Quote:
Originally Posted by Laird Scooby
It's that rotten i can smell it from here Alan! 
He could avoid auction fees by saying the item is no longer available/lost/broken/sold elsewhere. I suspect his line of reasoning is that by saying "Deposit taken", it will encourage people to send messages basically saying "if the sale falls through, can they have first refusal?".
By leaving the auction running, it may still attracts bids from genuine buyers who haven't seen the "Deposit now taken" bit and they'll be expecting to secure a car if theirs is the highest bid. It also means that if it gets to auction end and there is a clear high bidder, if the other sale goes ahead, he has to tell that bidder "Sorry but it sold elsewhere, added deposit taken to the listing" or if it doesn't go ahead, he simply contacts the high bidder and arranges hand-over date for the car and the money respectively to each party.
I think it's called hedging your bets but from a seemingly underhand way.  |
Gosh Dave, I’d never of thought of that - it just seemed that something wasn’t quite right. In that case I’m wondering whether many of the the 31 bids in the first 24 hours aren’t shill bids as well?
Time to get on with the day.
PS. I was just looking at the bidding pattern for this item: some random (probably genuine) bids on the morn of 30 October, then the same 3 bidders driving the price up from £2,999 to £7,100 during the afternoon and evening - and then nothing more.
I know, I should get out more :-).