Batboard

Is it just me or do people not care how much they pay for something. I have noticed so many things go on ebay for either more than it cost new, or a few dollars shy of what it cost new. Its my opinion that it is:

The seller with a spare account or a friend who runs the price up incase they dont like what its going for.

Or this person is really doesnt care or just didnt do their research.

I am just curious I really think there are a lot of people with spare account of a friend who will run the price up. I know that this is a trick that a auctioner will use at real auctions, I just wanted to heaer what other people thought.

I had something simular happen to me. I was high bid , then about 2 minutes before it ended it shot up by double.


It seemed kind of fishy. I didnt do anything about it at the time. I watched the sellers auctions for about a month. Low and behold the same Item that was supposedly sold was back up for bid with the same picture and all. This time there was a outrageous reserve that was never met..

I know if E-bay finds out about it they can suspend an account

I see the same thing. Idiots with bastions of 16pin GM300 accessory plug kits for like $12, when they only cost $5.00

GP300 belt clips sell on eBay for $5.00+$3.50 shipping ($8.50) when I can take a short drive to the Motorola store and pay $6.00, and no shipping. Plus I get it on the spot- no waiting.

When it comes to eBaying, depending on what it is, I check with my local Motorola store to see where I can save the most money. With accessories like those mentioned above, the Motorola store wins out!

Of course, when it comes to batteries and speaker microphones, chargers, etc. eBay wins out.

Spirit series speaker microphones cost $48 at the local Lowes, and probably retail for the same at the Motorola dealer. However, on eBay you can find them for $20.

Official Motorola Batteries for the GP300 retail for like $80, but a suitable, usually good quality battery can be obtained from eBay for like $25.

When bidding on radios, consider this: item condition, retail cost, and accessories it comes with, then decide what it is worth. Sometimes price doubling in the last couple minutes, although blocking you from a good deal, puts the radio up to about what its resale value is anyhow. And, if you still had the high bid after the auction price rose, then obviously, you knew what the item was worth.

-Josh

Recently I've seen new Icom IC2100H transceivers on eBay with a starting price of about $200. This is a discontinued Icom radio which the dealers are selling for about $125. I suppose there's always someone somewhere who is so disconnected from the real world that he or she will pay this kind of premium for something which is going for about 40% less elsewhere, but it's still hard to understand how this can happen.

Tom, W2NJS
...in D.C.

always wait until the last 2 min to bid.

i have gotten lots of cra .... motorola stuff off ebay all was a good deal. or i didnt get it ... ie, bid $70.00 for a saber and got "sniped" in the last 15 sec. lost it to $200.00 bid i have gotten several great deals though . just figure your highest amount and dont when you loose. cuz,,, the other guy just paid too much

Sometimes the final prices are too good to be true. I had a HT User Manual that closed out with a final price that was about 13 times what I paid for it new! (still available from the manufacturer)

I had no reserve on the price (starting at $5)and just wanted my original money out of the manual since I no longer had the radio. Well there were multiple bidders and it went up..up...up.

Several weeks later I had no money in my hands and the bidder stalled on payment several times (Said he worked in the Trauma Center 60+ Hours) Well, somehow he found time to bid but not time to pay.

I suspect he was told later he goofed.

So the manual was relisted and it sold for three times what I paid for it new. This is not typical of my auctions but it happened.

The product will find it's price in the marketplace and sometimes the deadbeat bidders screw up the works. Now looking back on the completed auctions someone is going to think a manual sold for 13 times it's new value when it indeed did not.

I am sure this happens with many other items too.

I believe I came out even on the money after the time I spent with hassles,e-mails,refund claim, and relisting.

By the way if you have a bidder that says he is late sending a payment because of attending a funeral you probably have a deadbeat on your hands. Why these people are not honest and upfront I do not know?

Ed
N4UMJ

Top this... a few weeks back I came across a GP300 user manual (the one you get WITH the radio) sell for $39.00US!!!!!

I just wished I had 50 of them.

Of an interesting note... I purchased the exact same user manual for $3.00US last year.

Add in people selling the battery clip that comes WITH a Motorola battery for $5.00US!!! It's enough to make you go MAD!!!!

The comment about prices being too high is very valid. Some items I have pulled in are a great value. I have 2 GP300, a P110 and I just acquired a Kenwood TK270G. The batteries for the Kenwood cost me $80.00Cdn new up here. On eBay I picked up one for $20.00US, one for $11.50US and a third for 12.50US. 2 were brand name Kenwood and new-in-box, and one was a after market. All 1100Ma and they all work great.

On the Motorola side, I purchased a GP300 RSS manual for $12.50US and a P110 RSS manual for $9.95US last year. both in great condition.

What I am tired of is people paying OUTRAGIOUS prices for a 2ch GP300 or P110, hand mike, surveillance kits, etc. I feel like e-mailing these people and asking if they want to buy a nice piece of land the the Fl. Keys the I just received from my long lost great grand uncle from my mothers side (twice removed).

As for the comment about bids going up and then the same item being re-listed. If you can show to eBay the schill bidding is taking place, they may be able to help you out.

EBay like any online buying of used equipt. is a bit of a crapshoot. At least
EBay's feedback system gives you an idea of the sellers past performance
and hopefully good feedback will follow into your transaction. For the seller offering a warranty of any kind can be a problem as taking things apart is the nature of the hobby and flex ribbons are easily damaged and radios can be damaged by poor programming or hacking. Or there's the
other guy looking to swap parts out and return the product. Then there's the seller going with as-is as he knows there's a problem with the radio. Very difficult for both sides when the item is not purchased in person. Looks like EBay and the like are the new era of hamfests, I miss the hamfests but this is what where stuck with.

