EBay Availability of Martian Manhunter in the uk

DougTemplar

Hopefully posting in the right place.

I've been trying to pick up a Martian Manhunter on eBay (uk) the last couple of days. I noticed one seller seems to have had about 40 listings for the figure two of which are multiples on of 10 packs and another of 20 so approx he has listed 70 odd figures over the last few days.

Now this is my first time that I've been searching eBay for a promo figure - can anyone tell me if one seller getting his hands on so many promos in such a short time is normal or is it a bit suspicious?

CCC

If the store allows them to buy multiple times and get the promo with each, then some people will buy £1000s of lego at promo time mainly for the promos. If you can sell them for £15, then it is a 30% or so discount on the rest of the stock.

kempy619

Is it hrod some numbers? He always seems to have a ton of each promo so it'll be fine, I've bought some before and bidded on a martian manhunter this time and everything is good so far

DougTemplar

I wasn't going to name him, just in case I was being over cautious and didn't want to ruin someone's reputation. But yes it's that user.

Phonebooth

Awesome, isn't it!

kempy619

Phonebooth said:

Awesome, isn't it!

Which part?

luckyruss

Everything!

BrickDancer

^^When you're living the dream?

Jawascrump

Phonebooth said:

Awesome, isn't it!

If you're the seller then yes. If you're a seller who's attempting to sell one to recoup some costs on #10220, to put it bluntly, no, it's not awesome!

Phonebooth

BrickDancer said:

^^When you're living the dream?

Couldn't have said it better myself!

CCC

I've bought from him in the past too, and he also has been receiving decent feedback for these promos in the past few days. I dread to think how he gets so many, but he obviously gets them.

And if flooding the market with them helps drive prices lower, then it is good for buyers too.

Aleydita

Given the amount of The Piece of Resistance polys that they've sold there's a high chance these are coming direct from someone working for TLG, possibly a store manager?

legofanfromleeds

Youd like to hope that a store mananger would have far more sense than to do that but hes definitely getting them from somewhere and it happens in many more retail areas so...... and ive just bought one from him so lets see what turns up in the post

Aleydita

Presumably store managers are trusted to hand out the giveaway sets as directed, but are given permission to use any excess appropriately as they see fit. In my (admittedly limited) experience, stores keep handing them out after the promotion period ends if they have any left, but some might put them to one side for future ad hoc giveaways or locally managed charity events. Others might take them home and stick them on eBay - you never know. Bit silly if this is the case, risking a lot for not very much.

For so many sets to be legitimately acquired by a reseller, they'd have to spend £1000s and possibly need several accounts at multiple addresses. I suppose it's not beyond the realms of possibility given the size of some Bricklink stores in the UK, particularly given that the POR sets were given out while TLG had products on sale. Though the same cannot be said for the Manhunter polys.

cheshirecat

Reasonably speaking there's no way someone has acquired 70 or more manhunter figures legitimately. Sure they could have, but they won't have. For example he's sold a set of 20 for £185 inc free postage. After ebay and paypal fees thats about £8 per figure. If you had to spend £50 on lego to save £8 its just not worth it. There are no sales worth mentioning at LEGO in the UK at the moment and probably not much at £50 or less that can't be had on discount elsewhere.

CCC

You don't need to purchase stuff at sale prices for it to be worthwhile though. There are a lot of new SH sets and TLM sets that have recently been parted out on BL. By selling off minifigs when first out they go for good money (often very close to set RRP), add in selling the parts at maybe 50-75% of their 6 month average for a reasonably quick sale, then you can often make between 20-50% profit, and more than that if you are willing to hold inventory for a while rather than going for a quick sale. Getting another 15-20% on top as you got a free manhunter is also a good deal.

Remember also adding a £3 Friends animal to the order gets you a Friends poly too.

cheshirecat

If you look at his recent completed sales theres a couple of accounts, both with a good chunk of feedback admittedly, that both bid at exactly £10 very early on on lots of his auctions. Certainly the second one that did that won a lot of auctions at £10.

Yet interestingly didn't bid on the 20x set that went for less than £10 each. In fact thats not true they did bid - £10. I suspect as they were bidding on their own items they didn't realise that it was a x20 auction!

Certainly makes for interesting reading if you're trying to avoid doing work, look for r***o (531) and 6***m (535) on his completed auctions. 95% of 6***m bidding in the last 30 days has been on his stuff. oops. r***o is still doing it now.

legofanfromleeds

I wonder what the quantity is in a promo box...think im not alone in thinking that it might have fallen off the back of the wagon on its way to the lego store..silly van driver not securing his load.... again

scrumper

cheshirecat said:

Reasonably speaking there's no way someone has acquired 70 or more manhunter figures legitimately. Sure they could have, but they won't have.

