YAEMQ (Yet Another eBay Moral Quandary)

I just listed a 9thTee Tivo series 1 cache card last evening (they sell for $99) and have a real bid for $30 with 6 days to go.

So I get a message this AM from a 4/100%+ eBayer asking. "Would you end the auction now and I can Paypal you $50?" Well, I'm not going to do that.

So I typed my answer "That would be against eBay rules, would it not?"

The quandary: There is a little checkbox below that that says: "make it so that everybody else can see this question and your answer".

Check or not check?

Not check. I would only recommending sharing questions if they were about the item itself. If you feel very strongly against private offers, report him to ebay directly and let them investigate it privately.

I would probably check it.

check

Not check.

Have him Paypal you the money first, then keep the auction open telling him you'll report him to eBay if he tries to get his money back.

Check or not check?


Not.

What do you, or anybody else for that matter, gain by doing this? "Boy, I'll teach that guy a lesson he'll never forget", right? He won't care. eBay won't follow up on it. Nothing will come of it, and all you do is open yourself up for retribution.

Not worth it.

tanstaafl.

It's a public record that you don't play games.

When this happens to me, I usually just write back, very nicely, saying that I do not end bids early but that he is free to bid on the item like everyone else. There have been times where the person offering turned out to be the high bidder in the end.

With the auction vanishing in 90 days anyway, the public record is not permanent.

I have let someone become the high bidder and then ended the auction for them once they were.

Not check. I didn't know it was the rules and is something I've asked someone when I didn't feel like waiting 6 days.

I would not end the auction early (the price always goes up at the end most times), and I wouldn't bother to make your reply public. My experience is that most of the time when I get asked this question to end an auction early, the buyer just wants to get a good deal before the price gets up too high.

If you think $50 is a good price, by all means have the person bid and then end the auction with a $50 bid...But if a person is willing to offer you $50 on the item with 6 days to go, then it must be at least worth that much....

I always let the market dictate the price and it seems to work okay....

Randy