posted on September 5, 2000 09:05:42 AM
I won a Dutch Auction last night.Because
it was the first time I have bid on one,
I read all I could on Ebay's Help pages
before bidding. It states that the winners
all pay the lowest winning bid
3.Dutch Auctions
This fast-paced, free-for-all format is perfect if you have
multiple, identical items to sell.
Sellers start by listing a minimum price, or starting
bid, and the number of items for sale.
Bidders specify both a bid price and the quantity
they want to buy.
All winning bidders pay the same price—which is the
lowest successful bid. That might be
less than what you bid!
If there are more buyers than items, the earliest
successful bids get the goods.
Higher bidders get the quantities they've asked for.
Bidders can refuse partial quantities.
The seller contacted me this morning and
told me I was a winner. Trouble is that they
requested payment of my highest bid. I have e-mailed them a copy of Ebay's policy and
and told them I think there has been an error.Does anyone have experience with this?
I don't want to cause any trouble,but I do think that thay are charging me too much. My
high bid is $5.00 over the winning (low) bid.
Thanks in advance for any help.
posted on September 5, 2000 09:13:16 AM
I sure hope someone comes along and explains this. I have thought of bidding on dutch auctions, but have stayed away, because I'm not smart enough to figure them out! I looked at one that had 50 items. There were about 10 bidders (some with multiples) the bid prices ranged from opening bid to $20 OVER the bid showing! When I added the number of bids up it was still well under the 50, so I don't know WHAT final price would be paid. I decided to just pass it by.
What if you were the ONLY bidder and you bid OVER the opening bid. Would the final price be WHAT you bid OR would it be the opening bid??????
posted on September 5, 2000 09:18:24 AM
You are correct. Your high bid is irrelevant. All winning bidders should pay the lowest winning bid amount.
What is the seller's feedback rating? Either this person is not the sharpest knife in the drawer, or this is a scam, and I suspect the latter.
If he's doing this to all is bidders, he's probably already been reported. But if he's just doing it to newbies, who knows. He could probably get away with it for quite a while, because even if a newbie catches him, they probably won't know how to report it.
posted on September 5, 2000 09:19:18 AM
Everybody pays the final selling price
that are at that price and above and no more.
I have run hundreds of dutch auctions.
Works this way.
50 items for sale starting bid is 10.00
60 people bid and all 50 items sell,the
final selling price is 20.00.Only the people
who bid 20.00 or more get the item anyone below that gets nothing.
Those who bid 40.00 only pay the final winning bid price of 20.00 and not a penny more.
Hope that helps,but you are correct he is wrong on the amount you need to send.
posted on September 5, 2000 09:24:07 AM
I was always under the impression, that the highest bidders were the winners. Doesn't that make the most sense?
Example: 5 items up for sale at a starting bid price of $5.00. 8 people bid the following:
posted on September 5, 2000 09:36:02 AM
Wow! Alot of quick responses! Thanks so much.
Though this is my first Dutch Auction bid,I
was pretty sure that the Ebay info made the
terms clear.The seller has all positive feedback,so I hesitate to accuse him of
scamming me. On the other hand,with a feedback of over 150,he can't be that stupid.
I am now waiting for his response to my e-mail.The siggestion to send a copy to Ebay is a good idea...which address to you think
I ought to send it to? Thanks
posted on September 5, 2000 09:42:41 AM
gm8549...I would hold off letting eBay know until you hear back from the Seller. It could be an honest mistake as it happened to me one time and the seller apologized and we straightened it out. If the seller does not make it right though, send it to [email protected] and let them take a look at it.
Good Luck.
*********************
That's Flunky Gerbiltush to you!
posted on September 5, 2000 09:46:47 AM
Oh, I remember too well the first Dutch Auction I attempted. I had several of one thing, and when the auction was over, I sent out the EOA emails and quoted each person their high bid plus postage. Some immediately sent that amount (they knew as much about what I was doing as I did, obviously), but one kind soul took it upon herself to tell me where I had gone wrong. She did it in THE nicest way possible, and I have forever been grateful for that. I stopped the payments that I could stop by email, and sent refunds and profuse apologies with the items on the ones I couldn't stop.
My feedback at that time looked like I should know what I was doing, BUT most of my early feedback was from buying, not selling. This could very well be what has happened in this case, and a friendly email will cure it all (except the seller's red face) like it did for me.
posted on September 5, 2000 11:23:12 AM
Thanks for all the responses! You are right njrazd. I did not contact Ebay,but waited to see if the seller would respond first. They just did,and said they had not known the
proper procedure. It is confusing. So it was an honest mistake and everything worked out
just fine! Thanks so much for all your help.
posted on September 5, 2000 11:40:38 AM
OK, just to be the devil's advocate here... If the seller were running a scam, what do you think he would say when you caught him on it. He would, of course, say that he just didn't know. That it was an honest mistake.
I would at least check out his previous auctions and see if he has run ductch auctions in the past.
posted on September 5, 2000 12:03:06 PM
All you need to do is look at the final bid price on the closed auction page. All winning bidders (from the winning bidder list) pay that amount and that amount only. If you are confused, look at the winning bidder list and see what the bidder listed LAST bid. That's what everyone pays.
posted on September 5, 2000 12:18:22 PM
amalgamated2000-Of course I realized that the seller could simply plead ignorance when
I called him on the price(Maybe others never
know and just pay a higher amount).The main
issue for me was paying the proper amount. So that is resolved.
posted on September 5, 2000 02:49:48 PMmacandjan - on your point number 2 about bidding high as if it were a proxy.
I am confused. If the bidder only bid on one item in a dutch auction and no one else bid, I thought, no mater how high they bid, they got it for the opening bid price because there are unsold items.
posted on September 5, 2000 06:47:36 PM
gm8549
You should be getting an EOA notice from eBay and they will tell you the amount that you owe. By the way, if you don't win all the items you bid on (you bid on 4 but only 3 were left), you don't have to take any.
I had to explain this to a CPA twice a few weeks ago.
posted on September 5, 2000 07:20:39 PMmacandjan: Ebay must have a bug, because when I read about dutch auctions on ebay and looked at thedewey's tutorial, they both say that if there are items left over then evryone who bid gets it at the opening price.
posted on September 5, 2000 07:42:24 PM
Okay folks let me explain again how this works by answering a few questions.First of all there are no bugs in the ebaY system it works fine.
macandjan
If you bid 12.00 on a 10.00 item and you are the only bidder you pay the 10.00 only not the 12.00.Whether you take one item or bid on every piece its still 10.00.
But if you bid on all at 12.00 and another bidder bids on 1 at 12.50 then the minimum winning bid moves to your bid of 12.00
If you bid 12 and buy one item and the other guys bids 9,000 on another item and there is one left both still only pay the 10.00 initial as not all where sold.
Key to a dutch auction is that the only time when the bid price moves higher is when ALL items have been sold at the minimum.Yes the
key is ALL.
gjsi
The information you stated is correct as the key word in the phrase is left over,which means not all of the items where sold and therefore all the items that where bid on only sell at the opening price even if 49/50 of the 50 items sold where bid higher than the opening bid.
