High-Low Ebay Bidding Scam – Fun with Tricking People Who Do not Understand Probability

I had someone try to purpetrate this on me once and its an interesting mathematical setup. Here is how it goes:

1) Assume you have something listed in AUCTION format on eBay.  (As opposed to buy-it-now ).  In this format the normal operation is that bidders bid till closing time with the highest bidder winning the auction. 

2) Prior to end of auction, usually well in advance of the end of the auction the scammer approaches the seller and says “Do you have a buy it now price? + excuse for wanting B.I.N.P.”  (B.I.N.P= buy it now price ).  He gets you to agree to some price. 

   –at this point if you have agreed and he bids then you end the auction it would be a straight deal.  However he does not bid now…..

3) Instead of bidding he waits and bids and lets the auction finish normally.  You try emailing the person before the finish and he does not answer.  Later he claims his email was out.  

4) –If the auction went above the price agreed upon he claims you made an agreement. He asks for that price.  In this scenario he gets the item for less than the ending price.

   –If the auction does not reach your agreed upon price he says he decided against the agreement and he would like to buy at the auction price.  He then gets it for less than the agreed upon price.

Either way he gets to buy the item for less than what he would have otherwise. 

This is only a straight deal if the auction is ended at the time of agreement –OR– he answers his emails and agrees to pay the agreed upon price even if its higher than the ending bidding price.

More than anything I find this amusing as its the lengths to which some operators will go.  A study in human nature it depends on the seller being too timid or courteous to speak up for themselves.

…………….Isn’t that similar to alot of things in our country?  In most things where people are taken advantage off the processes ultimate ongoing success requires the courteous public to grin and bear it.   I’m thinking of politics here. When the politicians say “We gotta do it for the chilrun”  you should be thinking he’s depending on me being concerned about how I look to other people. 

We need to expose this process at every turn. Till its such commonplace knowledge that this element of the scam is rendered nonfunctional.  

And how did I deal with this guy?  I told him at first that he had to pay the higher bid price because he had “the email outage” and did not act as agreed upon.  Then I realized I don’t want to deal with this type of person.  You can only lose if you do.  Someway or somehow they’ll make it cost you.  Whether its this deal or a subsequent one it will end up biting you.   I therefore wrote him and said ” I’m terribly sorry but my rotweiler Thor got into my ebay storage room and chewed up the item to bits. My apologies!!  His FeedBack Profile