Reply to "Crazy bidders!"

I had an old snowboard up for auction. It was worth about $300 to a collector. A first time bidder with a (0) rating bid right away. Of course nobody, including myself knew his maximum. As the auction started to close a well known collector, and past buyer from me, started to run up the auction from $50. He got up to $480, still losing to the (0) bidder and bailed to my next collector board which was to end 10 minutes later.

Obviously, (0) won the auction at $480. It was his first time with ebay and he must have bid $500 or something. When I invoiced him, I mentioned that he held off a strong collector and that a few snowboard shop buyers were monitoring the auction with interest. This single word "monitoring" set him into a fury and he turned me into Safe Harbor for shilling.

Needless to say, the collector won the next board and even beat out (0)'s early low bid on that board. Plus, he bought (0)'s unpaid board at a discount of $200. As for (0), I ended up with a negative and he, a (-0). I bought into the Square Trade rip-off deal and got it removed for $20.00.

Seller's lessons:

1. Don't deal with (0) buyers on stuff over $50-75.00.

2. Watch what you say after the auction. Just get the money and ship quickly.

This is a great board. I only wish I had this information when I was trading heavy a few months ago.

Henry