As the t&c states 1 per household the only legitimate way is by buying them on the aftermarket.

DougTemplar

cheshirecat said:

If you look at his recent completed sales theres a couple of accounts, both with a good chunk of feedback admittedly, that both bid at exactly £10 very early on on lots of his auctions. Certainly the second one that did that won a lot of auctions at £10.

Yet interestingly didn't bid on the 20x set that went for less than £10 each. In fact thats not true they did bid - £10. I suspect as they were bidding on their own items they didn't realise that it was a x20 auction!

Certainly makes for interesting reading if you're trying to avoid doing work, look for r***o (531) and 6***m (535) on his completed auctions. 95% of 6***m bidding in the last 30 days has been on his stuff. oops. r***o is still doing it now.

Ah so perhaps someone is doing this to drive up the prices? I will freely admit I bid £10 on a number of the MM figs - but I didn't win a single one and I thought £10 was about the right price for the figure.

cheshirecat

Well, if its right that hrod some numbers and r***o are one and the same then it does two things -

1) Stops him selling any of his 99p starts for less than £10. (if you remove that £10 bid the second highest tends to be in the £5-£7 category.

2) Pushes up the sold listings to a minimum of £10 making his BIN at £11.99 seem like good value for a no worries buy.

Of course r***o might be someone different whose just not going to pay and wants to drive prices up, but you wouldn't do that with a 500 odd feedback account. It gets more interesting (again if you're trying to avoid working!) that there are a lot of £9.50 bids in second place. So behind r***o who bid £10 is an account d***d (209) who repeatedly bid £9.50. In fact, he bid £9.50 11 times on these auctions, 100% of his 30 day bid history. So in every case raising r***o's winning bid to £10. Now it may be that he just wanted to buy one and didn't want to pay more than £9.50. Yet he never did win and never bid on anyone else's auctions even though there's loads of them.

Basically it seems you can't trust ebay sellers selling stuff they should never have got their hands on - who'd have thought it. ;-)

Shib

cheshirecat said:

Basically it seems you can't trust ebay sellers selling stuff they should never have got their hands on - who'd have thought it. ;-)

Also avoiding working makes reading a long post summarised in one sentence at the end very enjoyable ;-)

carlq

DougTemplar said:

cheshirecat said:

If you look at his recent completed sales theres a couple of accounts, both with a good chunk of feedback admittedly, that both bid at exactly £10 very early on on lots of his auctions. Certainly the second one that did that won a lot of auctions at £10.

Yet interestingly didn't bid on the 20x set that went for less than £10 each. In fact thats not true they did bid - £10. I suspect as they were bidding on their own items they didn't realise that it was a x20 auction!

Certainly makes for interesting reading if you're trying to avoid doing work, look for r***o (531) and 6***m (535) on his completed auctions. 95% of 6***m bidding in the last 30 days has been on his stuff. oops. r***o is still doing it now.

Ah so perhaps someone is doing this to drive up the prices? I will freely admit I bid £10 on a number of the MM figs - but I didn't win a single one and I thought £10 was about the right price for the figure.

Before this gets any more "X-Files" can I just point out that I was the buyer? The fact of the matter is, I'd been trying and failing to buy a few Manhunter polys from eBay, and when I saw so many at 99p start, well, I went a bit loco with my bidding. I always put in the maximum I would bid for any eBay item I'm interested in, to save me checking too often, and if the price goes over that - well, then I've lost it. I hoped to get at least two or three from my multiple bids, and if I was lucky get them for less than £10 - unfortunately, @DougTemplar pushed all of my bids to their maximum, and didn't bid the penny extra which would have secured them for him, so I ended up having to pay £110 for 11 polys, which was considerably more money than I wanted or expected to spend overall.

So there you are; no sharp practice, no artificial price-setting, just an unfortunate situation. Oh, and yes, I DID bid on the 20x set without realising it was for more than one item, which is why I left it alone afterwards; as I said, I went a bit mad that evening. I blame being housebound for weeks.

Shib

^ feel like this should end with CASE CLOSED

cheshirecat

Nice story, but I would say it was more than just a bit mad. Given that you were winning 11 auctions for MM and as you said at £110 was considerably more money than you wanted to spend, why with just 2 1/2 hours before those 11 auctions ended (you were winning all of them and it was costing you £110) and 24 hours after that evening of madness did you decide to bid exactly the same £10 on a further 3 auctions? Auctions that had more than 48 hours to run? Even if you are r***o and decided you wanted an army of MM but not the 20 that finished cheaper, theres no way d***d isn't dodgy. 11 bids, always on the same persons auctions, never winning, 100% of the bidding history, every time at £9.50, every time against the same high bidder and never thinking to just up one bid to £10.50. Bollocks, if its coincidence I'll be amazed.

