Ebay Auction

[KANSAS]

a man has a Boardwalk 50 pt contract up for sale on
ebay.

It is a no reserve auction
what will it bring? I was shocked that he had no reserve

Will it bring at least enough to get past DVC Rofr?
or do buyers on ebay, not understand ROFR

it has 38 bids already!

he is expecting the buyer to pay
all closing costs
and disney transfer fee
and orange county,Fl ROFR fee
on such a small DVC contract.

I am curious what will happen?

 

[Disneyaholic]

The seller does mention that Disney has right of first refusal -- way down at the bottom of the listing.

Maybe he just wants to unload the points. He probably figures that they will go for at least what he paid for them (I don't remember what BW points started out at) and he will get that whether Disney buys them or someone else does!

Plus, he doesn't have to pay any commission to a broker. He may not maximize what he can get for them, but it's quick and it's a sure thing.

 

[Beca]

I don't think those "38 bidders" are going to let that go for a "bargain" price.



Beca

 

[TammyAlphabet]

These points were for sale on Tug earlier this week. I talked to the guy yesterday and promised that I would bid on them. I am sure that they are going to sell at a fair price. I will bid on them if they are going too low. Anyhow, I think it will be interesting to see how much they go for...

 

[Dean]

With almost no points until Dec of 2006, paying closing, paying 11 months of fees on the points that are gone, this is not cheap at the present price and will become increasingly less so if the price goes up. still it might be perfect for the right person as an add on or even to get into the system for less points and therefore less dollars.

 

[rinkwide]

...I was shocked that he had no reserve...

...I am sure that they are going to sell at a fair price. I will bid on them if they are going too low...

Ahh, the beauty of the free market.

This seller is smart enough to know that nothing on eBay sells for less than it's worth. He also realizes the buzz created by the auction's 'no reserve' status might well ensure that bidding goes much higher than fair market value. Bravo.

 

[kathyseb]

I stumbled across the ebay listing yeaterday and earmarked just so I could see what it ended up going for. Hard to believe it had no reserve. The first bid came in at $1.50.

 

[sagwanamu]

If you look at the bid history, one bidder raised the price alone. 24 out of 27 bids were from one bidder... It's funny...

But still it's a good deal, given that all UY05 maintenance is paid for.

 

[robinb]

I talked to the guy yesterday and promised that I would bid on them. I am sure that they are going to sell at a fair price. I will bid on them if they are going too low.

This is called shill bidding. Not only is it unfair to the real bidders, but it is illegal on eBay. How would you feel if you knew that someone's friends were bidding against you on something just to drive the price up?

http://pages.ebay.com/help/buy/shillbidding.html
http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/seller-shill-bidding.html

Shill Bidding

Shill bidding is the deliberate use of secondary registrations, aliases, family members, friends, or associates to artificially drive up the bid price of an item. (This is also known as "bid padding.")

Shill bidding is strictly forbidden on eBay. eBay members found shill bidding may receive warnings or indefinite suspensions of their accounts.

 

[debloco]

With almost no points until Dec of 2006, paying closing, paying 11 months of fees on the points that are gone, this is not cheap at the present price and will become increasingly less so if the price goes up. still it might be perfect for the right person as an add on or even to get into the system for less points and therefore less dollars.

Dean,
The fees for the 2005 points have been paid by the seller and he does not ask to be reimbursed for those. Fees for the buyer start with 2006. At least, this is my understanding from reading the listing. I, for one, would not pay fees on points I did not get to use. The closing costs rankle a bit, but I have a watch on this auction. We'll see what happens.

 

[tjkraz]

This is called shill bidding. Not only is it unfair to the real bidders, but it is illegal on eBay. How would you feel if you knew that someone's friends were bidding against you on something just to drive the price up?

I kinda got the impression that TammyAlphabet was simply interested in actually acquiring the contract if the price was right...

Although I do agree it was probably inappropriate to make such a comment to the owner. Perhaps the true nature of the conversation simply wasn't communicated well in the message here.

 

[Diznut84]

This is called shill bidding. Not only is it unfair to the real bidders, but it is illegal on eBay. How would you feel if you knew that someone's friends were bidding against you on something just to drive the price up?

http://pages.ebay.com/help/buy/shillbidding.html
http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/seller-shill-bidding.html

You are assuming that she is not bidding them up because she wants to buy the points. If she called to inquire about buying them, the evidence seems pretty strong that they are not friends but rather she's looking for a good deal on the points!

