TomAiello wrote: ↑Tue Dec 03, 2019 4:42 pm
I think there is some artificial scarcity going on here. I was looking at them on eBay and apparently there are several people creating throwaway eBay accounts to bid them up, winning the auctions and then not buying them. That means the sellers can't actually re-sell them until after the eBay dispute process closes, so the ones on eBay get locked up for a couple weeks each time the fake buyers do that.
I'm guessing someone who wants to keep prices up to flip them is gaming the eBay system so they can overcharge for them. They shut down the actual auctions and keep theirs active at the super high "buy now" prices. It's pretty weird. And sleazy.
Hopefully after the holiday season is over the flippers will stop doing that so some of the supply can make it out to people who actually want to use them.
Uh Tom it is an Auction site, unlike most who come here I have tons of Auto Auction experience and what you are describing is a shill it is not permitted anywhere but it happens and there is no stopping it unless it is blatant and sticks out. Auction houses decry the practice but by and large profit from it greatly, so much lip service and little enforcement.
Auctions are a sleazy environment by their very nature online is no exception. When I see this activity as you have described it I ignore it and the item for sale. FYI a shill and the seller are both working the same side of the street they are in cahoots.
I would not be surprised if the ones you are actually seeing sell at higher than original price are not the same seller who with their shill is bidding all the way up and not actually selling on another listing on purpose to create a falsely inflated market using a different account,
In fact from what you have described it is highly likely, create a trend drive the prices way up then the sucker buying thinks they got a good deal by comparison when all they did was buy from the same seller at the higher price the buyer and his shill wanted to begin with.
It is an old game, very, very old.