Sniped and didn't like it one bit...

um, may I ask ... is there anything unusual about the series of bids? It seems pretty usual to me but maybe I just don't see it. One interesting aspect is that the winning bidder's max bid was exactly 222.00, you didn't win but as you know you at least made him pay his full price (always a source of consolation to me for some reason when it happens...). I've been in tons of situations where there were multiple bids in the last 10 or 15 secs. The worst I think was around 6 or 7 different bidders popping up in the last 15 seconds. Probably there were even more snipes lined up but didn't go through as the price was being batted up.

Looks like it was a case of a bunch of last second bidders all submiting at about the same time. It does not look like anyone of them was responding to anyone elses bid. Just a bunch of people bidding their top amount at the same time. Shows that the price was about the max that all of them were willing to pay. Just the one willing to pay the most won.
That has happened to me a quite a few times. I just say, well, that was all that I was willing to pay and wait till the next gizmo comes along.
That is why I love the bid groups so much.
Unless the gizmo is a one of a kind, hand made in 1403, there will probably be another one showing up. Some times, I've been lucky and after all of those that had been paying higher snips and wining, got one. Then I won one at a small fraction of the origional price we were fighting over. SO.. Good luck and WELCOME

quote:

:One interesting aspect is that the winning bidder's max bid was exactly 222.00, you didn't win but as you know you at least made him pay his full price (always a source of consolation to me for some reason when it happens...).

The winning bidder obviously paid more than the second place bidder, but there is no way to know what his "max" or "full" bid was. It could have been several times the winning bid.

Maybe increments in Germany:
http://pages.ebay.de/help/buy/bid-increments.html

That is odd that Switzerland would forego its neutrality.



That excited my curiously-nerve. It appears that ebay Japan lost the auction war to Yahoo Japan (that’s based on VERY limited research). But, here are the increments for Yahoo Japan (I think):

Price of Item             Increment
1yen - 1,000yen           10yen
1,000yen - 5,000yen       100yen
5,000yen - 10,000yen      250yen
10,000yen - 50,000yen     500yen
50,000yen - every yen     1000yen

Sure does look more exciting to bid in yen - if you're yen to that kind of thing.

Speaking of various currencies, I recently had a question on one of my listings -- person from Netherlands wanted to send me cash Euros (of course they're not fake!) in registered envelope for my item -- would that be OK? Ummm...no...how about PayPal'ing me payment in US$?!? Plus, the fact the questioner specifically said they're not fake, makes me suspicious that they are! Not that I could tell even if I had them in hand!

I don't think I've ever bid on an auction that wasn't in US$. I've won things from Canada, but even those auctions were listed in US$. Is it difficult to Paypal payments in different currencies than what is used locally?

Yup, I was wrong before, made the mistaken assumption about the bid increment, sorry about that.

@Jabbergah, I have my funding source in dollars but I've often paypaled in pounds or Euro (Germany, Ireland etc.), never had any problem at all. Might have a loss on the exchange rate Paypal applies, but never checked how much--kind of assumed it would be marginal. By the way, I even had to resort to sending Euro cash once, to a seller in Belgium who couldn't take paypal. Worked out just fine--very honest guy who, when he sent the item, enclosed the 0.20 Euros change in a shiny coin neatly taped in the package. I'd have probably accepted the Euro cash from the Dutch guy in your situation, depending on his history.

Most difficult country is France, as PayPal and/or credit cards don't seem to have much of a hold there. I don't like sending Euros cash, but some sellers accept postage stamps, so you can have a real hotchpotch of cash and stamps etc. (and get change in stamps) and it's a bit of a mess. Bank-to-bank payments are expensive in Europe (and, in my opinion high risk), so might be worth checking with sellers beforehand exactly what they accept (some don't publish anything). The only reason I bother is that there are some fantastic bargains.....