I believe that many people misunderstand Ebay auctions. Look at, for example, the behavior of b16199. That person has a zero rating (always suspicious) and has an overwhelming number of the bids on this auction. Why? If you look closely at the time when the bids were placed, you can see that s/he was trying to outbid arthurking for many of the bids. Arthurking had bid $2500 and b16199 kept bidding near the minimum bid trying to overtake arthurking. After failing for the night, B16199 woke up the next morning and finally decided to outbid arthurking but then was outbid by jbcwally shortly thereafter.

 

[TammyAlphabet]

I kinda got the impression that TammyAlphabet was simply interested in actually acquiring the contract if the price was right...

Although I do agree it was probably inappropriate to make such a comment to the owner. Perhaps the true nature of the conversation simply wasn't communicated well in the message here.

I don't really understand these comments but i did call the buyer and had a long conversation about this contract. I felt then, when it was priced at 75 per point on the tug, that it would be RoFr'ed, and so i didn't want to buy it. It seems that disney doesn't discount contracts for being stripped or put a premium on contracts that are packed with points, IMHO, so i would just prefer to buy contracts with some points banked.

I did tell him that I would bid on the contract, per his request, and I did, when it was 100 plus dollars or so, knowing full well that it would be outbid. The seller seems to be interested in seeing how much it will go for and I believe will get more for the contract from the ebay auction that he would have gotten by selling through the Timeshare store or some other reseller.

I think that since he told me about the impending auction, he probably told others and that could explain the zero feedback from active bidder, they may have joined ebay just to bid on this. I don't mean to make any inappropriate comments and hope this clears things up.

 

[robinb]

You are assuming that she is not bidding them up because she wants to buy the points.

Well ... with words like "I talked to the guy yesterday and promised that I would bid on them." and "I will bid on them if they are going too low." I don't think it's an unreasonable assumption that there is some shilling going on. If someone wants a bargain on something, then they say they'll bid on it if it doesn't go too high, not if the price to too low. Of course, I don't know TammyAlphabet personally so I really don't know if she would shill for someone, even if it was unintentional. A lot of people don't think it's a big deal to bid on someone's stuff just to raise the price.

I believe that many people misunderstand Ebay auctions. Look at, for example, the behavior of b16199. That person has a zero rating (always suspicious) and has an overwhelming number of the bids on this auction. Why? If you look closely at the time when the bids were placed, you can see that s/he was trying to outbid arthurking for many of the bids. Arthurking had bid $2500 and b16199 kept bidding near the minimum bid trying to overtake arthurking. After failing for the night, B16199 woke up the next morning and finally decided to outbid arthurking but then was outbid by jbcwally shortly thereafter.

That is one explaination. Another explaination is ... yes ... bid shilling. b16199 could be a newbie without a clue or it could be an account designed to "nudge" the bid up to Arthurking's maximum bid.

 

[TammyAlphabet]

Oh boy! I have started a flame, i didn't mean to! I swear. I did bid on it, I knew it would be outbid because of the other bidder with the zero feedback that was outbidding everyone... I see now from reading these comments, I probably shouldn't have. As far as bidding if the price was too low, I meant this to be a tongue in cheek comment (notice the ), I know that no dvc contract is going to sell for too low, because disney will buy it back. Maybe this was misunderstood. I wasn't shill bidding on purpose!!!

 

[tjkraz]

I don't really understand these comments...

Well, I was actually trying to defend you, but I guess I was the one that was wrong based upon the rest of your post.

I did tell him that I would bid on the contract, per his request, and I did, when it was 100 plus dollars or so, knowing full well that it would be outbid.

This is exactly the activity that robinb was describing. It is never appropriate to bid on an item with no intention of buying the item. How would you feel if the owner of an item were secretly bidding up the price of an item you wanted by bidding under another eBay account?

You were certainly correct that the bidding would go much higher, but the market should be allowed to set the price. There was simply no reason for your bid.

I hope nobody involved with the auction is following this thread. There may be grounds to get the auction cancelled, even if your actions were unintentional.

 

[HELPDESKGUY]

I agree sounds like shilling...and that is illegal!

 

[TammyAlphabet]

I see what you guys mean....I guess I didn't think of it that way. But I do appreciate your attempt to defend me, however wrong I was. Thanks!

 

[amyup]

The 50pt contract at Boardwalk Villa's looks perfect to me. Too bad he is selling it on ebay, I would have bought it off him. It looks like he will make what he wants from it, too bad I couldn't get it

 

[rinkwide]

...however wrong I was...

You were not wrong and have nothing to feel bad about. The fact is that, had you won, you would have purchased the item at the price you bid, right? That is NOT a shill bid no matter what anyone says.

Now if you and the seller had conspired to raise the price of the item to a certain amount AND you had no interest in purchasing the item at one or more of your bid amounts then that would be shilling.