No.. I haven't stopped being amazed at the prices those RH bits and pieces are fetching on Ebay at the moment, but I think I have detected a dramatic shift in ebay-buyers allegiances, particularly when it comes to the big money spenders. On one of the UK Ebay cycle sites there is an item - a Delta Dura-Ace bike- now standing at £10,100, after only two bids.. and the Japanese haven't entered the fray yet, .
I know this item, a current model 7005 Kinesis-framed Shimano-equipped bike is "out-of-time for the List, but bear with me a little longer. Elsewhere on the same Ebay site is an identical frame - an IDEAL Delta - priced at £99.99!
Nobody in their right mind would pay so much for what is after all a pretty standard bike - maybe worth £2000 TOPS. I wonder, therefore if it is possible for bidders on Ebay to have their bids misinterpreted by the Ebay computer.. or misread?
I make this point because a couple of days ago I was bidding for a low-priced item being sold by one of the new crop of French sellers now placing their goods on American Ebay instead of the French site. Having just spent a long period in France and having also just won a couple of auctions on French Ebay, in Euros, I have become accustomed to thinking in Euros..not dollars.
I entered a modest 13,31 Euros for my bid.. with only 4 hours to go to the closure of the auction. Euros as you will know use commas instead of full-stops to form the decimal component of the currency. Ebay immediately transformed my modest bid into $13,310.00!! I tried to retract but the Ebay rules forbid this action within the last 12-hours of an auction... so my HUGE bid had to stand.
Clearly, after a couple of minutes' panic, I became a little more rational and realised the unlikelihood of anyone driving the bids for a mundane item up to my "maximum" In the event I won the auction for a modest $20.50.
However the incident gave me cause to wonder whether it is possible to get trapped into a totally irredeemable bidding situation on Ebay.
Norris Lockley.. feeling more relaxed..