Ebay second chance offers - does this imply shill bidding?

So I've a question to those who know Ebay well. Today I was bidding on a 2011-W 25th Eagle MS70 to complete one of my mixed sets. I bid $90 and was highest bidder until about 30 mins before the auction was over when someone outbid me. My limit was $90 so I thought "oh well", I'll keep looking. The coin ended up selling for $91. So I'm just getting home from the Ontario show and I check my email and there's a "Lucky You.." email from Ebay telling me the seller has given me a "second chance" at this coin for $91. Now I'm thinking there really was no buyer at $91 and it was a shill bid hoping someone would come back over the top. I suppose it's possible the buyer opted out of the coin but it just seems too suspicious. Am I being paranoid or ?

 

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Could be both thoughts that you listed, or the could have more than one if they graded several at the same time. I have bought some other items ( not coins ) on "second chance" offers and was satisfied.

 

Check the bidding history and see how many feedback's the auction winner had.

Keep in mind you have cases where the auction winner is international (seller won't ship there) or just backed out. The seller has very little to gain from putting a shill bid for 90 bucks...

 

Just $1 over your max amount still sounds like a good deal. I`ve received a few of those second chance offers from sellers with stocks of same item. They sell both to highest bidder and with minimum effort sell again for a slightly lower price to second highest bidder.

 

I think it could go either way. I could see this happening with larger ticket items, but not sure about 90 dollars. Maybe if the seller has a very low number of transactions. Who knows, sometimes I think people juice their bids in order to draw more attention. Some of the bust halves have an absurd amount of bidding going on between two bidders on like day one and two of the auction. By the time the bid is going to close the auction has 30+ bidders, and it entices the untrained eye to win the bid.

 

You have every right to be suspicious of "second chance offers" and it indicates the item may have been shilled or worse yet the listing was hijacked. I don't know why this auction site even has "second chance offers". I know of one guy a few years ago who lost $1600 by responding to a second chance offer. For what ever reason, it seems this auction website encourages fraud. Thats why I no longer buy or even browse there anymore.

 

Was there several days in between when the auction ended and you got the offer? If so, maybe the winner never paid. I sell coins on eBay and for some reason, people often bid and then never pay. I don't know why, but that happens. Or like someone said, the seller may have several and is just trying to sell a bunch without the effort of listing it again. I've made these purchases and never had a problem.

 

Mostly I think it's not shill bidding. Like jjack said, could have been someone from a non-allowed country wanting to ship. I had that happen to me with an item once. The high bidder came in and when he won it, he wanted it shipped to him in Thailand. For that Item I had listed most countries not allowed. He was allowed by ebay to bid because he had registered himself as from Great Britain. So I had to cancel that and offer as a second chance to the other bidder. Maybe it would have been fairer to the other bidder to be able to have a much lower bid on that, but that's not the way that ebay worked for that.

If the second chance person had said no, then they were taking the chance that I may not have put the item up again or someone could bid more on it if I did. Sometimes you never know with an item. I had a booklet I was selling for 2.00 starting bid. The entire time went by and no one bid. Then after it was over, someone sent me a message saying they missed out and they wanted to bid, would I put it back up? I did, starting at 2.00. The guy won it for 50.00 because he put that high bid on it and during the bid, someone else bid high too. I could not have predicted that.

 

Thanks everyone for the great responses and advice. The auction ended this afternoon and within a few hours the second chance offer came in. The seller had a few 25th's up for auction but only one 2011-W, so it seemed a little fishy to me. Nevertheless, it seems like an okay deal, not something to write home about but within my tolerance range since it comes with free shipping and will round out my set to a full 70 set.

 

I don't know, I'm just real suspicious of those 'second chance' offerings. Even if it comes within a few hours of the auction ending. Don't like 'em and never take 'em up on it.......

 

I occasionally send one out when I have multiple examples of the item in identical condition. This really only applies to BU coins though. However, I always send the bidder a message asking if they are interested before sending out the second chance offer.

 

I have no idea why you would tie that to shill bidding. Possibly the seller had 2 (or more) of them. Possibly the buyer decided not to take it. (I have seen that and even once wound up as the third high bidder getting the original coin. I was both surprised and happy even 3 weeks after the auction.) Beside, with the new system, the eBay protections still works.

 

If the person had '2 (or more)' then why didn't they state that in their auction? Nope, still don't buy it......

 

If by "state" you mean list that you have 2, that costs more money.

 

Also if you have two and list both then as a seller you may find that instead of two or more bidders going against each other you may sell both for less than you could get by either selling one, seeing how that goes, and putting the other up at another time or by offering as a second chance.I never used a second chance on a second, but I have held back a second to improve my chances of selling both for a good price.

 

Guys, I was only bidding on one. I loose the auction and all of a sudden this seller comes up with more than one? I don't buy it......

 

When I sell I never list more than one of anything for this reason. I want people bidding against each other to get a higher price for my item. I'll let that one sell and then list the identical one again next week.

 

And what if that first one sells for a very good price?

 

There are a few ways to tell if the auction was shilled. In the bidding history page, check how many times the same bidder bid on the item. Sometimes you will see small increments of dollar bids to bump up the price. Also if you click on the id it shows you a small history of how many times the bidder has bid on the sellers auctions. A high amount may be a sign of shill bidding. And of course you can check the feedback, multiple feedbacks from the same seller may be a sign of multiple accounts.
But then again, you should always bid a price of what you want to pay. This way if you win you wouldn't be worried about shill bidding.

 

I think the seller likely had several of the coins. I suspect you got "sniped" because the winning bid was only $1 more than your maximum and oit came in too late for you to re-bid. Happened to me several times. OK, the dealer has a firm offer of $91, so he gives the bidders a second chance at getting on of the others he has. Of course, he doesn't want people to know he has several of them for sale. No one would be bidding in a war against each other.