Quote:
Originally Posted by butchie_t
I had this happen to me on an unrelated sports item about a month ago.
For me this was not a dilemma at all. Someone had placed a bid on the item and I got a message from another eBay person wanting me to pull the item and sell it to them at a price higher than the bid price at the time.
I do not see that as being fair to the first bidder to pull the auction item out from underneath them IMHO. I told the person that sent me the message that the auction would stand as it already had a bid. It ended up going for much more than the message person offered.
That is just not a good practice from my POV.
Regards,
Butch
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This is my general stance also.
This is not the first time this has happened either. I've gotten this request dozens, if not hundreds of times over the years.
It's always a polite no, unless the item has no bids, and they've really wowed me with an offer that convinces me to put up a BIN price. I usually never hear from them again, and they rarely factor into the bidding once the auction actually ends.
What really struck me this time was how insistent and almost "desperate" this prospective bidder was. Wouldn't take no for an answer. Multiple ebay messages, found my e-mail, and dug up my phone number and called multiple times before I had a chance to answer one of his calls.
After I told him I wasn't comfortable stopping the auction and canceling bids for him, he seemed to be convinced it was a negotiating ploy from me.
Wanted to know how much trouble I would REALLY get in with Ebay, if I did what he wanted me to do. I told him I likely wouldn't get into any trouble with Ebay, but that wasn't the point.
I kept on getting e-mails from him, even after I started this thread.
He kept on upping the ante, testing where my threshold might be. He didn't believe I wasn't going to do what he wanted. I probably could have soaked him for waaaaaay more then the lot was worth, but that part of the equation isn't as important to me as it is to others...likely to my own detriment. Honestly, I would have sold it for a lot less then he offered, if I put it up with a BIN, or even if another person didn't already place a bid.
Just a weirder then usual interaction.