Repeating sales or shills on E-Bay?

[guitarlars]

I've been watching E-Bay's time share auctions with a focus on Grand Mayans in anticipation of bidding in the near future on a Grand Mayan or Mayan Palace. I keep noticing very similar ads appearing. Now I acknowledge that most of these ads are just cut and paste, so they are of course going to look the same, but some are a little too similar to be coincidence.

On a recent unit that reappeared I wrote the seller (a postcard company) and asked if this wasn't the same one that was on a few days earlier. They replied that, yes it was - the buyer didn't perform and so they had to list again (they didn't take long not to perform because it was back in two days).

Sounds like it might be reasonable, but since then it looks like the same one by the same seller has appeared twice more. I've had one non-performing sale on E-Bay, but these guys must have every Grand Mayan sale fall through the way it's looking.

Now I'm wondering if perhaps they aren't getting the price they want and so keep killing the deal and re-advertising.

Having worked myself into a skeptical state I looked back at the bidding activity and started wondering - is the bidding really third parties or do we have people bidding up properties trying to move the price higher than would otherwise be the case?

Maybe (my devious mind thinks) the reason these keep coming back like a bad chili-dog is that a shill bidder made the high bid and the "mark" failed to continue to bid the time share up. It's hard to tell from the activity but there do seem to be a lot of sudden jumps (not the usual tit for tat trading, bumping up small increments - big jumps - bid is at, say, $800 and is countered with $2,500 as an example).

Has anyone else noticed this or am have I just had too many cups of coffee today? I'm not so sure I'm ready to agree that a Grand Mayan is worth what some folks are paying given the huge transfer fees. They're nice resorts and all but from my reading they are not free of issues.

Lars

 

[TravelingT]

I don't know about the Grand Mayan, but I bid on an auction for another property and the high bid was five dollars more than my top automatic bid. Within 10 minutes, I received a second chance offer. 10 minutes!! Being a sunday nite, how did the seller and this supposedly anonymous bidder get in contact and have the deal fall through so quickly?

I smell a rat. I have not responded to the seller on the second chance offer, which was legit, through ebay. I am interested to see if this week will reappear and you bet I will be watching the auction and that reseller.

 

[johnmfaeth]

Hi Lars,

Just did a quick search of Ebay for the term "Grand Mayan" in the title and didn't see the auctions.

You may get some responses (or better info) if ask about specific ebay sellers or identifying particular auctions in question.

John

 

[johnmfaeth]

Was posting when TT posted. Keep in mind that big Ebay sellers often have multiple identical units and using second chance (as long as it is a legitimate one, make sure you can see it through ebay, not just email) is a great way to sell two things on just one (pricey) listing fee.

 

[dchilds]

I don't know about the Grand Mayan, but I bid on an auction for another property and the high bid was five dollars more than my top automatic bid. Within 10 minutes, I received a second chance offer. 10 minutes!! Being a sunday nite, how did the seller and this supposedly anonymous bidder get in contact and have the deal fall through so quickly?

I smell a rat. I have not responded to the seller on the second chance offer, which was legit, through ebay. I am interested to see if this week will reappear and you bet I will be watching the auction and that reseller.

Once, when I got a second chance offer, I told the seller that I would be willing to pay the price I would have won the auction at, if the high "bidder" didn't bid at all, which dropped the price about 50%. I told them that if the high bidder wasn't really interested and didn't bid at all, I would have won at the much lower price. They responded, "We'll sell it at your bid, because you were willing to pay the price you bid." The deal didn't happen.

 

[lprstn]

Still check your price through some valid reseller company like www.holidaygroup.com or GMAC to see if they can beat your Ebay price.

 

[UWSurfer]

Frankly I've taken to sniping in the last few seconds of an auction. If I get my price great...if not, oh well. By waiting until the end, I avoid the shill bidders and just plain numbskulls with minimal feedback who run up the price on me.

It takes patience though to find and watch a listing...hoping it doesn't get bid up regardless. When it does I simply move on to the next. I've bought some tremendous buys this way.

 

[Aussiedog]

Me too

Frankly I've taken to sniping in the last few seconds of an auction. If I get my price great...if not, oh well. By waiting until the end, I avoid the shill bidders and just plain numbskulls with minimal feedback who run up the price on me.

It takes patience though to find and watch a listing...hoping it doesn't get bid up regardless. When it does I simply move on to the next. I've bought some tremendous buys this way.

I do the same. I watched two auctions over the last two days that went for way more than they should have - both bid up by folks with no bid history whatsoever. One went for twice what you could buy that TS for in several other sales sites, which is very unusual.

On both I did all my research days beforehand, put my snipe order in at what I thought was the fair price and let them go. An advantage to proxy bidding or using a snipe service is that you don't get caught up in the emotions of the last few minutes of bidding.


