Second chance offers on Ebay?

milltown

What are your opinions on these?

I recently lost an auction by $1 and within a couple of hours received a second chance e-mail offering me the item at the price I bid. As it turns out I was glad to be outbid because I only noticed after I placed the bid that the guy doesn't accept Paypal.

It strikes me as suspicious that the 2nd chance offer came so quick. If the winning bidder couldn't pay for the item, if he was that considerate he would have withdrawn his bid before the end of the auction rather than responding immediately afterwards to inform the seller.

To my untrusting eyes this looks like the "second chance con" I have heard about before, where the seller is bidding against you to get the price up and then if nobody keeps beating his bids he just goes back to the highest bidder that wasn't him.

Cucullan

No its not a con, sometimes the seller has more than one item for sale and will offer you the second for your last bid. I've bought a few items this way.

WizZard

yeah, it's generally that the seller has more than one item but doesn't wantto pay advertising/auction fees multiple times. it's often better to sell to both the winner, and the second, third, fourth etc. at a slight loss than to have to pay eBay fees multiple times.

Sponge Bob

milltown wrote:

What are your opinions on these?

Do not touch these unless the payment option is Paypal . If the words western union are mentioned then run a mile.

peckerhead

I could be wrong, but I don't think Paypal "buyer protection" applies to transactions conducted off-eBay. Proceed with caution... :cool:

paddyc

per haps paypal doesnt apply to off ebay sells but if the trader has 90%+ rating its pretty good that you can trust him all the way, I buy and sell like this all the time


paddy

A Dub in Glasgo

A 2nd chance offer is NOT buying off ebay. You have exactly the same rights (sic) as bidding on the original item. The seller is effectively listing it on ebay to offer a unsucessful bidder the item. The seller will save ebay listing fees (Yes - ebay charge sellers a fee for listing on ebay, the 2nd chance offer does not).

Absolutely nothing wrong with it if the usual safeguards are taken. I have offered a 2nd chance offer on 10 of my sales (1 unpaid bidder & 9 multiple items), only 3 have taken it up. That shows the huge amount of ignorance from bidders on the 2nd chance system.

There is a higher risk of shill bidding with regard to the 2nd chance offer although this can be counteracted by sniping.

peckerhead

The OP talked about "a second chance e-mail offering me the item at the price I bid."

Obviously there's nothing wrong with an offer to relist the item on eBay (by private auction)...

WizZard

No, peckerhead.

You get an email from ebay with a second chance offer which behaves exactly like a private auction, except the seller does not have to pay fees for it. It's a good way of selling multiple items.

See attached for example of such an offer.

peckerhead

I sit corrected! I wasn't aware of that feature...:)