[78-L] Phantom eBay winner

[Roger Wade]

Hi David and Tom,

It happened to me recently also with 3 nice Calypso 78s.  No response at all from the winning bidder but he was never de-registered so I had to hold my breath and cancel the transactions and wait out the required time.  I used Google Earth to see where the alleged bidder's address was and it showed an institutional office type building at the University of London.  After that I went ahead and did the second chance offers, even though the cancellation process was ongoing.  Everyone was too irritated with the scam bidder to buy at their last bid level so I tried something else.

One I sold direct outside of ebay to a 3rd-high bidder for what I would have gotten with the 2nd chance.  Another I re-listed at what I thought was a fair price and it sold fairly quickly for a Best Offer very close to what I listed it for.

The last one I looked up on popsike.com and saw that it had sold last year for a lot more than the alleged winning bid I had received so I listed it for slightly more than that and it sold for that price in 2 days.

In the meantime I waited out the cancellation process on ebay and got the original fees refunded.

Although it was a royal pain in the butt it worked out in the end and I would up netting more than I would have if the original sales had gone through.

I don't understand what the reason is for this anomaly in calypso bidding but it is the first time it happened to me so it must be a recent development, within the past year, because I sold some of these last year with no problem.

Roger Wade

Really Old Records

http://www.reallyoldrecords.com

http://stores.ebay.com/Really-Old-Records?RefID=store

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Really-Old-Records/113492545338506?ref=search

http://www.amazon.com/shops/reallyoldrecords

On Nov 13, 2011, at 11:15 AM, David Lennick wrote:

> Hard to say with finality. I'm certain that it's the same guy whose ID has been 
> revoked twice before, and I've heard of other sellers being burned by him (we 
> all eventually relisted and sold the items). As for not selling to newbies at 
> all, everybody has to start someplace and a bidder with only 1 positive 
> feedback was one of the eager customers on all 3 of the items I listed 
> (somehow, one went to a genuine bidder).
> 
> dl