With the recent talk about Ebay bidding patterns and how to check them I figured it would be a good time to relate this cautionary tale about a pair of jerseys and how I almost didn't get one.
I was bidding on a pretty special jersey with great provenance, 1948 US Olympic jersey from a riders family member. (Plus I'd bought a couple items from the same guy before) I was surprised to be the underbidder at the end, and even more surprised to get a legit second chance offer within a few hours. Which made me check the bid history for a few items. The bid history looked pretty bad, the second bidder had bid on maybe 10 items, all from the same seller, but hadn't won any. After talking it over with a friend I figured I'd pass on it but watch the sellers auctions to see if a second jersey surfaced, or I thought more likely the same one.
A month later sure enough a second but different Jersey. But a nicer one, the first had some stains from poor storage.
I ended up winning that one for a bit less than I'd bid for the first one. I also checked the bidders history before bidding on the second one, and by then it looked entirely normal. About 20 items bid on, from around 15 different sellers with a few wins.
So the first auction and second chance offer was totally legit, and I nearly missed a great item for my collection. (Assuming I'd avoided the sellers auctions because of the appearance of shill bidding ) I'd feel terrible if I'd reported the bidding patterns and been mistaken.
Yeah, there are some games being played with bidding on Ebay. But sometimes there just isn't a crook behind every odd bidding pattern or sellers odd idea of what's "right"
Steve Birmingham
Lowell, Massachusetts
USA