Ann

 

[JLB]

I recently won an eBay auction that had one bid for $299. The bidder's identity was hidden to prevent spamming. Other similar auctions hadn't gotten any bids. It became suspect when I bid and the only other bidder did not have a max bid. Just a reasonable bid.

So, yeah, I somewhat suspected a shill. But, the seller is reputable and I got what I got at a fair price, or below, so . . .

 

[sffan2]

I just won my first ebay auction using a sniping service for an HGVC Surf Club of Marco Island. I am positive I would not have gotten it at my price otherwise, there was a lot of bidding in the last 4 minutes. If my top price had been $6 lower I would not have gotten it (cutting it close on a multi-thousand dollar auction). So now I'll have to contact Seth and see what it would cost to trade 2 5000 point units for an 8400 point one.

 

[JLB]

I'm not sure I agree that it takes a sniping program to win on eBay. Well, since I don't use one, and win auctions anyway, I guess I'm sure it doesn't take a sniping program.

What it takes is for your maximum bid to be higher that others' maximum bids. The key is in guessing likely maximum bids, and bidding a few dollars higher. In the three auctions that come to mind, it turned out that the competition didn't have maximums bids in place, so I won those auctions for just a few dollars more.

But I could be wrong.

I just won my first ebay auction using a sniping service for an HGVC Surf Club of Marco Island. I am positive I would not have gotten it at my price otherwise, there was a lot of bidding in the last 4 minutes. If my top price had been $6 lower I would not have gotten it (cutting it close on a multi-thousand dollar auction). So now I'll have to contact Seth and see what it would cost to trade 2 5000 point units for an 8400 point one.

 

[guitarlars]

Only curious as to others observations

I'm not interested in throwing stones at any particular advertiser, but only wanted others observations. I think there is a strange pattern and I have a "sense" that there is something not quite right, but that is hardly enough to paint someone as engaging in nefarious practices.

I know that there are people who bail on auctions, but you can't get a sense of the true value of something if the real selling prices are muddied. This is where I am, I don't trust the final selling prices that are being reflected, since I don't feel that these are closed deals.

If you look at asking prices of units advertised in other venues, these reflect the general timeshare populations convicion that a timeshare has to be worth something close to the developer price. This doesn't give me any sense of the true value, which you could derive from a completed arms length transaction.

As to Grand Mayan on Ebay, there are at least two there right now (I have been and will continue tracking all that come up for the next few months until I feel comfortable that I know what represents a fair price), and, if you were to look at closed auctions, there should be quite a few, as I've been watching for the past 3 months, thus the sense that there is a pattern, at least with some of the auctions.

The 2 weeks sale current up is quite similar to others, but this one I might believe could fall through as the transfer fee is close to $10K and there are no vacation fair weeks or golf priviledges. Perhaps bidders fail to notice the costs and the lack of the usual aspects of Grand Mayan until the auction is over, then back out.

Also, I'm somewhat amused at all the language threatening bidders if they don't fulfill the deal. I think you should bid only if you're serious, but if this is a real-estate contract it can only be valid if in writing, so this can only represent an expression of interest, not a firm contract.

Lars

 

[tlsbooks]

I would start reporting all those suspicious auctions to ebay. Yeah, they're pretty slow to do anything but if they get enough complaints, they eventually should.

 

[JLB]

eBay polices well.

I know of someone who had someone totally unrelated put a bid in on something. The seller got suspended.

Still, timeshares on eBay can't get much cheaper can they, shill bidding or not?

 

[Conan]

I've been watching E-Bay's time share auctions with a focus on Grand Mayans in anticipation of bidding in the near future on a Grand Mayan or Mayan Palace.

Did you see this one?
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=360016366079

Sole winning bid:
$100 for two Grand Mayan weeks (plus 10% of the $83,100 purchase price that the prior owner paid in 2006)

 

[guitarlars]

Interesting

If you look at the history sales for under $3000 are extremely rare, so this is one for the books.

In this case I suspect that having two weeks tied together kept prices low. I thought of bidding on this one but decided that between the near $10K in costs ($8,300 for transfer and $1,700 for 2008 maintenance) and the statement that this doesn't include the extra vacation or golf priviledges that other sales weeks have indicated come as part of the deal, this didn't seem to be such a great deal.

With vacation fair you can buy a single week, only be obligated to pay for one weeks maintenance and still take two weeks by paying another maintenance (assuming I understand this correctly).

With this one you pay two weeks maintenance, no matter what, and still only get two weeks. I'd rather have the one week (and one required maintenance fee) that lets me choose if I want another week. The $8,300 transfer fee feels too onerous for me to want to jump into this one. Too bad they didn't (or couldn't) split the weeks, as I suspect they would have done much better.

