2nd Chance Offers
 

I bid on a modern patch/auto recently. I kept getting bid up in the last hour. I ended up losing the item, with the final sale price just under the last sales price of a similar item. I got a 2nd Chance Offer from the seller.

With all the events regarding shill bidding and some well known sellers, I am wary of 2nd chance offers in these situations. Anyone else have this happen?

I see these as black and white. Is the offer at a price I am willing to pay or not?

Sometimes it’s from shilling. Sometimes it’s because a ton of modern collectors renege on their bids and don’t pay.

Usually you can tell which it is based on how long after auction close you get the offer. Next day? They shilled you, reject it. A week later? Probably a non paying bidder.

Do we feel any better about it if it's a nonpaying bidder? Some moron who decided that they just had to beat you to win the auction, and then realizes that they actually aren't willing to pay that much?

I suppose the intent is a bit different. But they would both piss me off equally, if for somewhat different reasons.

It matters to me. Obviously I am willing to pay my top bid for the card. But I think ethics matter, and I do not deal with scammers and fraudsters no matter what cards they are offering me at what price (including most auction houses). A seller shilling and cheating me to get my max bid to offer me the card at my max price is unethical. It makes me decide they can piss off and I won’t buy it at any price.

If another bidder ruined the auction for the seller, somebody still did wrong but that person is not the seller. We are both victims by the jackass in this situation. Thus I have no problem forking over my bid to the seller, who did nothing wrong.

I certainly understand not caring and paying it in either case because you are willing to pay that price, but I value not giving money to crooks more than I do getting the card.

Good points!

But the morons who bid like drunken sailors with no intention of actually paying still piss me off to high heaven.

They are yet another reason I miss when eBay didn’t hide bidder names. At this point I would almost prefer eBay to force display of everybody’s name and address so I can send these folks strongly worded letters of disapproval.

HA.

In the olden days, you could even email another bidder.

I remember I was working an auction against another fellow on a card. We were going back and forth. In the end, he won. And then he started sending taunting emails. And not just a few. Kept going for a while, and finally, I just blocked him.

So I'm okay with losing that functionality.

Oh, I remember that happening quite a bit if I sniped something from someone.

I would just reply with "It's not my fault you don't understand how this site works." and a block.

Yes, the anonymity works well.

I also had a couple people that would watch my bids to locate items as they had similar collecting interests. I hated that more than anything. Glad that was stopped too.

I Snipe bid at what I am willing to pay. If I get it fine. If not fine. No 2nd chances.

The 2nd chance offer was about 12 hours after the end of the auction - pretty quick in my eyes.

Are you going to buy it?

At some point we all have to decide what we can tolerate. I have learned if you avoid everybody that has done something bad in this hobby you will have to avoid everybody. I agree with never buying from the DMs of the world but there are many many legit reasons a seller can offer you the second chance fairly quickly after a auction ends.

I had that happen to me once, though it was awhile ago. If I recall correctly, the 2nd chance offer came back within a few hours of the auction completion. I didn't accept it though I don't remember why anymore.

I'd say if you want the card and are happy with the price, just go for it. The odds of you ever finding out what really happened are slim to none. Almost two years ago I had someone bid on a Topps Chrome Russell Wilson RC (football) three minutes before the auction ended. They won and not 2 minutes after the auction ended they messaged me asking if I could cancel the sale to them. No idea why or what the deal was but I just did it and relisted instead of sending a 2nd chance offer. Ended up selling for $30 more in the end.

I'd still be wary and careful of getting a second chance offer even if it were days after the auction ended, and not just immediately or hours after. Assuming if the offer comes say a week after the auction originally ended that it indicates the original buyer must have somehow cancelled, backed out, or simply ended up being a non-paying auction winner, might not be very smart. I tend to believe most shillers, scammers, and frauds aren't completely stupid. And if they've been at something like this, shilling and then dropping a 2nd chance offer on the party they couldn't entice to bid even higher, for a while, they may have already picked up and figured out that making the 2nd chance offer immediately or soon after the auction ended tends to make the party they're trying to shill and scam very suspicious. And as a result they quickly learn to wait a few days before making the 2nd chance offer to make it seem the alleged auction winner really did back out/not pay.

No.

How unusual of a cad is it?

12 hours seems way too quick unless.... there's a chance they have a second one?

That happened to me on a cycling jersey. Family member listing his fathers 48 Olympic Jersey, Bid went well, but I was underbidder, and got a second chance offer in a similar time frame.
Talked with a friend, and he figured if it was shilling it would be relisted, and if he really had two the second one would be listed eventually.

About a week later, he listed a second one that was in better condition. And I ended up winning it for less than I would have paid the first time around.

It was a patch/auto of a rookie...pop 50, so not rare. But as we see often there are a lot of variations so a 1 of 50 is really more like a 1 of 2,000. I ended up buying a variation from another seller for less.

i'm kind of in the same boat. also depends on how high on my want list the card is. but i do get a leery feeling when those 2nd chance offers come up.