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Clever ebay scam?

C

Chris Norwood

Active Member
I've just sold (or so I thought) a Chris Lythe centrepin on Ebay. The winning bidder has not contacted me since Sunday and appears to have no intention of paying. The underbidder started at £600 and bid up to £850 in £50 bids then stopped ( not artificial ebay bids). The winning bid was £870. I contacted the underbidder and have offered the reel to him at his highest bid of £850. He has come back to me and said that as it appears he was bidding against false bids, he would offer me £650 - £50 above his lowest bid. Am I being paranoid or is this a very clever method of keeping the price down. Person A and B are in collusion. Person A bids a really high bid early. Person B starts bidding 2 or three minutes before bidding ends and keeps on bidding to just below person A's early bid. This would deter other watchers from bidding and stop any last minute snipes. Person A then doesn't pay. Net result - person B is able to justify offering a lower price. Has anybody else had the same experience. Am I being paranoid - what do you think?
If it's not a scam, would you insist on the underbidder paying his highest losing bid. Nobody had any idea that the winner was playing games at the time so the underbidders losing highest bid was what he was prepared to pay as far as I'm concerned.
PS Please don't hijack the thread complaining about high priced centrepins. That's for another thread.
 
Any Lythe reel (I have 3) is worth at least £800 so don't let it go for less than that.
As an alternative you could offer it as a buy it now on the Tradition Fisherman's Forum on the TART (Tradition angling retro tackle) group on Facebook.
I know a lot of people in the traditional fishing world and if you want to then PM me and I could put it out there for sale and get anyone who is interested to contact you directly.
Do not sell it for £650!
Edward Barder has been offering some Lythe reels for sale which have sold for £1200 and £1400.
http://www.barder-rod.co.uk/specials/One-off rods sale, March 2016/Chris Lythe reels.aspx
 
Hard to say if it's a scam or not, could well be, but if he's willing to bid that high in the first place than he's willing to pay it. How much were you hoping to get?
 
Did a bit of research and found the highest price previously paid on Ebay was £660. So it was a nice surprise (to start with) to get £870 as a winning bid. Just a bit cheesed off now re scammers and chancers but I'll keep the info above in mind. I'm in the process of moving to Wiltshire in the next few days so could have done without all this extra hassle. I'll have to put the sale on the back burner for now.
 
Nigel, I'll get back to you once I've moved. If you don't hear from me within the first two weeks in June, send me a pm to remind me. Got a lot on my plate at the moment with the move. Cheers for the info and the offer of help. I will get back to you. I'll post this as a pm to you as well.
 
Using eBay you have to also consider that with PayPal your paying 15% which will cost you around £100 for a sale of £650 use centrepins for sale on FBook or Tart on Facebook to me the eBay thing could well be suspicious.
 
Chris Norwood said:
Did a bit of research and found the highest price previously paid on Ebay was £660. So it was a nice surprise (to start with) to get £870 as a winning bid. Just a bit cheesed off now re scammers and chancers but I'll keep the info above in mind. I'm in the process of moving to Wiltshire in the next few days so could have done without all this extra hassle. I'll have to put the sale on the back burner for now.
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Ebay is not a good place to sell Lythe reels but they have gone for more. I paid £800 for a mint 1915 last year on Ebay.
 
Possibly a scam but if its not then you also need to think of what the under bidder has gone through.Someone has bid him up and up, to his maximum and then gone beyond expecting him to bid higher.Then after losing the auction he has been offered it as a 'bid up' best loser, at his highest bid.He will think it was you that bid him up and are trying to con him,i know i would.As others say ebay is probably not the place to sell top quality kit.I have bought lots of items on ebay at what i would class as 'steal' prices with honest bids.Often your serious watchers miss the end time and one bid wins it.I have also been 'bid up' by sellers,and its been quite obvious they are doing it.
 
no way of telling if its a scam or not but i think you can set a minimum price you want for an item or if not buy it now price but like clive said if your useing paypal your gonna pay 15% for that.
Andy
 
i for one if put in a position of false bids raising the price would certainly not pay any more than my current bid when the dodgy bidder bid. no disrespects to the seller but it could also be veiwed as though there were bids going in to artificially raise the price intentionally, in fact i looked at the reel myself lol but decided 600 was max i would bid for it, as i said there is nothing intended by my comment apart from the fact there could be conflicting opinions on wats happened, a cracking ooking reel non the less:)
 
I would be tempted to relist on eBay and let it run again and contact eBay about the dodgy bidder/non-payer.