Anyhow, no need to avoid doing work now, so my investigations are finished!

CCC

I've been an under bidder like that before. Probably six or seven weeks ago someone listed about 30 similar rarish items (non-Lego) and I was interested in 10 of them. I had placed bids of £10.03 on the ones I was interested in as I wasn't sure I'd be around to bid and I couldn't be bothered to set up snipes. With an hour left, someone outbid me by pennies on all of them and I happened to check. He had also bid on many others. I guessed he had bid the same amount on all of them, so I placed bids just below those prices on all the other ones he had bid on with the same seller. I wasn't in cahoots with the seller, I was just making sure a rival was going to pay top dollar. I wasn't that interested in them, as I already had them although I would have paid if I won. It also meant the rival was spending large amounts, which (possibly) put him off rebidding on the ones I wanted. I got them at one increment over what I had initially bid. He got a load, but ended up paying much more than he would have otherwise done if I hadn't bid. The real winner was the seller.

Also if something is worth £10 or whatever to me, and there are lots if them, and I know another bid has placed a higher bid based on their behaviour, I'll bid that tenner on each and every one. Even if I know I won't win.

EBay is just a game sometimes.

pharmjod

I love it :) I have a list of known high rollers on auctions for another item I collect. It used to help me know who I was up against if I were bidding and what I could expect to pay. It isn't very useful now that eBay has hidden all of that info, but was once pretty handy.

madforLEGO

'Shilling' is raising anyone's bid up with the intention of making them pay more. It does not matter if you are in 'cahoots' with the seller or not. You are not supposed to do this kind of tactic period, and it is against eBay policies.

CCC

There is a difference between a seller shilling and someone else bidding an amount they are willing to pay if they win. One is often illegal, the other isn't.

Bidders making other bidders pay more is surprisingly common.

roxio

madforLEGO said:

'Shilling' is raising anyone's bid up with the intention of making them pay more. It does not matter if you are in 'cahoots' with the seller or not. You are not supposed to do this kind of tactic period, and it is against eBay policies.

"Shill bidding is when sellers—or someone they know—place a bid on their item to drive the price up"

From eBay policy, so as long as CCC wasn't the seller or didn't know them then he hasn't broke the rules.

Legoboy

Broken the rules or not.....it's ain't cricket and pretty sad if you ask me.

I'm so glad I have other things in my life to keep me entertained.

CCC

When you've been waiting over 12 years for some things to come up, any legal tactics to get them are fair game. :-)

Legoboy

My mistake. It read to me that you had no intention of actually winning after being first outbid and then went out of your way to strategically rebid, just to push the price up for your rival. I apologise.

madforLEGO

roxio said:

madforLEGO said:

'Shilling' is raising anyone's bid up with the intention of making them pay more. It does not matter if you are in 'cahoots' with the seller or not. You are not supposed to do this kind of tactic period, and it is against eBay policies.

"Shill bidding is when sellers—or someone they know—place a bid on their item to drive the price up"

From eBay policy, so as long as CCC wasn't the seller or didn't know them then he hasn't broke the rules.

Ahh, so eBay UK prohibits sellers or their acquaintances from doing this. Sorry. eBay.com says anyone doing this is violating the eBay rules on shilling. Guess the UK site has yet to update their terms, OR it just seems to occur more in the US with spiteful bidding.

DougTemplar

Oh boy seems I've opened a can of worms on all this. @carlq I'm sorry that I pushed up the price for your bids. I don't often use Ebay to buy stuff, and I've never been chasing Lego on there.

I was bidding £10 - and I realise now I should have bid £10.02 or something then I would have maybe taken the lead and left it alone. I know i wouldn't have the time to monitor them all at the end and once I put in £10 and didn't win the next increment was to go to £10.50 and being the stereotypical scot, I refused to pay more than £10 so left that auction as there was so many to move on to bid on.

