I`ve bid (on eBay) on a lot with a couple of notes a bit more than 1 week ago and didn't win. They sold for about $10 more than I bid, and there were 4 more bidders "above" me - 3 bidders offered more than me and the 4th fellow won it. He already left positive feedback for the seller saying item as described. The buyer got 2000+ feedbacks, not a newbie. Seller got the "Top Rated" status. Question is, how come the seller offered it to me and not 3 other buyers who offered more than me? Or did they all refuse during this last week so its my turn now? How many Second Chance Offers are there on each item for how many buyers, according to eBay rules? Notes are not that common, hard to believe he got many more, especially since they are in UNC.
You can check the other bidders' histories. It should tell you the percentage of times that they've bid on your seller's items. I would start with that. If none are frequent bidders on his items, then I wouldn't stress about it. If they are, then I'd assume it was a scam of some sort.
You can offer second chance offers to every single underbidder - there is no limit. But if I was the 4th one down, I wouldn't bite. Seems strange enough to avoid.
Not sure its relevant, 2 world banknotes from 1952, not US currency. One buyer with 10% activity, 2 with 7%, winner with 5% bid activity with this seller. Bidders look OK, one bidder with 3000+ feedbacks. Seller is on eBay for 15 years. Second Chance are not very popular, I`d imagine they all refused before me, seller would prefer their offers before my lower bid. Asked for photos of items offered and most likely I`ll go for it. Its a good deal and the seller is totally trustworthy, so many years and all 8500+ feedbacks positive with 1 neutral.
I would be VERY careful, and try to contact the seller outside of Ebay if possible. I had a situation once where I was the underbidder and got a "second chance offer" for about $4500. For some reason I was concerned, so called the seller. He said he never does second chance offers and had no knowledge of who had contacted me. I am simply saying be leery. I don't know how they do it, but I have heard about "second chance offers" scams before, and possibly would have been a victim myself if I had not called.
Is this auction one of those where you are getting bills picked at random from a lot of similiar bills? I'm just trying to figure out if it's possible that he's selling them to everyone who bid above what he's trying to get for these. If you bid on two unique bills and the auction promised that you would receive those two bills in particular, then the winner and the other people above you would have had to pass for one reason or another. Either way, like medoraman pointed out, make sure you're actually dealing with the seller and not some scammer. I'd probably message him from within FeeBay and ask him to give you a call to discuss the particulars. Maybe his offer is genuine and you'll get a good deal on what you want.
2 bills with clear photos, not from a bunch of similar bills. Seller didn't sell any of them before and currently has no bills of this kind for sale. Original buyer indeed paid and received them, I contacted him and he was totally satisfied with the purchase. It seems all others passed on this offer or maybe the seller preferred not to offer to some of them, can also be an option. Waiting for a reply from the seller to see actual photos.
I had the same experience abut 10-years ago with a 1912-S nickel. I sent the seller a message through the original Ebay item link (which I still had saved as a favorite). The seller called me on the phone about 5 minutes later explaining that the second chance offer was not from him. (Obviously, the second chance offer would have paid to a scammer's account & I never would have received any coin).
Agree on the Bogus part. I've also had a somewhat convincing Ebay looking email sent to me that offered me just what the OP described, a second shot at a coin I didn't win nor was even the runner up. Upon closer examination (the email was convincing), I noticed a few things that immediately struck me as false. The first and most obvious was that I didn't have a duplicate email in my Ebay inbox, which always happens. Second, the funds were requested to be sent by direct payment outside of EBay's website (ebay will always require their cut). It bothered me that the person who sent this fake email was able to obtain my personal email address, since I don't have my email posted anywhere on my Ebay page. Anyway, I shared the email with Ebay with hopes that they would track down these rascals. Hopefully they catch them so the legitimate second chance offers are not looked upon with malice.
Yeap, a lot of warning signs there. I don't think it is possible for a scammer to send the Second Chance inside eBay and from the original seller account. Well, unless they hack sellers account first. I got reply from the seller and he sent a photo of new notes he offers, everything looks great. I think I was really lucky this time to get an offer with 3 others before me and to get it for such a low price (it should cost at least $10 more). I am not sure why wouldn't the seller just put it as a new auction, but if this was indeed a mistake, eBay would solve it, plus the amount is really low.
I would really, really like to know how these scammers are getting the contact information for non-winning bidders. I was under the impression that ALL bidders are anonymized to everyone except the seller -- other users can only learn who won by checking feedback, which still is not anonymized. Even then, you don't get the user's email address, just their ID. It sounds to me like either eBay employees are stealing information, or there's a major hole in eBay's APIs (software interfaces for requesting information). Either way, it's quite unnerving.
Okay, that's reassuring. I'm still a little gun-shy after my online broker leaked customer emails TWICE.
Last month I received an email from a coin shop. They had my email address from a past business transaction. They sent a broadcast email to their customers and didn't blind-copy anyone. All 50 recipients of this one email could see my email address. I contacted the shop immediately & they said "sorry".
I hate it when sellers use my email address they get in eBay to send their crappy ads. I mark it as spam and set filters to erase their further crap they try to send me.
