The World crisis is definitely over...

[azimuth_pl]

Please correct me if I'm wrong but lately some LEDs and especially Pulsars (but only some of them) are reaching crazy money only experienced in the Golden Days some 10 years back.
Check this one (even an early but used P2 shouldn't reach nearly 800$)
http://www.ebay.com/itm/280832880893

I would consider this to be shill-bidding but this applies to more than one occurence.

[retrowrist]

azimuth_pl,

Are you suggesting that $787.77 is a little high for this Pulsar P-2? Here is what I would like to know, and forgive my ignorance, but how could eBay allow a auction seller to get away with Shill-bidding? How is this done? Is there proof that this type of cheating exists?

If this describes the deliberate act of a seller to bid on his own item with another account, and carefully knowing how high to bid, then that is doing the buyer an injustice to some degree. This is because the buyer pays the very highest premium for the item he or she bid on.

If this truly has been going on, then I believe I have been effected by it. I have noticed this with auctions that have no exchange/return policy. Recently, I bid on a Seiko, that I won for an outrageous price, and the other bidder had plenty of time to outbid me, but did NOT. The bidding opponent bid all the way to almost my price, but stopped mysteriously before he or she could overtake my price. Very strange. This has happened twice now.

I only bid on items I can afford, very few items indeed.

When I finally got this watch in the mail, it really was NOT as described in the auction. I worked on the watch, but could not fix it. It did not work properly. I thought about posting "Poor feedback" on this seller, but I am not sure I am in the rite to do so.

If Shill-Bidding exists, and if I was a victim of this practice, then maybe something could be done to protect the bidders.
If this was what happened to me when I bought that Seiko for the TOP TOP dollar I paid for, then I am really disappointed. Is is very hard to trust sellers as it is. I am still not sure if I should leave poor feedback though. I think the seller had a perfect record, and I was reluctant of damaging it.

Anyway, I am very sorry for Sky-jacking (Charlton Heston) this thread azimuth_pl! Please forgive me because you are a good person.

Thank you all!

- Patrick

[azimuth_pl]

No worries Patrick,
shill-bidding by idiots is protected by eBay by checking IP's, they have system settings that detect this one way or another.
however this can not be detected if I ask forum members worldwide to bid on my item to a certain value.
if your watch did not work properly and is not as described you can first post negative feedback after a bad resolution and additionally post a claim with Paypal who will block the money on the sellers account until resolved. Paypal does not protect sellers so they complete most claims in the favor of the buyers.

Nevertheless...if somebody has any idea why some Pulsars are reaching crazy money nowadays please post a comment.
Perhaps the crisis is really over?

[rewolf]

Perhaps the crisis is really over?

No, it's just starting. People are trying to invest their money before all goes havoc. Better some old watches in the safe than worthless bank notes ;)

[bucko170]

The bidding history does look a lot like shill bidders at work, eBay might have policies against shill bidding but in reality I doubt there is much they can do to prevent it, the shill bidders are not forced to be located in the same place and I would bet the fraudsters are aware that their IP address could be a give away and take measures to avoid detection, even if the IP address shows bidding located to a particular area it would still be difficult for eBay to prove that fraudulent activity is taking place. My advice would be to bid the amount that you are happy to pay and no more, especially on the more commonly found models, such as the P2, if you do get outbid then there will always be another one sooner or later.
Paypal & eBay do offer buyer protection, if the item is not as specified I would firstly contact the seller to see if things can be worked out, secondly file a dispute, followed by a claim if matters cannot be resolved, I would then leave the seller the appropriate feedback.
Disputes and claims need to be filed within a specific time, I think it is 45 days after the sale date, for additional protection pay via Paypal with the credit card it would provide another avenue through which to claim should things go wrong.
If you are the type of person who can get carried away with the bidding consider using one of the sniping sites such as 'hammersnipe' with these you enter your top bid and they enter your top bid in the last few seconds of the auction for you.

[retrowrist]

bucko170 - 2 things:

1) I still don't understand how a "Shill-Bidder" can know my top bid or "Maximum bid." It would seem useless to be a shill-bidder if you do not have a software application or some kind of network tool to see Max bids from his or her end so the shiller can carefully climb the bid ladder, and max you out.

