Ridiculous eBay Auctions

SumoLego

KungFuKenny said:

If you don’t check the small print shipping cost you may get a nasty surprise...

The seller is in Japan, so maybe they fly you First Class round trip to Tokyo to pick up the set? 🙂

Shipping includes personal delivery to Disneyland at Space Mountain.

Switchfoot55

^ Where is the Buy It Now button?

SumoLego

^ Even eBay knows that's a bad idea...

CCC

Some buyers on ebay are ridiculous too.

I stuck some non-LEGO stuff on ebay, worth I thought about £60. I started it at £30 inc free shipping (which would be ~£3), but left the "offer" on so if an early buyer made a good offer, I'd accept it. When doing that I normally automatically reject low offers, but last time forgot to. Six different users placed offers of under £10 on one or more occasions. One person offered £1.00, then £1.50, then £2.00 over the space of three days. The final one had a message "last offer if you dont except I dont buy it" (their spelling, not mine). I don't reject them, I just leave them, so these (non-)buyers are placing new offers separated by at least 24 hours.  What do these buyers expect? Surely they are just wasting their own time. PS. It finally sold for £72.

PJ76uk

@CCC I have had similar experiences on ebay. Often get messages asking why I won't accept their offers, have to keep explaining that since all my items include free postage I would essentially be paying for them to have the item! I've been tempted to ignore them but the voice in the back of my head warns me not to alienate potential customers as I usually do have many more items to sell!

CCC

I would always entertain sensible offers, but when they are under 10% of the likely price I feel justified in ignoring them completely.

Cyberdragon

CCC said:

I would always entertain sensible offers, but when they are under 10% of the likely price I feel justified in ignoring them completely.

Hey, sir, can I have that Lambo for like $50? What? No? Aw come on man...last offer. I'm leaving...waaaah...

Marshallmario

I might be wrong on this but...if the seller lists with best offer I assume he will take less for the item. 10% less doesn’t seem like an offensive offer to me. People buying Lego in stores or online are looking for 20-30% off minimum. I’m fine if a seller doesn’t want offers, just don’t list it that way. If I don’t get a response on an offer then I take it off my watch list and move on to the next seller.

Cyberdragon

Marshallmario said:

I might be wrong on this but...if the seller lists with best offer I assume he will take less for the item. 10% less doesn’t seem like an offensive offer to me. People buying Lego in stores or online are looking for 20-30% off minimum. I’m fine if a seller doesn’t want offers, just don’t list it that way. If I don’t get a response on an offer then I take it off my watch list and move on to the next seller.

Less then 10% OF the price not OFF the price.

Marshallmario

Ahh, sorry, my bad!

PJ76uk

Marshallmario said:

I might be wrong on this but...if the seller lists with best offer I assume he will take less for the item. 10% less doesn’t seem like an offensive offer to me. People buying Lego in stores or online are looking for 20-30% off minimum. I’m fine if a seller doesn’t want offers, just don’t list it that way. If I don’t get a response on an offer then I take it off my watch list and move on to the next seller.

When listing you can select "no offers" but when ebay automatically relists an item if it doesn't sell they change it to allow offers. When your selling hundreds of items its time consuming changing the items one by one back to "no offers" and very easy for one or two to get missed. Personally I don't bother changing it if it doesn't sell as you do get sensible offers, I had a £450 offer for a £500 item once that didn't sell and was glad to accept it as I wanted the sale after it had been listed for months with only a previous offer of £250 which naturally I rejected out of hand!

w513mfs

Just saw this and it had bids as well. i'm not  a technic fan but I've been following some of the conversation around #42113. If its a genuine auction makes me very sad. 

The_Rancor

Preeeety sure it’s not worth £900

SumoLego

It's worth One Meeeeeellion Dollars!

Astrobricks

There are now several on the US site ranging from $560 to $1725 🙄. 

Shropshire

I get ridiculous offers from buyers on Ebay daily, it's as if some of them (not all clearly) think you're desperate to get rid of stuff and can't comprehend the more mature seller who will sell at the right price and if not will just wait it out. Like above i've had many offers regularly between 10% and 50% of (not off) the starting or BIN price, some so low I think they think there's a chance you'll press the wrong button. 

Just this month I listed a sealed retired set for £315 and I had more than 5 offers each under £100 worded as if they were doing me a favour, one in particular used their 3rd offer to increase their offer to £100 !!! it sold in 2 days at asking price as it was fairly priced to start with.

daewoo

The_Rancor said:

Preeeety sure it’s not worth £900

It's worth whatever someone is willing to pay for it.

