eBay hurts my caveman brain

[prog]

Just took everything but the Wii game down from eBay. In the early part of the decade I was quite comfortable with eBay but I clearly don't understand this system any more; after four days my PS2 games each had zero bids but several "watchers". I am not sure what that means - I assume they were using an internal bookmarking service? - but whatever these "watchers" were doing they couldn't be bothered to make a $1 opening bid on any of the games, and that's just odious. No game for you. (Present company excluded, of course.)

The Wii game has nine watchers but three bids so that's OK. Seriously, though, is it just sniping? Has it advanced to such an art in the last few years that nobody bids like normal anymore?

This system would be less broken if any bid extended an auction's cutoff by an hour. I have been saying this for years. Bah.

Comments

[cortezopossum.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately PayPal is one of the best ways to go.

Personal checks aren't very trustworthy and besides, who uses checks anymore (I pay most of my stuff on line or via debit card and maybe use about 5-to-10 checks PER YEAR).

Bank Checks and Money Orders are more trustworthy (unless they're from Canada) but people are lazy and they'll wait until you complain about nonpayment to drag their ass to the bank or post office to get one. You won't get your money until about a month after the auction. You also have to put up with lying excuse after excuse about little Timmy needing an operation and how you can trust them because they're so Christian.

[prog.livejournal.com]

The one failed sale I ever made was when someone bid a healthy amount for my Sega Genesis + all games, won, then lowered their offer to $20 for just one of the games, citing their ailing grandmother.

[toonhead-npl.livejournal.com]

In 2001, I had one guy offer me less than half to what he agreed to because of 9/11. Unfortunately he didn't even bid until after that date.

Other than that, I've had a few "I'm sorry I hit the bid button by mistake!!!!" people (yeah right) who want to back out. What can you do? You risk getting a false bad recommendation otherwise.