EBay scare

[davesnothere11]

So I had seen a small brass Ruger branded padlock on eBay and my wife actually TOLD me to bid on it! Wow! with 16 seconds to go I went to enter my bid of $3.55 ..... and in my haste I fat fingered the phone into bidding $355!!!!! I let out an "Oh Shit!", told my wife what happened, she grabbed my arm and we waited the longest 15 seconds of my life. Thankfully the bid only went up to.$7.50. Whew! I paid a bit more than I wanted, but I can live with this mistake.

Anybody else have any near bidding disasters?

[Riyame]

Yup, went to bid $250 on a time lock. It was my first time using the ebay app and I fat fingered it and bid $2500. Thankfully it only went to 280 some.

[Doogs]

Did that while in chat just the other night. Went to bid $35.00 and bid $3500.00! Yeah I was a little worried and was glad It wasn't the one that went over $80 it ended up going to just $37.50. I've definitely had occasions where if I had of done so then it could have been disastrous.

[macgng]

last couple seconds clicking "one click bid" can be VERY dangerous!!!!!!

[GWiens2001]

Have done that a couple times over the years. Thank goodness for incremental bidding.

Gordon

[Lauren]

Ebay recognizes fat-fingering as a means to retract a bid or cancel a transaction. You most likely will lose the item to the next highest bidder.

[davesnothere11]

Ebay recognizes fat-fingering as a means to retract a bid or cancel a transaction. You most likely will lose the item to the next highest bidder.

That's good to know. I assumed it I'd cost me some reputation points.

I am glad it was my for thousands of dollars like Riyame and Doogs, the wife might have taken away my eBay privileges.

[LocksportSouth]

I don't tend to make accidents since I use the desktop PC and am super-fastidious about double checking amounts (I don't really bidsnipe for that reason; I get panicky if I haven't bid by the 30 second mark. I know some people leave it to about 4 secs but I don't trust my Internet connection that much! I lost out on some great bargains back in the day through a combination of trying to bidsnipe too close and having a poor 'net connection). That said, I tend to get caught up in the bidding frenzy and bid way more than I should, and then sit there going 'oh crap, oh crap' as the price ticks up. Totally my bad and I never pull out of a purchase but I've definitely had my share of overspends due to overzealous bidding. Case in point: I bid on an item earlier that I really should have maxed out at $300 and I bid $500. Got it for just a little north of the $300 in the end but yeah... Could have ended up a bit more broke this month lol.

[Lauren]

I get a kick out of people who use those "last second bid" programs. The one day you intend to use it, and Ebay has a total network failure. Sorry last second bidder, you should have bid first. I think it's better to be the first bidder then it is to be the last second bidder, especially if you price it right. I have cheated a lot of last second bidders because I know my Ebay price points on what I bid on.

[tpark]

I get a kick out of people who use those "last second bid" programs. The one day you intend to use it, and Ebay has a total network failure. Sorry last second bidder, you should have bid first. I think it's better to be the first bidder then it is to be the last second bidder, especially if you price it right. I have cheated a lot of last second bidders because I know my Ebay price points on what I bid on.

Since I'm more of a casual lock collector my general strategy is a bit different. For things that are "Buy it Now" I'll simply pay if the price is OK. For auctions, I'll use a bidding service - if I only kind of want the item, I'll only put an entry in the bidding service, but if I really want the auction to run, and there's no bid, I'll put a low "bite" bid in, since the auction can't be removed for the seller once a bid has been entered. Using a bidding service enables me to set up bids, and if I win a more suitable auction in the interim, I can cancel the bidding service entry. This reduces the "fat finger" issue somewhat.

I've found the antique lock thing interesting, because there can be a conflict between "antique" and "functional". Sometimes stuff you get off eBay isn't in the greatest shape. Still, you can get interesting stuff that you can't find elsewhere.

[davesnothere11]

I get a kick out of people who use those "last second bid" programs. The one day you intend to use it, and Ebay has a total network failure. Sorry last second bidder, you should have bid first. I think it's better to be the first bidder then it is to be the last second bidder, especially if you price it right. I have cheated a lot of last second bidders because I know my Ebay price points on what I bid on.

I've never used a bidding service or program. I wouldn't trust someone or someone's code to be spending my money.

I employ a few diffrent strategies all depending on desirability and rarity. The biggest limitation I encounter is people treating my state linked some distant foreign country who apparently don't know about USPS flat rate shipping.