Lars

 

[kathyj0205]

It's nice to see that I'm not the only one paranoid. I have been watching weeks at the Hacienda del Mar and PB Sunset Beach for the past month on e-bay. I've noticed the same pattern of bids, mostly by buyers with little or no feedback ratings. And the same ones are listed by the same sellers repeatedly. Fortunately, I finally won a week at HdM, so I can quit obsessing about it.

I understand the jump in bids - if I put a max bid of $2000 and the bid is at $50, then I am the high bidder at $55. If someone bids a max of $1900, then the bid jumps to their 1900, and automatically goes up to 1925, keeping me as the high bidder. But I am still awfully suspicious of some of the sellers.
Kathy

 

[UWSurfer]

I'm not sure I agree that it takes a sniping program to win on eBay. Well, since I don't use one, and win auctions anyway, I guess I'm sure it doesn't take a sniping program.
But I could be wrong.

You are correct...you don't need a sniping program to do the same thing. I however have had internet communication problems, tangled fingers and just plain stupidity on occasion when I "snipe" manually. More often than not I use e-snipe when I'm not sure I'm going to be around to bid...so far so good.

 

[kgkg]

so what is a a good sniping program you would recommend?

 

[brucecz]

I use e-snipe.

Bruce

so what is a a good sniping program you would recommend?

 

[DavidnRobin]

I use e-snipe.

Bruce

Me too, but not for TSs.

Somewhat In-line with this thread - I track on eBay Westin/Starwood TSs - what I have noticed lately that all of a sudden most of the repeat bidders have names as a variation of x***x (insert various letters). anyone seeing the same on their tracking?

 

[Aussiedog]

Me too, but not for TSs.

Somewhat In-line with this thread - I track on eBay Westin/Starwood TSs - what I have noticed lately that all of a sudden most of the repeat bidders have names as a variation of x***x (insert various letters). anyone seeing the same on their tracking?

Yes -

You can still get some info about them by clicking on their "handle", and so I usually look at their bid record to see if they are big timeshare bidders, what their timing is (how many rebid multiple times), how many transactions they actually complete, how often they bid with that seller, etc.

I actually worry less about the repeat bidders with a track record of purchases and worry more about those who are brand new or whose EBay record consists only of DVD purchases. They can really increase the variability of the pricing for a resort.

Ann

 

[JLB]

I feel your pain.

I am still using dial-up. The last two auctions, which I won, another TUGger called and was on the phone with. He refreshes in 2 seconds and I mine takes about 20.

We followed them together the last 15 minutes or so, which goes pretty fast when you are constantly refreshing. With a couple minutes to go I went into bid mode, getting to the final page. He kept refreshing. At 30 seconds I submitted the bid.

But, in both cases it didn't matter, except that I did not play may hand too soon, so that the other bidder knew someone else was watching. In both cases, the other bidder did not have a max bid.

Of course, in one of those cases, the other bidder was the TUGger helping me, just playing with me, driving the bid up to $2.25 with his $1 bid!

FWIW, I don't mind my slow dial-up, while it drives DW and other people crazy. Guess I just like life in the slow lane.

But, DW's new laptop was shipped yesterday, so the times they are a changin'.

(Just what everyone wants . . . me being able to post faster. )

You are correct...you don't need a sniping program to do the same thing. I however have had internet communication problems, tangled fingers and just plain stupidity on occasion when I "snipe" manually. More often than not I use e-snipe when I'm not sure I'm going to be around to bid...so far so good.

 

[DavidnRobin]

Yes -

You can still get some info about them by clicking on their "handle", and so I usually look at their bid record to see if they are big timeshare bidders, what their timing is (how many rebid multiple times), how many transactions they actually complete, how often they bid with that seller, etc.

I actually worry less about the repeat bidders with a track record of purchases and worry more about those who are brand new or whose EBay record consists only of DVD purchases. They can really increase the variability of the pricing for a resort.

Ann

For example - Take a look at the bid histories of these Westin TS eBay auctions
(ended)
http://offer.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewBids&item=290198897349

and this one -
(ongoing)
http://offer.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewBids&item=320212203911

I think that this is very strange (and concerning) - look at how many variations of the x***x there are!? I have seen these repeatedly - all with diferrent variations.

 

[jlee2070]

I believe the x***x are not the actual bidder ID's...

See this statement at the top of the big history: "eBay has changed how bid history information is displayed for higher-priced items. To help keep the eBay community safe, enhance bidder privacy, and protect our members from fraudulent emails, only you and the seller of the item can view your User ID in bid history. Other members will see anonymous names, such as x***y."