How NOT to sell a car on Ebay (long story, HUGE twists!)

["Brian Hagen" <brian.hagen@xxxx>]

How NOT to sell a car on Ebay.

I am pretty much dumbfounded right now as I cancel my auction for my 62 300
on Ebay. I have sold over 100+ things on Ebay, but never anything as big as
a car, but I figured, it couldn't be so hard. I was so wrong.

The problems started when the auction was progressing as normal when I got a
person ("anopia", neuropil@xxxx ) bidding on it 6 times until it met
the reserve. I figured someone really wanted the car and didn't think to
much of it. And then I get an email from that same "anopia" stating he was
buying the car for his brother for graduation and that he found out his
brother wanted a 60 300 instead" and he was retracting his bid. I was a bit
taken back by this piece of news, but figured people make mistakes.

So he retracts his bid and then emails me that he had his sister
("c.s.lord" ) bid on the car to "help jack up the price". What!!?? The
sisters bid put the auction just below reserve, but not the high bidder. I
then emailed him telling him not to bid or have his sister bid on my
auctions again and cancelled and banned thier bids. What an assh0l3!

So then i did some investigation. It seems Anopia and C.S.Lord are indeed
the same person. AND of course, He was selling items on ebay quite
regularly and bidding on them himself as "his sister" to jack up the price.
Thru my snooping, I also found a third email address/ebay account for him!
( donaldlav@xxxx ) it seem "donald" was also
bidding/selling/retracting his auctions. He has sold and bought several
high price items on Ebay with the bid/cancel/rebid scheme! He has also done
this on other auction sites.

So i emailied Ebay and they did their investigations and had his account
pulled. Fine. End of story? NOPE!

Soo..after all my cancelling of this jokers bids and what not, I had a new
"old" high bidder. ("thomaskorbay" ThomasKorbay@xxxx ) I decided to
do some investigation into him as well. It seems he had recently bought
some 58 Edsel parts. AND it turns out Anopia, the inital jerkbidder was
SELLING 58 Edsel parts? Coincedence? I wasn't quite sure. And then i
snooped deeper. It turns out my high bidder was using an ebay account based
on a German email address! Why? Because EBAY doesn't allow you to search on
German users! It is against German privacy laws. So I couldn't find out
what he was selling or buying. I left it at coincedence..UNTIL...

3 hours before my auction was about to end I get an email from , the
"german" bidder stating that he was retracting his bid because he bid on
another item before becoming the new high bidder on my auction. Ah..the old
bait and switch continues! His intention was this: Bid on my car with the
german account, bid on it again under a false name to find out the reserve,
and then cancel that bid. Wait till the auction is about to close, and then
retract again. He sent me a note along with the "I cancelled because I bid
on another item...oh would you sell it for the original price?" What
bullshit. He couldn't buy the car because he bid on another but "oh..but
will you sell it for $XX" dollars. And it turns out after i emailed him
that I wanted the link to the "other auction he bid on" that ..he wasn't the
high bidder on it. Not even close!

So now I end up with a cancelled auction. I finally just gave up and
cancelled it. With all these bids/cancels/retracts it frankly looks
horrible. Im sure a potential bidder thinks I, the seller, is up to no good.
I know I probably would think the same way.

This auction has more twist and turns. But I know one thing. He screwed
with the wrong guy. So I ask everyone to please send this to your buddies,
send it to your car friends, send it to your grandmother. I want to get
this guy. I am currently trying to get his home address...plane tickets
being so cheap these days ;-)

Feel free to email "him" at.
neuropil@xxxx
ThomasKorbay@xxxx
donaldlav@xxxx

This ISN'T over.

Brian
http://www.scatpack.com