8mm Forum: Rigged auctions on ebay?

This is topic Rigged auctions on ebay? in forum General Yak at 8mm Forum.

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Posted by Osi Osgood (Member # 424) on May 12, 2008, 05:34 PM:

Hey, I have a question for you folks.

I was just bidding on an auction for three optical sound features, (eh, go figure?)!

I wait until the very last minute, noticing that it is at 41.00 dollars. I think I'll catch them off guard and put a bid of 106 dollars and to just make it a little original, I'll add fifty cents, making it 106.50.

Immediately, the auction is at EXACTLY 106.50!!

This is way too coincidental!! Though I won the auction, (and each feature is just 35.00 dollars, not too bad, they'd better have damn good color as the auction said!)

I'd be willing to bet a lot of money that this seller (Molehillcreamy) has some kind of bid fixing, (in order to bring the bid instantly up to whatever you have placed as your highest bid)!

Is this legal or illegal?

Posted by Roy Neil (Member # 913) on May 12, 2008, 05:46 PM:

Sounds like the bidder before you had placed an amount just under your bid; when you sniped it proxied his bid to the max which was equivalent to your bid. Coincidence is my guess. Even if the seller had a way of divining your max bid ( friends at eBay ), he would then have to have a way of raising the PREVIOUS bid to your maximum - you cant change the auction amount without actually ' bidding '. So if he placed a bid after you did then you might be onto something, but unless someone bid after you it was just a coincidence.

Posted by Dan Lail (Member # 18) on May 12, 2008, 06:37 PM:

Osi, I have done lots of eBay transactins with this seller. He is not a scammer. The bidder with the $41.00 top bid had a proxy of $105.00. When you placed your bid it was $1.50 over his proxy. Check out the bid history. I had a $30.00 proxy. [Smile]

Posted by Osi Osgood (Member # 424) on May 12, 2008, 09:14 PM:

Good to hear Dan,

It looks like I just really lucked out on this one. I hope the prints have the great color that this fella promises.

Posted by Steven Sigel (Member # 21) on May 12, 2008, 11:21 PM:

Just as Dan said - here's what is going on here -- if you bid something that is less than 1 bid increment above the previous high bidders proxy bid, then it will go up to your max immediately...

In your case, the previous bidder had a high bid of $105, which he placed at 9:40 am PDT. Your bid of $106.50 (less than one increment above $105) was placed at 3:12 pm PDT (so almost 6 hours AFTER his bid)...

So unless you are accusing the other bidder of being a mind reader :-) , I think it's clear that this was just a coincidence.

Posted by Dan Lail (Member # 18) on May 12, 2008, 11:36 PM:

Steve, I think Osi was the mind reader. He knew exactly how much to place his proxy in order to win. [Big Grin]

Osi, I need help with some lottery numbers. [Big Grin]

Posted by Winbert Hutahaean (Member # 58) on May 13, 2008, 01:31 AM:

Osi...

Apart from your Ebay question, I also sent a question to this seller. He is not a scammer as Dan told us. But he is not an expert in 8mm but more to 16mm.

The question that I asked is about the diameter of the core. He describe the 3 are full feature but he also told me that it is 12 inch diameter. I dont think they are compleat version.

He told me that our conversation will be posted on his auction so other will see what are listed. But to the end, I didn't see was posted, unless the one you see on it now.

Keep us posted to what you are going to receive. If they are compleat then you are the lucky one!

cheers

Posted by Osi Osgood (Member # 424) on May 13, 2008, 09:28 AM:

I've received these films on these cores before, and so far, I've never ran into a film not being a complete, but I have ran into a few people that have ran into incomplete films.

My hope is that these are prints that have never been run, so they will have very good condition, obviously.

These opticals, on cores, can look very deceiving. There is usually more film on a core than it looks. I've cored these full features before, and they come to just about this size and remember, these optical features were always a little edited. The "Force Ten From navarone" was about 1 hour and 45 minutes on optical sound, for instance.

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