Ebay Bidder Stupidity

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Entry posted by THE 1 2 P · December 23, 2008

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Early this morning(around 5 am eastern time) I bid on an ebay item I had a very big interest in. I won by doing the prerequsite snipe I always implore but it got me thinking. Since I really didn't feel like waiting up until 5 am this morning I would have really loved to just put a high maximum bid on the item last night and gone to bed. However, thats no longer an option with the amount of stupid idiots (double negative) that inhabit ebay. You see, the next highest bidder had bid a total of eight times over five days, including twice within the last hour and a half. That would be fine if he were an ebay newbie but this dumb ass has over 300 feedback so theres no excuse for that kind of stupidity.

The way I see it, once you get past a certain threshold (lets say 100 feedback or two years) you should no longer be making rookie mistakes. I could never fathom how people who have been on ebay for two years or more and have over 200 feedback could get into pointless bidding wars. And for those who would say that they actually like bidding wars---you are an idiot too. Theres nothing to be gained thru bidding wars unless you are the seller. All it causes the bidders to do is pay more money. And that brings me back to this morning. I could have simply put a high bid on the item last night and woke up to see what I won it for, but think of how much extra money I would have lost because of Captain Dumbass. I mean, he already bid 8 times. Had I bid and left, by today he would have probably had like 20 bids....and still lost.

Speaking of losing, my point with the whole threshold thing is that, at some point you have to reach a certain level of clarity that I have intelligently come to term "common sense". If someone keeps losing during the last 10 seconds of an auction and this continues over 3 years and 300+ feedback despite how much they keep running up the bid---shouldn't their grade/high school skills start to kick in that they aren't going to win the big ones this way? I mean, I'm sure doing that would work when you bid on a gift certificate, purses or waynes world collectibles, but not anything of substance.

This is why I miss the old ebay days when all our identities(screen names) weren't relegated to a few stars and two letters. It worked two fold for me. As a seller I would message bidders that lost on a similar item and tell them that I had an auction with that item at a much lower price. Of course the most fun was had as a buyer. I would actually message people like Mr. Dummy last night and tell him to stop running up the bid because he was just going to lose anyway. I could see why ebay wouldn't like that but it's not like anyone ever told on me(I would know because I would have gotten suspended or atleast an alert likes others I know). I think that they felt so embarrassingly stupid that they kept it to themselves. I even tried to help one dude by offering him some advice on correct bidding etiquette....after I bitched him out first.

Some of my aquaintances on DP said that they were glad that ebay has obscured all of our screen names because they use to get threats after winning items. That has NEVER happened to me(I guess everyone on ebay knows how much of a badass I am in real life). The most I got was messages from people I beat saying that if I ever wanted to sell the item I just won that they would be interested in buying it from me. And I even use to message the person I beat out if I won a lot of like 20 items and only needed 3. But now I can no longer do that. Of course, theres ways around that too.

So in conclusion, until people on ebay learn the proper way to bid(they never will), it looks like I'm in for many more sleepless nights. I realize that ebay has utilized a myriad of changes over the last year or so, but they should also restrict the amount of times someone can bid in one auction. For instance, no more that 3-5 bids per auction, depending on the item. That would be perfect, which is probably why I'm the only one who's thought of it. Of course, it could never happen. Why? Because it makes too much sense.

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