CCC

It's amazing to think that eBay will make more money from the Osprey than LEGO will.

mustang69

CCC said:

It's amazing to think that eBay will make more money from the Osprey than LEGO will.

This brings up an interesting question. It's my understanding (and I could be completely wrong) that retailers purchase their inventory from TLG. I would think in this case with the set being cancelled the retailer would have to send the sets back in order to get reimbursed. If they dont send them back then LEGO gets to keep the money, so technically they are profiting off of the sale of the set, arent they?

CCC

They are, but the cost of production will be high compared to the amount sold.

mustang69

^ True, they certainly will not be turning a profit on the set. Should have said they are earning money on them instead, however small that amount is.

Blockwork_Orange

Not really ridiculous, It just looks creepy as heck!

https://www.ebay.ca/itm/Lego-Harry-Potter-Goblet-of-Fire-The-Durmstrang-Ship-4768-incomplete-w-Extras/184464331759?hash=item2af2ee53ef:g:zf8AAOSwMQBfcB9r

Cyberdragon

I have that set...and with the amount of scattered and dismantled minfigs I have (mostly from HP) I could probably do that.

prevere

I want hesitant to post this, but I felt everyone needed a fair shot at it. 

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Lego-Harry-Potter-Diagon-Alley-Set-75978-Year-Released-2020-Empty-Sticker-Sheets/264941150653?hash=item3dafb921bd:g:cgkAAOSwoJBfsvbZ

SumoLego

^ So everyone can enjoy the fun, but not give this clearly delusional huckster false hope...

CCC

They make ideal display items, and they will be worth millions in the future as everyone throws them away. PS. I have some for sale.
 

Istokg

$14.99 shipping??  WTH??  You could put the empty sticker sheets into a Christmas card + envelop and send it of for less than $1.  (Assuming anyone is dumb enough to spend the $34.99)

JudgeChuck

I honestly wonder what goes through some people's minds sometimes...

560Heliport

If they were the full sticker sheets, I'd consider $35 not outrageous, but the shipping is absurd.

SumoLego

It's probably an in-person delivery so they can meet the person willing to pay $35.00 for a blank/used sticker sheet.

autolycus

Is it bad that my mind immediately went to that sticker listing being some sort of money laundering scheme?

SumoLego

Well, that really doesn't work as a money laundering scheme because the source is readily traceable.

A good money laundering scheme obscures the source.  Casinos and cash businesses work best.  Or China.

benbacardi

I heard somewhere that car washes work well, too 😉 

JudgeChuck

Also, perhaps if he was selling 1000 #75978 used sticker sets at $34.99 + $14.99 shipping, it might be a worthwhile laundering method. One? :-D ;-)

autolycus

SumoLego said:

Well, that really doesn't work as a money laundering scheme because the source is readily traceable.

A good money laundering scheme obscures the source.  Casinos and cash businesses work best.  Or China.

Easy enough to set up bogus eBay accounts to buy the stickers and then and use prepaid cards as payment.

edit: It was a very quickly passing thought. I’ve seen some pretty ridiculous examples of overpayment scheme money laundering from people I’ve worked with—they caught the bad guys, they weren’t the bad guys.

Tom79

benbacardi said:

I heard somewhere that car washes work well, too 😉 

Depends on 'how much' you need to launder ;)

Fizyx

benbacardi said:

I heard somewhere that car washes work well, too 😉 

I mean, I feel like you would need to have quite a bit, otherwise your bags would just be too small and get blown around.  And then all the force and brushes and all probably wouldn't be good for the money, aside from the fact that I feel like any interior bills would probably all just remain undisturbed.  Probably wouldn't even get wet.  I can't imagine the waxing pass would be any good for any of the cash either.

SumoLego

^^ You still have to wash the source of the purchase of the pre-paid cards.  (Probably why those bad guys got caught!)

CCC

Fizyx said:

benbacardi said:

I heard somewhere that car washes work well, too 😉 

I mean, I feel like you would need to have quite a bit, otherwise your bags would just be too small and get blown around.  And then all the force and brushes and all probably wouldn't be good for the money, aside from the fact that I feel like any interior bills would probably all just remain undisturbed.  Probably wouldn't even get wet.  I can't imagine the waxing pass would be any good for any of the cash either.

You have to convert to nickels and dimes first.