Gear floating around between sellers on Ebay? (over and over again)

[Omega-TI]

There are a lot of different 'Classic Computers' out in the wild, even more third-party hardware items for all of these different computers. But have you ever noticed some items keep appearing on Ebay over and over again?

 

I have a theory why some of these items keep turning up over and over again...

 

1) Getting caught up in the moment and doing an impulse buy: "Wow that looks cool, I gotta have that!"

 

You get the item and realize, while it DOES work as advertised...

 

2) It's so rare that there is little to no support for it, so nothing new will EVER be written for it.

3) Because it's so rare there are limited uses for it, or a dismal number of programs to run on it.

4) Because it's so rare you could never get it fixed if the thing broke (and it's old already).

 

Is there a specific item that you've personally seen come up over and over a again? If so, post the link. It would be interesting so see what the item is and maybe speculate WHY.

 

[spacecadet]

Some of it's scam stuff. I also follow guitars and we in that community see that kind of thing all the time; one seller will try to sell some fake guitar or whatever, will get called out for it (but usually Ebay won't take the auction down), then 2 weeks later you see the same item pop up with different pictures (that you can tell came from the same camera) and a different seller name. Who knows what happened with the original auction - probably fell through when the buyer found out it was a fake. But the seller then tries again under a different account.

 

I'm sure that happens with vintage computing/gaming stuff too, especially anything rare. A lot of this stuff is pretty easy to fake, especially stuff that's only differentiated by a sticker or badge or something. If the sellers only have a small amount of feedback, I'll bet that's what's happening.

 

Otherwise I think there could be various reasons for someone to legitimately buy and then sell something... I do YouTube videos lately and I've considered intentionally doing some short term buying and selling... a lot of stuff I like but don't really have room or money to build a collection for, so I kind of just want to try it out and then sell it. I just bought an ST and I may end up doing that with that.

[BassGuitari]

Do you mean a situation where Person A buys something, sells it to Person B, who sells it to Person C, etc? Or one seller repeatedly trying to sell the same item? Or like Spacecadet said where it's probably a scam thing?

[JamesD]

I've seen some sellers operating under different names and they bounce items around between the IDs until it sells for what they want.

And then there are the people that pick up anything they think is a cheap price so they can resell it.
I seem to remember someone was grabbing up all the cheap Odyssey systems in an attempt to corner the market.

[BassGuitari]

I seem to remember someone was grabbing up all the cheap Odyssey systems in an attempt to corner the market.

One would think there are much better ways to make a buck. Odyssey systems are such an incredibly niche thing, even within the sphere of classic gaming, let alone in the world at large.

 

Plus he has to sit on the stuff until it sells for what he wants; I gather he's still sitting on quite a bit of it. $400-500 (or whatever it is now) is well into "not worth it" territory.

 

[/sidebar]

[spacecadet]

One would think there are much better ways to make a buck.

 

That's true of all the Ebay schemes. It's almost never worth it to me to buy something just to flip it, no matter what it is. I can make more money just working a few extra hours at my job. I always think people who buy stuff to flip, or go to the trouble of faking something to scam someone, are probably on about the bottom rung of the social ladder. They have no other obvious way to make money; no skills, no prospects. Otherwise it wouldn't be worth it for them either.

[MarkO]

There is a Very Long running Thread over on Apple Fritter, that is a discussion of Outrageous eBay Auctions...

 

 

This recently posted message, talks about how Prices are Manipulated...

 

I am thinking that is about time a Reliable Reference on Prices is Collected and Made available, for the buying public... Like they have for Automobiles..

 

MarkO

[jhd]

I am thinking that is about time a Reliable Reference on Prices is Collected and Made available, for the buying public... Like they have for Automobiles..

 

I agree, in part, but is a price guide useful if nobody is actually selling at that price? With cars, I have multiple independent dealers (and even private sellers) to chose from. With old video games, the number of vendors are significantly smaller and so there is correspondingly less competition to keep prices low..

 

For example, many years ago, I briefly ran a specialist service business (that had utterly nothing to do with computers or video games). There were only about 5 or 6 of us with these particular skills. As a newbie needing to build a reputation/client base, I charged a bit less than the going rate. One potential client offered me significantly less than minimum wage for a project; obviously I declined. She then decided to wait until someone was willing to do the work at the rate she was willing to pay. I assume that she is still waiting, some 20 years later! The price was dictated by the market.

[Keatah]

She then decided to wait until someone was willing to do the work at the rate she was willing to pay. I assume that she is still waiting, some 20 years later! The price was dictated by the market.

 

Or found a different solution altogether..

 

Like learning to use ADTpro or getting a BMOW disk emulator instead of a deluxe CFFA3000 at ebay prices.

Edited April 11, 2017 by Keatah