bit of eBay myself and twice acquired a locomotive at less than 30% of retail and fought off several people for needed items by sniping at the last minute. I plan my buys carefully.

But this large jump from $300 something to over $700 apparently took one of the people out of the bidding. (Proxy bix maximuims were in play here) that was when the house mortaging started.

I am happy for however won this item and also for the seller but this is one of a few sales that I have seen that were "Outrageously" expensive, and dangerously close to "I have more money than you do so I get this item *Bump" kind of thing.

[Kooljock1]

I really didn't follow this too closely, but apparently "wato44" was here and on the OGR Forum asking whether the product HE was selling was a good deal. The whole point was to juice-up his bids.

I actually did click on his auctions, and honestly had no interest in cheaply-made 60's LIONEL trains.

Was any damage done? Probably not.

Were the Forum Members, both here and at OGR used?

Probably.

Jon [8D]

[Big_Boy_4005]

This has been a very interesting auction to watch. Even though the forum is not intended to be used to promote the sale of something, there is much that can be learned here. Take a look at the bids and bidders. This is pretty much the pattern that I see on many of the eBay auctions I look at.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=5900626994

Was there any illegal activity here? I don't know, I suppose it is possible. Did posting the information here benefit the seller? I don't know, maybe someone here placed a bid, but it wasn't me.

I think that it is also very interestng that Bill Braskey has gone around and deleted much of what he posted.