Is what I've done legal or unethical?

angelcake

has the bidder withdrawn their bid?

Milky_Mocha

He he. Could be the right or wrong thing to do depending on whose shoes you're in.

If I was the bidder I'd be grateful for the email even if I was already aware.
If I was the seller I'd be pe'ed off
If I was ebay I'd call it auction interference: http://pages.ebay.co.uk/help/policies/transaction-interference.html

lyniced

alyssa_mae wrote:

Today I spotted a dora the explorer scrabble game is Sainsburys for £13 odd.
so I thought I'd look on ebay. There was one priced £19.99 plus £4.50 postage and packaging with one bidder. In my anoyance that the seller was trying to rip someone off. I've emailed the bidder and told her where it's cheaper.( I hid my email address). Do u think I was wrong?

Just out of interest has the 'buyer' got back to you yet?

I've often seen stuff on ebay and know you can get it cheaper elsewhere (particularly DVDs) but buyers just go mad and bid way beyond the retail price. I always feel tempted to email 'buyers' but never do and probably never will, but its soooo frustrating sometimes, so I can understand why you did it.

lyniced

soolin wrote:

Well, as someone who paid £92 for a book for my OHs Christmas present last year that had a cover price of £12.99 I assume I was ripped off? Strangely though I was very very happy with that price, it was a book that it very difficult to source and I paid what it was worth to me.

As for making a profit on ebay, well of course I do. So Alyssa if you are selling on ebay and making a profit then you *must* be selling at more than you paid for an item, or am I wrong somewhere?

Soo

I'm just curious (ok, nosey) Soolin - what book did you buy and when did you discover its retail price was £12.99?

bluep

soolin wrote:

Well, as someone who paid £92 for a book for my OHs Christmas present last year that had a cover price of £12.99 I assume I was ripped off? Strangely though I was very very happy with that price, it was a book that it very difficult to source and I paid what it was worth to me.

As for making a profit on ebay, well of course I do. So Alyssa if you are selling on ebay and making a profit then you *must* be selling at more than you paid for an item, or am I wrong somewhere?

Soo

I want to know how I can get on Soolin's christmas list

chompie

If I'm in a shop and I see someone pick something up that I know is cheaper else where. I tell that person. I can't help myself. I hate to see people ripped off.

if that is what you feel then i would like to point out that you are being 'ripped off' every day of your life (and probably more than once a day) when you walk into a corner shop and buy a bar of chocolate; you could've got that bar chaeper elsewhere, (perhaps you should stand outside with a banner, or even call michael moore, to fight for the little man on the street gettin' ripped off)

i think you have misunderstood the purpose of an auction, it is to sell any item to the person who is prepared to pay the most. If that happens to be more than you can get it elsewhere, then you should've checked elsewhere

if not, everthing on ebay would be Buy-it-now, wouldn't it:rolleyes:

when i list things at £1 i am hoping they will go for more, but i am prepared to accept when i get burned, HOWEVER, if i get over the odds for something, i am not going to say "now hang on there old boy, you appear to have paid me too much for this.........:rotfl:

Quasar

Maybe I'm speaking out of turn as I don't do ebay, but it seems to me a bit rich to say that it's the bidder's look out and if they are prepared to pay the price instead of looking for cheaper elsewhere, then tough.

Aren't we on MSE precisely because we are angry at those who would rip us off? Why it's ok to fight back on MSE and not on ebay? Whether it's a supermarket or an ebay seller, a rip-off is a rip-off in my book. How about ebayers keeping one another honest?

Just an idea.

Spinner

Quasar wrote:

How about ebayers keeping one another honest?

Essentially, a good idea - but is this really being dishonest? Agreed, if one claimed one had paid £60 for an item for which one had paid in reality £15, that would be dishonest, but is high pricing actually dishonest?

In my mind, it's fine for sellers to chrage more for an item - bearing in mind that they may have to cope with reduced sales as a result!

soolin

bluep wrote:

I want to know how I can get on Soolin's christmas list

:beer: The book I bought even rated a mention in a magazine where it was remarked that three had sold on ebay for prices from £92-£128 so if any reader had a copy it might be worth listing it, no more have turned up on ebay yet though.

Soo

soolin

lyniced wrote:

I'm just curious (ok, nosey) Soolin - what book did you buy and when did you discover its retail price was £12.99?

The book was about railways and I knew the cover price when i bid and it came with the price unclipped as well. I had previously been waiting 6 months for various book searching shops to find me one (they had quoted me approx £50 if they could find it), but a copy never turned up. Then three turned up in a 6 week period on ebay and i bought the third one.

Soo