2) eBay is risk when searching for something you need and nowhere else has it. I have to admit I was taken by a UK seller who just kept saying, "Look at the pictures!" I did, and I thought I asked really good accurate questions about the Seiko M159 watch he had for sale. Questions like: Is that the original band? Does the Chrono function? Can the time set accurately? Is the watch keeping good time?

The only question I did NOT ask cam back to KILL ME!!!!!! And when I paid a very high price for that M159, I received one with a DYING POLARIZER! I was really upset. But hey, I learned a lot about early Seiko's that week with the help from all you people. When I asked this STUD MUFFIN why he failed to obviously neglect to tell me the digital segments were so faint they could barely be read, he replied, "It Works!", and "I sold it to you!" "That's it!" He knew he had me, and I ate the overpriced cost of the watch. I should had left him poor feedback, but I didn't.

Also, Whenever I sell something on eBay, I try being very accurate in my descriptions of the item(s) I am selling for the benefit of the bidder. If something looks to be a 6out of 10, then so be it. Stretching a 6 out of 10 to a 8 out of 10 is really not being honest. It really makes me wonder where sellers get the idea that they can state that something is MINT or lightly used, when it is not in that condition.

I have sold rare Gameboy Light systems on eBay, and I feel that my auctions were good accurate descriptions of the Gameboys because of the condition I bought them in years before. If I feel that something may be questionable, I ask the buyer to contact me with any complaints before posting "poor Feedback."

You are correct bucko170 when you stated that "your Price" should be the only price that maters, and never stray from that. But it does not always end this way as we know.

- Patrick

[bruce wegmann]

This is the sort of thing that happens when you succumb to impulse-bidding; the "Oh, my God, if I don't get this, I'll never have a chance at another one" syndrome. You end up paying way too much, and it almost always ends in disappointment. I have to admit, I did this with my first P1, even though it was a private transaction, but it did turn out, by a wide margin, to be the most expensive one I ever bought (not a disappointment, though; after all. it WAS still a P1!). And, I did it a few times, early on, on eBay, too. Now, I never bid early on anything I'm interested in (that's what your WATCH ITEM list is for). Then, you have a week to decide what your reasonable top-dollar bid can be. Then, you wait until the final seconds of the auction; if the price is under your number, pop it in and hit the button, if it's gone over, LET IT GO! This is called "sniping", and some prople think it's unfair or unethical, but, fact is, anybody can do it, and it avoids adding another bid to what might be a "feeding frenzy" on an item. I started doing it when eBay still showed complete bidder IDs, so you knew who you were bidding against. I realized that items I bid on early tended to go high, and ones I passed up were going lower than I thought they should (evidently, some other bidders were using the fact that I bid as an indicator that the item was worth bidding on...not as crazy as it sounds; I was doing that, myself!). I decided I would never betray my interest in something by bidding early, and it worked! Now, it's just my preferred bidding-style, even though, with scrambled IDs, it's no longer necessary. So, I think the most valuable lesson to be learned here is...disipline! Ebay was and is the ultimate testing ground for the truth of the proverb that "All good things come to he who waits". No matter what it is, if you wait, another one WILL show up (4 of my 8 P1s were purchased on eBay)! And, I have picked up some other amazing bargains, as well.
As far as the "world crisis" being over...nah, that's years away; it's just the early-filers getting their income-tax refunds back, and indulging themselves a bit. There'll be another spike in prices in early May, when the great majority (who wait until the last minute to file) get their money. This happens every year, predictable as the sunrise.
Anyway, big question is...why is anybody buying Pulsars on eBay, when I still have 70 here, waiting for new homes?! Clean, working examples of every stainless and goldfill model you can think of, from a known and reliable seller (and, no eBay fees!). What are you waiting for...?

[bucko170]

It's a bit of a gamble with eBay sometimes you get lucky sometimes you lose, what you need now is to find a bargain buy to balance things up

A couple of ways I can see shill bidding working.

1. The sellers guesses what the top bid is and bids up to that level, if he guesses wrong and ends up with the highest bid he then waits to see if any higher bids come in, if no one bids and he wins his own item he can offer it to the next highest bidder as a second chance offer saying that the winning bidder failed to pay or relist the item and start over.