The practice you are referring to is called 'shill' bidding, and is a big no no... You can be banned from ebay for doing that... All you have to do is prove it somehow...

Remember that just because someone BIDS on something does not mean it actually SOLD for that. Ebay is a good service, you can get good deals on there: two way or no two way. I bought a like new UHF Kenwood TK-340 portable for 60 bucks. Not bad...needed a field programmable radio for UHF- this one arrived today in pristine shape and works flawlessly.

But I have seen used FT-50 ham radios close for almost 300 bucks when NEW IN THE BOX with a warranty they sell for 209.99 at ham radio outlet. but that does not mean that a transaction actually was completed. It would be theoretically possible to create bogus auctions with completed transactions to inflate the value of worthless gear.

Why would someone pay above retail prices on stuff they can buy locally for less...especially specialized items like radio gear. It just does not hold water.

The sad truth about Ebay is that everyone uses it as a reference when selling there gear elsewhere, as if Ebay were the radio/electronic equivalent to Edmund's or Kelley Blue Book. In reality, there is no scientific or real basis for the value of gear on Ebay, it is simply heresay and half truths about the actual value of an item. Been to a hamfest lately? Just went to the Atlanta show (big disappointment) and used gear was selling for more than new gear. For example, a fellow had a well used Maxtrac 100 sitting in a box. He wanted 250.00 dollars for a two channel UHF radio that was very dirty. When quesitoned he replied with a cookie-cutter "you know how much they go for on ebay?" which is an insult to any average person's intelligence. What it "goes for on ebay" is not a blanket value as to what you can sell it for in the real world.
Don't get me wrong, I have had great pleasure buying and selling on the bay, but too many people place too much faith in the pricing of items on Ebay.

I don't know if eBay has anything to do with it or not, but, Whenever I see prices on items quoted on the internet- for example an MCX100 railroad radio that a dealer wants $4000 for, but on eBay it sells for $500 I know that if I were to buy one, I'd shop eBay first.

One item I am trying to get rid of now, is an STX821. A few months ago, I could easily have gotten $250 for it. Now, with the flood of them on eBay, if I were to sell it, I'd get no more than $160, so I'd be losing money on it compared to what I paid for it.

So, eBay is a mixed bag of items and prices. It would seem that in most cases, the best prices are there, especially when there is a mass of the same thing on there (such as the MTX8000 B7 model that just a couple weeks ago when there was only one sold for over $500, but now there are too many going for under $200!).

You just have to make sure you're not paying a cent more then you think it is worth and leave it at that.

-Josh

Sometimes it may look like shill bidding or like somebody said above"just because it SAID it sold for 13 times the value....."

Maybe the person buying the "piece of crap" for the inflated price really needs it, and can't get it anywhere else conveniently.

Like for example there was some Saber Service manuals listed recently and they went for like 50 Bucks. I bid 49. And lost. I don't know if it is available from M still or not, But i was willing to pay what I thought was a high price just to have it.

I just bought 3 MX300's for 65 bucks last week. Did I pay too much. Hell yeah. But I needed batteries for my KVL, and these were the only thing i could find,
So i bought them.

I Also pieced together my SGI R10000 system mostly with Ebay parts. That wasn't real cheap either but it was still fractions of a penny on the dollar. The Unit sold As I have it Equipped in 1996 for $243,000.00.

Cost me like 2500 Bucks total with Ebay with about 20 transactions.

And I don't think there is any other place in the world I could have done that.

They sell complete SGI R10000 units for 500-600 bucks all day long on Ebay, but A unit like that without Any Options Doesn't really float my Boat.
It only when you put a few New Cost$50,000 dollar options in it, then it really starts to shine.

ricciticcitembo wrote: Maybe the person buying the "piece of crap" for the inflated price really needs it, and can't get it anywhere else conveniently.

The first guy I met doing e-bay was a clerk at the Local Post office. He hits the yard sales and other thrift shops and does quite well. He explained to me a unique opportunity in which he bought half a dozen or so new electric heating blankets on closeout at Sears Department Store. He turned around and put them on e-bay and each one sold for 4 times what he had invested in them.

He explained it to me that living in a large city we take for granted some things that are readily available in such. Apparently the persons that bought them found they were worth the final auction price. There's easy money even in selling heating blankets !

Interesting auction now going on on e-Bay with an Icom Amateur VHF HT that sells new for $99 at HRO that are being sold at $150 to $190 by an individual. The fine print if you look for it is "MARS/CAP." It's been modified for open transmit. (legality questionable especially in the wrong hands)

Ed
N4UMJ

I recently had the misfortune to blow up the controller on an old 6GB hard drive while switching it between computers. (I really mean "blow up"- Smoke, "bang", flames, crater in the middle of one of the chips, the whole nine yards!)

The manufacturer had discontinued the drive, all of its parts and support. I was out a lot of valuable, irreplacable data (Of course I backed up everything EXCEPT the documents directory prior to the move!)

At any rate, I found an identical used drive on eBay, intending to scavenge the controller board. I bid up to $150, and wound up paying $65.

Now, on one hand you can look and say "$65 for a used 6GB hard drive? Sucker!

I choose to look at it this way: I saved all of my irreplaceable data for only $65, and got a new hard drive in the process. Given that data recovery services start at $500, and go up in a hurry, I consider it a heck of a bargain! (OK- At work I referred to it as paying the Careless Yutz Tax)

A friend of mine is fond of defining "fair price" as "What someone is willing to pay. No more, no less"

Different items have differing importances to different people, for different reasons. eBay is just a tool to bring those interests together.

It's a real shame what has happened to the hamfests as a result, but on the whole, I think we've all benefitted.

Just my .02........