 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: mystery science dieter
Date: 2004-12-22 16:44
I thought I better mention this as well. I sold a clarinet on ebay recently and received a phone call from one of the bidders who did not win the next day. He was calling to ask about the 'second chance offer' I had made to him. Except I made no such offer.
Someone wrote to all the losing bidders offering to sell them the clarinet at their highest bid price. The person was a scammer and fortunately I got in touch with all the bidders and warned them. The person had an aol email address and has been reported to ebay and will hopefully be prosecuted.
So if you lost an auction recently, BEWARE.
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Author: Brenda Siewert
Date: 2004-12-22 18:14
This is a scam that eBay has been warning people about for a while now. Unless you talk to the seller in person, do not respond to these emails. Do a search on this board for warnings about eBay this season. It's not eBay, but some scams that are currently going on. As an eBay seller (although I'm totally sold out of merchandise), I want to make sure the dishonest sellers don't get ahold of the good people who frequent this board (or anyone else for that matter).
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Author: ron b
Date: 2004-12-22 18:49
I, too, had a recent eBay "second chance" offer. I wrote the seller, inquiring whether he had sent the nice, well designed (almost like the original eBay site post) Second Chance - that's exactly what it's called: Second Chance Offer. I received an instant, I mean lightning fast, reply that indeed he had several more batches of the same stuff and could offer them at the same low opening price as his other one. My first impression was, 'this guy's a super-sonic typist'....
Needless to say, this was at the very least unfair, on his part, to the winning bidder (if true) and a very poorly designed, but slickly presented, scam if not.
I made no further contact since the whole thing was highly suspect. Be very careful out there, kids, there are a few bad apples. eBay cautions buyers about doing "after auction", outside eBay, business for a good reason: their clout, such as it is, does not extend to offline encounters.
- ron b -
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Author: Brenda Siewert
Date: 2004-12-22 22:10
It's kinda sad, because it makes it hard for those of us who have a legitimate item that the buyer doesn't pay for, or decides not to buy. But, I feel it's better to just ignore the second chance people altogether.
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Author: johng ★2017
Date: 2004-12-22 22:14
Ebay allows and encourages second chance offers for sellers who have more than one of the same item. If the seller is willing to take the secondary bid then he or she checks a box on the Ebay sold item screen and Ebay takes them through the process to send the second chance offer. It is too bad that scammers have picked this up to send fake second chance offers because this is a useful way of selling.
As to fairness, we could argue about that, but at least in my case, I use the beginning bid amount as my lowest acceptable price, so I am still getting close to what I wanted. My items are low priced, so it rarely means more than $1 or so in the difference between the two bidders.
As others have said, it is always buyer beware.....just be careful.
John Gibson, JB Linear Music
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Author: avincel
Date: 2004-12-22 22:15
I was one who fell for the "second chance" scam on a clarinet. The offer seemed "official" and claimed to be "protected" aginst loss. So beware!
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Author: ron b
Date: 2004-12-23 00:42
No one can tell another how to do business, of course, but I find second chance selling not fair... at all and I can't imagine why eBay would encourage it. If the original auction winner discovers that you're selling the same or similar thing to others for less after he/she has committed to pay a higher price through the bidding process, you can forget that buyer ever being a repeat customer.
- r b -
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Author: ohsuzan
Date: 2004-12-23 02:03
I've only ever had one "second chance" offer come my way from Ebay, and it was from a seller I have dealt with many times. I was bidding on an expensive oboe book (which is still in print and widely available at about $5.00 over mymaximum bid price).
For some reason, another buyer wanted the book badly enough to overbid me. But the seller, who runs a bricks-and-mortar music store as well as an Ebay shop, offered me a copy of the book at mymaximum bid price -- which was fair, although more than I had originally hoped to pay.
In this case, what the "winning" bidder paid was only a few cents different from what I paid -- and many times, this is the case for winning bids. If the item is rather specialized, there will usually be just a few bidders, and if somebody REALLY wants it, they will bid repeatedly until they find out where your top bid is, and then bid the minimum over it -- often $.50 -- to win.
I don't see anything unfair about a second chance offer in a situation of this sort.
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Author: BobD
Date: 2004-12-23 13:01
Here comes Santa Claus.......
Bob Draznik
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Author: Dee
Date: 2004-12-23 13:30
I don't see a problem with the legit 2nd chance offers. Afterall with the automatic re-bidding, that second chance price is only going to be a few cents to a few dollars less. The winning bidder has essentially set the price.
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Author: CPW
Date: 2004-12-23 13:55
If the high bidder does not complete the purchase, and if the seller is willing to accept the bid of the pentultimate prospect, then why not?
seems ok to me....I got a nice item that way.
If the seller has another similar item that he/she originally wanted to keep, but finds that the demand for it is high (i.e. seller got bids in excess of what was anticipated) then I see no problem in offering the other item to the next bidder.
I had two widgets and auctioned one of them. The bids were higher than I thought. The temptation was too great not to make hay while the sun shined....so I offered the remaining widget to the next lower bidder at his price....and we both were happy. Two weeks later I bid on a replacement widget and got it at half of my selling price....timing is everything.
OTOH...I have reported sellers who get a winning bid then yank the item and relist at a higher starting price....or ones who dont have the item to begin with. One scammer is in the slammer!!! (figuratively)
I have established many fine friendships with interesting folks that started out as simple transactions
Make this a commandment....when dealing with sellers, email them, communicate well....if they receiprocate, you both win...if not....scr.w 'em.
.
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Author: Brenda Siewert
Date: 2004-12-23 14:10
I think eBay made the 2nd chance offer available because sellers were doing it anyway and eBay wasn't getting the fee for the sale. It's been a practice as long as I have been buying and selling on eBay. It eliminates having to relist the item and watch the auction. Also, as CPW mentioned, if the next high bidder has offered an acceptable price for the item, it seems fair to me.
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Author: Arthur
Date: 2004-12-23 22:01
Except " second chance" offers none of the ebay protections since it is done outside the ebay rules, and when you list with ebay you promise not to do that. So buyer beware.
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Author: johng ★2017
Date: 2004-12-23 23:34
....Except " second chance" offers none of the ebay protections since it is done outside the ebay rules, and when you list with ebay you promise not to do that. So buyer beware.
Reply to Arthur: That is not true when the seller goes through the Ebay 2nd chance offer process. The 2nd chance offer is set up as a new "auction" with an expiration date and Ebay rules as any other auction. See my post above about how it works.
J. Gibson, JB Linear Music
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Author: Mark Charette
Date: 2004-12-24 00:32
eBay posts their policies conspicuously. Make sure you read them and be suspicious of anyone who decides to do something outside the policies. They may be in violation of the eBay rules, and you will have no recourse with ebay should something be amiss.
Thread is now closed; the eBay policies on transactions is where the real rules are.
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The Clarinet Pages
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