Cels Forum

People do this *all* the time on eBay. I've had lots and lots 
of people kicked off. ^_^ In a way it's good that some of them 
are gone, but it's also really sad that anyone needs to be 
kicked off in the first place. 

Sellers do bid on their own auctions. Sometimes they have their 
friends do it, sometimes they do it with another name. 

I've personally had 2 people gang up on me once and outbid me in every 
single auction I'd bid on to find out my reserve, cancel their bids, 
and bid *just* under me so that my bid would be stretched to the 
very max. I don't have the slightest clue who either of them were, but 
my guess is maybe I outbid one of them in something they wanted. (?) As 
a result, I had to pay *very* high - and I mean $30-$50 extra - prices 
than what I normally would have had to. Of course, very rare Sailor Moon 
toys don't come cheap! The prices were still in the reasonable realm, but 
the point is I had to pay a *lot* more! And of course, eBay's no help. If 
I hadn't taken it upon myself to inform eBay, they wouldn't have done anything 
about it. The only real solution *I* had was to grit my teeth and send 
in a money order. ^_^

There have been times when I've heard people say that they bid their max on 
something and couldn't afford any higher, but if they can't get it for that 
price, neither will anyone else! So they go in and bid little by little so the 
other person's bid will go up. 

In a way, I HATE auctions! I don't bid on stuff I don't want and I think it's 
incredibly unfair that anyone else would, either. It's like everyone's been saying, 
too, that if someone thinks a toy is worth $10 and the bidding gets jacked up to $60, 
when it's relisted, it might be listed for $30 instead of $10. :( 

A friend of mine recently got burned on Yahoo. A girl bid on something 
she was auctioning and her ex-boyfriend outbid her and it turned into 
a bidding war between them. In the end, neither would buy it. Of course, at 
Yahoo, there's nothing you can do about it. 

At the risk of bringing up Yahoo-Japan....everytime I consider bidding on something,
I wonder if the "sells internationally" message might have been a mistake. I'd hate
to get my heart set on a cel and have someone say "Oh, I don't want to sell to you, 
I clicked that accidentally."

xane