EBAY Stalkers? (1 Viewer)

[Chris Baucom]

I seem to have been hit by an Ebay stalker. I have had a few auctions lately where someone wins but never contacts me. Each time they appear to have an auto-generated username and zero feedback. Their email also appears to be auto-generated, as if they are creating new email accounts on a free service for the purpose of pestering sellers. Never hear from them, or they reply two weeks later saying they bought the item somewhere else. I am thinking it may be the same person each time.

Anyone else have this problem?

 

[Garrett Lundy]

According to what I've learned about Ebay, A Stalker is someone who, believing that you've ripped them off previously, send you hate mail, contact anyone who bids on your auction and sends them hate mail about you, and generally try to discredit you on Ebay, if they don't attempt to have your accounts closed.

A Sniper is someone who waits until the closing minutes of an auction before they bid. They do this just to annoy the current high bidder. Usually they will try to guess your high bid (Most people bid in ten dollar amounts), and bid exactly one dollar under that amount, so that you will end-up paying the most for your item.

A Ghost is a buyer, usually with a randomly generated account and email that bid on items and are never heard from again. They exist only to annoy the seller. Since "ghosts" have no intention of paying, they're always happy to put in a maximum bid in excess of $10,000 on even the most worthless junk.

A Doppelganger or Clone is a seperate identity created by the seller to bid on his own items. He (or she) is hoping to create a "bidding war" for his items with legitimate buyers to make more money. Since the seller is only going to leave excellant feedback about his doppelganger, they tend to have perfect ratings. Doppelgangers are most commonly found in auctions with items valued in the thousands of dollars (computers, cars, houses, big screen TV's, et cetera).

Therefor, you have an Ebay ghost. Since the technology is so readily available, you have almost no hope of ever getting rid of them all.:frowning: sorry.

 

[Jeff_HR]

A Sniper is someone who waits until the closing minutes of an auction before they bid

I suppose you could label me this (I'm not a bad guy), because I use this technique to win auctions for items I really want. Bidding way ahead of the end of an auction IMHO is a recipe for failure.

 

[Vincent_S]

Next time put a warning in your ad stating that if you have 0 feedback your bid will be cancelled unless they contact you first. That might help. Sorry about the bad luck.

 

[John_Berger]

Jeff, there is nothing wrong about sniping. I've found that the people who complain about snipers the most are those who keep losing auctions due to snipers.

Vincent, you are 100% correct. Another good reason to use a clause forbidding the bidding of people with x amount of feedback or less is that sometimes ghosts will leave negative feedback with some kind of bogus claim. If the eBay people see this clause in your description, they will stand behind you 100% to the point of removing the negative feedback entirely.

 

[James T]

I posted a link in this forum about some guy's feedback that had a bunch of ghosts and real users who had no idea they won a bid(but postive feedback was left).

Jeff, I bid last minute on items as well. A bidding war is better to have near the end of the auction where the other person may not respond to your max bid.

There's also a website that, for a fee, will snipe a bid for you down to a millisecond.

 

[Jeff_HR]

There's also a website that, for a fee, will snipe a bid for you down to a millisecond

What is the address for this site? I may wish to use this service sometime for an item I badly want that I can't be sitting in front of my computer for at the last minute of the auction.

 

[James T]

Sorry, I can't remember the site. I used it once for the trial period, then realized I don't bid on enough stuff to warrant the cost of use.

I think it had snipe or sniper in the URL.

 

[Gregg Shiu]

Ayo, the website, I believe is www.snipeswipe.com. I think there's also a unix program you can download called BidWatcher. In any case, I don't really have a problem with sniping, but this automated stuff makes it almost unfair. *shrug*

 

[Chris Baucom]

Thanks for the comments, folks. I think I'll try the "no zero feedback" restriction solution suggested by Vince. I have tried to stay away from using that, but I can see now why people need to.

 

[Chuck Mayer]

A sniper website Where's the fun, the sweaty palms, the alarm set at 2 AM?

ebay...what a show!

Can't hate snipers, though. That's the game.

Take care,
Chuck

 

[James T]

Where's the fun, the sweaty palms, the alarm set at 2 AM?

Well I slept through my alarm. When I woke up, the auction ended with the same bid I saw before I slept. It's too bad too, because it was a really low price.

 

[Philip_G]

Next time put a warning in your ad stating that if you have 0 feedback your bid will be cancelled unless they contact you first. That might help. Sorry about the bad luck.

bidders COMPLETELY disregard these warnings. I have done just such a thing on large items (cars, motorcycles etc..) no matter how bold or large I placed it they ignored my warning.

 

[Mark Zimmer]

When they ignore them, then you as seller go in (see the Seller menu) and delete their bids. Very straightforward. Most sellers don't realize you can do this, but you can do it. I've done it myself on an auction for glass where I realized the piece was busted and I deleted all the bids and canceled the auction, and emailed the bidders explaining what had happened.

 

[Matt Gordon]

I posted a link in this forum about some guy's feedback that had a bunch of ghosts and real users who had no idea they won a bid(but postive feedback was left).

I remember that! It was hilarious!