Of those that I bid on I noticed many of them went for £12 and above so I'm not sure I could be solely responsible for you spending £110 for 11 different figs. But if you don't want them all (and it doesn't breach forum rules) I can offer you £10 for one.

carlq

Thanks for the apology, @DougTemplar, but it's not necessary - as you said, it probably wasn't you who bid on all of the polys I ended up buying. I wouldn't have commented at all, but the thread was taking a "conspiracy theory" turn and I felt the seller didn't deserve to be accused of sharp practice - at least in relation to the items I bid for. I will be happy to sell you one of the polys when they arrive - I'll message you then - and thank you for making that generous offer. :-)

cheshirecat

Yes it definitely wasn't @DougTemplar‌ as the bids were £9.50 not £10. I'm still confused @carlq‌. All of your bids were bid up to their maximum by an eBay user who didn't bid on any other sellers auctions and whose 30 day bid history is 100% with that seller yet you're confident the seller didn't deserve to be accused of sharp practices. You must be super relaxed as I'm sure almost everyone else here would be contacting eBay to point out the fishy goings on, especially if you never wanted to spend £110 on 11 MM figs.

CCC

cheshirecat said:

You must be super relaxed as I'm sure almost everyone else here would be contacting eBay to point out the fishy goings on, especially if you never wanted to spend £110 on 11 MM figs.

There is a simple answer to that last part - if someone doesn't want to spend so much on so many items, then they should not bid their maximum price on so many items. These are going to be appearing on ebay throughout the month from various sellers, there is no need to take risks and bid on so many and be winning in so many, just to try to secure one.

I wonder what the long term price of these will be. They don't seem to be as popular as The Hulk was. While £10 doesn't seem too bad to buy one or two for personal use, I wonder if resellers are buying these up at £10 for later sale?

carlq

I'm sorry you're confused, @cheshirecat, but I've explained the situation as I see it and my part in it. Without wishing to be rude, you seem determined to ascribe nefarious purposes to the seller, so nothing I can say is likely to change your mind.

And I'm not "super relaxed", merely philosophical. It was my mistake to assume I would be outbid on more of the polys than I was, and unfortunate that I wasn't, so the adult thing to do is to "suck it up" and learn from the experience...or don't. I have far more serious concerns in my life right now than stressing over a few bits of plastic.

Aleydita

I'm with @carlq here, I've done exactly the same, bidding on several lots of the same item, hoping I'd snag a bargain but assuming I'd be out-bid on most if not all, only to end up paying for all of them. It happens, lesson learned, move on. In my case I only ever enter bids that I know my existing PayPal balance will cover.

cheshirecat

^^ no just saying it as I see it. Taking you at your word, and I've got no reason not to, that you were the £10 bidder and as you say accidentally ended up with 11 MMs, I still think someone in your position would say "shoot you're right those 11 bids of £9.50 do look dodgy". EBay would surely agree and get you out of paying £110. If money's no object fair enough but then if you were so in need of getting 1 you bid on 14 then why not just BIN for £12? Along with coming back the second day and ordering a bunch more it just doesn't make sense. Of course you might have just wanted 20 to have an army or resell or give away, fine, but then that's not what you said.

But whatever assuming you are the innocent buyer in all of this there's still something fishy going on and hence the initial statement that you can't trust someone that ended up with 70 of them stands. It's slightly odd you'd feel the need to defend his eBay actions when he almost certainly acquired them through 'sharp practices'.

cheshirecat

@Aleydita‌ fair enough but if having done that you noticed that all those bids had been bid up by the same bidder, and pretty much only that bidder, and 100% of that bidders history was with that seller would you still take it as just a lesson learned?

Aleydita

I'd be pissed obviously but not sure I'd do anything about it. In my case I was more pissed at myself for being so stupid.

I follow an eBay user because they occasionally list football memorabilia for a particular club that I'm interested in. This allows me to review everything they list almost as soon as they list it and put a bid in if I'm interested. It could be that the user you're on about is doing something similar, following that buyer because they have a track record of listing the things he thinks he can buy/flip.

I wouldn't be surprised if some BL/BO sellers user multiple eBay user accounts at different addresses so as to ensure their eBay purchases avoid scrutiny. In this case somebody might have created an account just to deal with this buyer because it's abundantly clear that the items they're selling weren't acquired legitimately. If it blows up in their face then their main account remains secure.

It may also be fishy as you suggest but it can't be proved so eBay are unlikely to do anything even if you did complain.

oceanangel

I just won one for about 8 quid from you know who

TheLoneTensor

As for looking at many auctions for the same item, there are bidding proxy services out there that allow you to setup groups, where you have individual bids for lots of auctions. If one hits, the others are automatically canceled and you only end up with one item.

I use auctionsniper for this myself. The thing I like most about sniping is that I put in my max bid for an auction and walk away. I (mostly) never get caught up in the emotion of a rival bidder making me pay more than what I decided I was going to, so I either get the item, or I don't end up paying more than I wanted to for it.

If you do auctions, and are not familiar with the concept ot auction sniping, I highly recommend reading up on it, because if you're not sniping, you're probably paying more for your auctions, or just losing auctions because you're getting sniped yourself.