Should live or recently ended eBay auctions be allowed to be outed on SWF

[SublevelStudios]

What I'm saying is that Star Wars collecting isn't all about 'you', sometimes you need to think about somebody other than yourself. Do you really NEED a cheap toy? No of course not. The lady that sold the Luke may be struggling and an extra £300 would have meant a holiday for her kids or something.

Of course not, that's why some of us are here.

I just think going round paying full value for every item you want is simply not tenable on the basis of having a clear conscious. Sure, I have paid full value, and beyond in some cases but I like to think it balances out with bargains too like the £25 I paid to a DEALER at the NEC toyfair for a Tri Logo Fett. That's part of the joy in collecting, finding a bargain, a diamond in the rough. Now where is the thrill in finding something like that then telling the dealer it's worth £100 plus when he's already told you he want's £25? Maybe he was struggling, maybe he had debt problems, but that's not my problem and we'd all be mental wrecks if it were.

Now, as Ben said, if someone comes to you for an appraisal and you low ball them with the view to take a collection for peanuts, that's morally wrong. But when sellers give you an asking price, ebay buy it nows and auctions are fair game IMO.

 

[Mr-shifter]

If we are all about the sellers then the advice we give anyone who wants to sell should be go to vectis with it all, as they will by far get you more money than anywhere else. She could have got £600 for her luke bespin and had an extra couple of days with the kids.

 

[aussiejames]

I think we should be allowed to post recently ended auctions

I am yet to hear a good reason why anyone needs to discuss one straight away- wait a week.......

 

[edd_jedi]

Yeah I'm very much in favour of not outing recently finished auctions for 7 days, for the reasons discussed. I've yet to hear a good reason why live auctions shouldn't be posted, apart from that people want to get the items cheaper.

 

[jedisearcher]

I think this is all a bit derailed regarding the seller issues.

If a seller undervalues something it's completely unrealistic to think that every collector will be as honourable as we'd like to be ourselves. In the process of telling them it's worth more someone else will likely just swipe it. Yes it could be a granny selling something she found in the loft, but maybe it's someone who's just happy with the £50 they got for the junk in their loft. If someone has taken the risk of a BIN price, then they live with the result. In that case I buy it, I'm happy with the bargain, seller is happy they got what they listed it for. I know I'll overpay for something in the future, so it all evens itself out in the end

That's why there should be an outing rule because without one, someone else will find out about it, trample all over your bargain and shaft you with a bigger offer (obv. seller has to be compliant).

If you don't have the rule, you're really encouraging people to be unscrupulous if they are that way inclined. As Edd has said, there are loads of sharks already, why give them another opportunity to shaft someone.

 

[maxf]

Yeah I'm very much in favour of not outing recently finished auctions for 7 days, for the reasons discussed. I've yet to hear a good reason why live auctions shouldn't be posted, apart from that people want to get the items cheaper.

That's pretty much the only reason - but isn't it a good reason in these days of crazy high prices?

 

[jedisearcher]

The only good reason to out something might be to identify that it's a fake, reseal, bogus listing (people photoshopping AFA labels etc.).

That gets a bit difficult I suppose, because you're outing something that might be ok, but perhaps isn't.

I had this a while ago. I bought an item I was pretty sure was a reseal but was a bargain if it was ok. Someone posted it as a bargain buy. I asked them to remove the link and they did. But at that point, the damage might have been done. I might've lost out. In the end, it was a reseal and I got my money back, but you can see what I mean.

 

[sith-smith]

I generally go with the no outing for much the same reasons others have said.

I also don't think we should judge what we do on the grounds that other people do it.

Other sites sell fakes, repros etc. Using the argument that others do it would mean that we should re-allow the selling of them on here.

If you believe something is wrong, then make a stand and say no. Others will either follow your example or not. But it's better to be an ignored example than no example at all.

 

[Palifan]

This would be a great help.

All of my notable csrdback wins in the last few years have been outed on the forum, normally within hours of the auction ending. I am amazed I haven't lost any to backdooring yet.

You're all blaming FB rather than this forum. None of my cardback auctions have been outed on FB. They have all been outed on this forum.

Cheers Jason

It's probably time to move on from the mistake with listing your card backs earlier in the week as hopefully this thread will resolve that.

I must point out though that as it stands I didn't think there were any rules on this forum about doing that ( which hopefully will change soon), and as I'd already taken the link down on the other thread I fail to understand why it had to be locked? All this did was meant that I never got the chance to respond to anything you'd written. As I mentioned before this has also happened to me before now and I found that a quiet, friendly PM was all that was needed to rectify the problem.

At least though this thread did get started out of this and I'm all for the 7 day listing rule so that more mistakes don't happen in the future.

Ian

 

[tiefighterboy]

You're all blaming FB rather than this forum. None of my cardback auctions have been outed on FB. They have all been outed on this forum.

Perhaps none your cardback auctions, but I've seen loads of others.

Maybe the FB groups should follow suit as well.

 

[theslider]

I think we should be allowed to post recently ended auctions

I am yet to hear a good reason why anyone needs to discuss one straight away- wait a week.......