2. If the seller users two shill bidders each taking it in turns to bid they can bid in increments until they top the highest bid, the shill bidder who now has the highest bid can then retract his bid, leaving you as the highest bidder, this way they do also know what your highest bid is.

Unfortunately there are always going to be some unscrupulous scumbags trying to make a dishonest buck, found one myself just recently.

[Kasper]

interesting tread

somethimes i put a bid in very early cause i'm afraid the seller would sell it early...nice item, seller is new.
I never use software, i need the kicks from bidding..if i pay good money, i want it all

like Bruce said...there is no suck thing like "the last one on earth"
edit : there is no SUCH thing like....sorry..i was busy doing something other then...in my mind

[bruce wegmann]

I'm guessing you meant "no SUCH thing as, the last one on Earth"...
Well, I'm not sure I would go quite that far...the 14K solid gold P1 comes to mind. It's more than a year later, and it's still a unique watch...the only one known to exist in the world (it was even said, by an "authority" who should know better than to make such absolute statements, that "No 14K P1s were made, and none exist"). This single watch, like the Grima Pulsars, means we have to significantly re-write the Time Computer history, which made this item very special, indeed. That bad info kept everyone wondering whether the thing was real or not (it was and is), and kept the bidding throttled down. In the meantime, I was marshalling resources that allowed me to make an auction-winning bid in the last...count them...2 seconds; I never use the sniping programs...with kilobucks on the line, I want my own hot little finger on the "Confirm Bid" button! Turns out, of the 11 bidders, I was the only one in the entire United States...the rest were scattered around the globe. So, the final test of disipline and strategy comes down to knowing when to bend your own rules a bit, and go all-out for an item. Now, another one will probably show up eventually (of course, we won't know until that actually happens; I'm really hoping it does, as the serial number might give us some clue as to how many were actually made), but in the meantime, it's fun to own a one-of-a-kind thing. So, with a world ecomony still staggering to regain some stability, prices are down overall, and in selected areas, the smart money is buying, not selling.

[lucamd11]

Look at this:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... true&rt=nc

same seller same watch and same fake bidder (Y...S) with 6 feeds behind..definetly a shill bidder...

[bruce wegmann]

We're wandering a bit OT here, but, IMHO, this isn't necessarily shill bidding in action. It could just as easily be a newbie buyer who's doing a bit of cautious probing to see how high the high bid is. I've done this myself, going up a minimum bid increment at a time until I decided I was as high as I was willing to go...sometimes a dozen bids or more in quick succession (I'm especially prone to do this if the high bidder has placed additional bids above his own). Does that make me a shill bidder? Not from where I sit, but it might seem that way to someone else looking from their perspective. I still remember a couple of (1)-feedback bidders push a perfectly ordinary SS P3 to over $1300 in a classic case of one-upsmanship, until one of them regained consiousness and took his finger off the "Confirm Bid" button (I'm sure the seller was dancing in the street when it was over). The important question that went unanswered was...did the winner follow through with the transaction...?

[retroleds]

I just had to chime in on this one. I'm thinking on extremely rare occasion, you will have someone who will be willing to lose a significant amount of money to try and promote themselves as a seller of high-end items. The infamous "Pigeon" was an example of that - myself and others sold the guy watches which he then ran up to ridiculous prices on ebay. I think he was thinking he would be willing to blow $50-80 in fees on X number of items, and then he would be able to command top dollar for all sorts of stuff. Not considering that watches do not grow on trees - many (at this time of the game) are pieced together by a range of people, who are diligent and patient to find the parts to complete the remaining workers. Working movements is one thing, decent cases, glass,etc. are another. Always something.
What someone like the 'Pige' didn't consider is that each who has worked on a number of these pieces, from the guys who go nuts on theSynchronars like clockace and Scully, to the Pulsar guys like Bruce, and now Hanno, is those individuals are adding something important back into the mix - working watches. So, the shill-bidders wll hopefully kill themselves playing this game.
I'd agree with Bruce, shill bidding is hard to work in a limited market/genre. On the other hand, at an actual, live auction, good shill bidding can work wonders. Good shill bidders will sometimes employ a few people, men and women, to bid against a particular stranger.

[bruce wegmann]

I bow here to the superior knowledge of an experienced seller. I'm just starting...still, did OK on my first offering; many more to come...stay tuned.