Chris Lythe reels are not easily obtainable and you could quite possibly get more than £650.

Neil
 
I'd avoid eBay for something that valuable. There are a lot of time wasters out there and the fees on something that valuable would make you weep

List it on fushing sites where people are known
 
Well it turns out it was me being paranoid after all. The winning bidder paid for the reel lunchtime today and sent me a message which didn't make much sense when translated to English from German. No apology for the delay in payment though. Ended up with just under £800 after the fees so not a bad price considering I paid £300 for it a few years back at Mullocks auction in Ludlow. Every cloud has a silver lining - got a lot of valuable info from posting about the reel on here and learned a few lessons. Thanks to all for the advice and for the contacts. Will certainly be using the info for some of the other items I have.
 
HI Chris,
I am glad that you have got things sorted out.

Changing the subject, how are you ? Nice to see you posting on BFW.
I have been in contact with Alan Oliver but we never seem to meet up, possibly my fault.

Perhaps we will all meet up one day.

Good luck with your nightmare, sorry I mean move.

Brian.
 
John Walker said:
i for one if put in a position of false bids raising the price would certainly not pay any more than my current bid when the dodgy bidder bid. no disrespects to the seller but it could also be veiwed as though there were bids going in to artificially raise the price intentionally, in fact i looked at the reel myself lol but decided 600 was max i would bid for it, as i said there is nothing intended by my comment apart from the fact there could be conflicting opinions on wats happened, a cracking ooking reel non the less:)
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I bet it's no better at 'ooking' fish than any of my reels John :D:D:D

Couldn't resist it mate :p

Cheers, Dave.
 
Dave, i cant help it mate i am and always have been since 11 years old a kleptomaniac with fishing gear, theres still one or two flass rods with bronze ferrules i have that have been with me for donkeys years and still as new lol:) DUHHHH i just seen the blue ooking bit what the Ls going on ere
 
John Walker said:
Dave, i cant help it mate i am and always have been since 11 years old a kleptomaniac with fishing gear, theres still one or two flass rods with bronze ferrules i have that have been with me for donkeys years and still as new lol:) DUHHHH i just seen the blue ooking bit what the Ls going on ere
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Ey 'up ooking reels with a flass rod way to go John:D
 
I didn't know you were around in the bronze age John :D. Pity the ferules are not brass mate....then those old rods of yours would be 'flass and brass', worth a fortune :p

All in good fun mate, the ruddy state of everything around us at the moment, we need a laugh now and then....and it's SO much better when it's at someone else's expense :D

I guess I had better watch my p's and q's now John, otherwise you will be ripping the pee out of me big time :D:D:D

Cheers, Dave.
 
on a similar note, a scam I have been subjected to in the past was when I bid won and paid for an item only to have the quoted delivery date come and go. After contacting the seller and receiving no reply I went into the 'open a case' scenario only to have the seller refund the cash on the last day before ebay would so call - step in.
pretty clever really as by taking that route and waiting for the buyer to report the not received, no feed back can be left on the sellers profile.
I did however see the item listed again several weeks later with a slightly different pic and contacted the seller asking about my previous transaction. After a few days I had a reply saying that the listing had a note saying that it was 'listed elsewhere and the auction may end at anytime' and that the item was sold on another forum before the 24 hour 'ebay alteration / end auction' limit and that that particular buyer had failed to then pay!
All very questionable
I suppose at the end of the day if your reel had sold for only £600 you too could have played that game and not sent the reel and refunded the money later...would negative feed back be well compensated by a few more £100 when the item sold for a more respectable price??
 
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