If it is only available to a select group of people who you trust? As I put in my original post.

Well obviously not then. As there does seem to be no honour amongst some Star Wars collectors who will stiff each other.

 

[Joe]

Just catching up, you guys have been busy!

Like others have said, sharing auctions privately with people you know are looking for particular items is a huge part of being involved in a community/forum and I doubt there is anyone here that hasn't done it. In fact I think if you know someone who would love to know about an item you've spotted on ebay it's almost your duty to send them the link, as a fellow collector (and do something completely greedy like buy it yourself + flog it to them for more money for example).

That doesn't mean to say that you have to share an auction with EVERYONE though, even if you aren't sure who might be interested..

For a start I often post live auctions in the eBay section because I like helping others find things they may be looking for.

From what I can see from checking out your posts in the ebay section Edd, you only occasionally share BIN style auctions which you think are fairly priced, which is a lot less problematic than what I think most people that are voting for outing to be stopped have an issue with.

The main reason people get upset about auction outing in general is because it's usually the regular auctions that are linked that have X amount of days left before they end and not BINS. In those cases, any auction that gets extra discussion and attention on a forum full of collectors will obviously generate more interest, create more competition and usually mean the item ends at a much higher price.

As I have said in the past any idiot with a keyboard and internet connection can find 90% of what is out there with very little trouble, so most things are already on collectors radars.

I think Todd makes an important point here. We all have access to eBay..we all have accounts on eBay..we can all search eBay weekly, daily..even hourly if we want to so there is no need to copy every single listing we come across in the ebay section, is there? We aren't idiots, we can all find this stuff if we look hard enough and if we don't stumble upon something..so be it. I don't begrudge anyone a bargain once in a while.

I think it just comes down to common sense and maturity. Personally, I'd feel really bad if I dropped a link in here to an item which inadvertently created more competition for another member (or maybe even a friend) who was bidding or intending to bid. I'd also feel pretty bad if I dropped a link on the forum just hours after an auction had ended, only to find out later that by starting a discussion so soon after the auction ended, the winning bidder didn't get their item...

What do we do with that section, delete it?

No not at all! Here are some other things you can use an ebay section for:

-To warn others about scams,fakes, repros and bad sellers. Lets face it, eBay is and always will be full of morons and scammers and it's good to know who not to buy from on there.

-A place for members promote their OWN auctions if they want to (which I think is perfectly acceptable as it's the sellers job to advertise their stuff after all..just as long as they don't spam us with it )

-A place to link to humorous & odd auctions which give us all a well needed laugh..

I realise that you didn't specifically set up the SWF eBay section to exclude live auction links (the description even states "Post links to your own or other people's Ebay auctions") but I still think that auction outing creates far more problems than people realise and as I said, if we all have access to ebay and are regularly searching for items..or have friends that drop us links privately - why do we need to discuss them before or directly after they finish?

 

[itfciain]

All seems a bit 'RS-y' to me - think the site is well policed as it is without a whole new set of 'rules'

 

[Mr-shifter]

All seems a bit 'RS-y' to me - think the site is well policed as it is without a whole new set of 'rules'

One thing I have always found about this place is rules are not strictly speaking rules applied judiciously. More like common sense guidelines, with the right mods having the right amount of common sense. That's why the place is so easy going.

 

[lee gray]

Forums are here to discuss things and have debates and due to auction outings, that is excatly what we are doing so may it long continue.

 

[wrighty]

Doesn't look like it's going to be a big majority, and looks more like 50:50!! Personally I don't see a lot of point, if it's not in here then it's on FB or RS just like the mailer/baggie sale, the Max Webster DT auction or recently the AFA 90 MOC VCJ!!

 

[Jez]

I don't think many if any auctions would slip under the radar undetected nowadays.This forum is only a small fraction of the collecting world. To be honest i'd prefer to see stuff promoted on here if it gives guys on this forum a chance to have a punt.

 

[Princess Raya]

I've not heard a single good reason for outing a recently finished ebay auction. So if that was the only question, I think this would fly through.

However, I don't think there's much that flies under the rader with the functionality of modern online auction sites. If discussion of live auctions is banned here, people will go elsewhere to discuss vintage SW and that can't be a good thing.

 

[Joe]

I've not heard a single good reason for outing a recently finished ebay auction.

Agreed, soon we are going to put a rule in place for completed auctions.

If discussion of live auctions is banned here, people will go elsewhere to discuss vintage SW and that can't be a good thing.

Maybe I'm not reading the same forum as you but I didn't think being able to talk about live eBay auctions was one of the main reasons people posted on SWF? Do you and others really think people would contemplate leaving the forum if they couldn't talk about eBay auctions until after they had ended?

 

[edd_jedi]

As it's pretty close I propose a compromise, I am all in favour of putting a 7 day ban on discussing finished auctions that have not already been posted, but for now people are allowed to continue discussing eBay, Vectis etc up-coming auctions.

Is everyone happy with that? We can always re-visit in future.