In Reply to: ebay tickets posted by peter mack on Tuesday, 2. November 2004 at 14:44 Bali Time:
you have to make up your own mind but as an experienced Ebayer I wouldn't have anything to do with this auction.Maybe I am over reacting though.But it looks as if it could be a possible scam to me.If it is I don't expect the person will last long on Ebay but in a short time they will have collected a nice sum of money & disappear.
Looking at a few points - they joined 1 Oct 2004 so very new,12 sales with positive feedback BUT 11 of those sales are for assorted clothes & 1 is for another holiday they supposedly won !It was another trip to Vanuatu & finished on 23rd Oct - the person that "won the bid" lived on the Gold Coast also.At the moment they have another 3 holidays they they "won" & are unwanted prizes that are up in 3 days time.There is a trip to Bali,another to Vanuatu & one to New Zealand .Blimey 4 unwanted holidays they won,as LynneeD said they sure are darn lucky.If I was them I think I'd buy a lottery ticket !
If you look you will also see that every one of the bids for these 3 holidays are only by other newbie's to Ebay that is people with a zero > one rating which means they have never bought OR sold anything before.This can sometimes mean they may be a tad nave but it may also have a hidden meaning - no one who has a higher rating & is a regular Ebayer is bidding.That also has to tell you something.
Another thing the Bali trip has 16 bids out of 182 hits,,NZ one 17 bids out 191 hits & Vanutatu 7 bids out of 113 hits but the funny thing is that if you look closely at the bidding history you will notice that it is pretty much the same people bidding on the same 3 holidays.Pretty much all of these people have only been members for a couple of months tops & have bought nothing or 1 item - that also seems weird.I also noticed that a few of them are also in the Gold Coast area.The other things is there are lots of hits on the 3 holidays but versus the number of bids is low.There has to be an obvious reason for this.My guess is most people are very wary.This is ALL a bit too suspicious & coincidental for my liking.
I hope I maybe helped you a bit in understanding what to look for & what can be useful ways of checking out auctions on Ebay.Ebay can be great but I'm not sure I'd buy holidays or airfares off it.
PS -I just noticed he also had 4 other auctions finished on 23rd Oct for another 2 trips to Bali & 2 to New Zealand so that's a total 8 "won" holidays.I reckon YOU should definately go out & buy the lottery ticket instead with the money you will save yourself by NOT bidding !