TubeNet

Never sold anything on eBay, hardly ever will. As a collector I throw a wide net when searching for my watch list. I don’t take notes and very often avoid buying as doubts about quality and price/quality ratios come up.

Due to the lack of notes I cannot prove anything, yet I am left with a strong suspicion that some sellers change their opening prices after potential buyers have asked questions about a given auction object. Is it possible for seller to change their opening price without re-listing the item?

Klaus

If no one has bid on the item, yes, you can change the opening price either up or down.

Thanks for the replies on and off the board. My suspicion apparently was well founded.

The EU is my most interesting source area due to lack of taxes and duties associated with buying from out of the EU. However the EU is much less of an union than is the US. It is possible for sellers to restrict sales to their own country or countries with similar languages. 10 years ago German sellers had a very odd behavior compared to the US sellers, openly breaking rules. That has been changed for the very much better. Some more southern countries still have problems.

In general I am always allowed to enter auctions on basis of my feed back as a solid and speedy payer despite being out of diverse given auction areas. However I have experienced problems with the entry price being changed a couple of times.

I never forget people cheating on me. And they will not get more business from my side.

There may be a preventive strike however for this particular problem. Just placing a bid at the low level before asking any questions.

Klaus

imperialbari wrote: There may be a preventive strike however for this particular problem. Just placing a bid at the low level before asking any questions.

Sadly, no. The seller can cancell all bids and then relist the item. It happened to a friend of mine. eBay still gets their listing fees for the original listing, and the listing fee if anything is changed in the new auction.

You surely are right, but by doing so the seller kind of reveals him-/herself.

Being a collector my style means that I don’t really need more brasses, so if an item isn’t attractive by an overwhelming number of parameters, then I won’t buy.

Klaus

I never would protest a seller withdrawing an item because he found an error with that item.

In cases, where I knew I would never bid no matter what, I have informed sellers about their presentations being wrong. Many German seller have problems telling trumpets from flugelhorns, liquidating estates of older family members. On the other hand I have won worthwhile stuff because of faulty listings. If listed correctly specialty collectors would have outbid me. One US American sweeps the market for right handed French horns. I only got my Italian made piston horn because the seller listed it as and alto horn, so that many took it as a mellophone, a not very much wanted species. I am on a friendly foot with that American and sent him a thorough photo documentation for his book on the topic. The seller was the maker of my Vienna horn. If he isn’t able to tell the diffrence between an alto horn and a single F horn, then I have no mercy on him.

bloke mentions the pre-bid contact in case of bidders not well documented by feed-back. The same requests have been asked with foreign sales. I found myself being polite by asking in this actual case, and then the seller raised the opening price. And yes I found that a less than polite reply to a polite question.

Klaus

bloke wrote:- There is an old saying that the only thing that someone "owes" another person is courtesy, but I really don't even believe that anyone, in particular, owes even that to me. I expect nothing more than indifference, and therefore I'm rarely disappointed by any members of the human race.

If someone decides to not sell me their stuff...or is discourteous to me, I think nothing more of these things than if I were walking down the street and a penned-up dog barked at me. The same is true when (as an example), in traffic, those who make foolish mistakes driving their automobiles attempt to project their errors by honking or gesturing...just "barking of dogs"...' means nothing...

yep.