"mymusicfix2" - Not a Good ebayer?

I'm curious...what were some of the titles?

I noticed there was one bidder who was buying up Ziggy Stardust RCA Japan CDs...he won 3 of them within a couple of weeks, and his bids were on the high side (one went for about $20). At the time I suspected that he was trying to do exactly what you describe...or maybe he thought that someday they would be worth big bucks (maybe they will...who knows?)

 

An interesting take on the concept of an auction by Mr MusicFix. He doesn't seem to have grasped that the value of any item is determined by what people are prepared to pay for it, rather than what he would like to get for it.

 

He's no crook. I have no doubt that if you win one of his auctions, you will receive your item and it will be exactly as described (ignoring his exaggerations about the "rarity" of the item).

 

Kinda hard to give feedback if you don't win an item when the seller pulls the item at the last minute. This persons actions and his words are reprehensible.

 

In other words, He sucks.

 

He's not alone.

As much as we collectors/music lovers hate them I guess for many of these opportunists it's a livelihood.

 

I don't recall all of them, but most notorious was the Tijuana Brass Whipped Cream CD. A rough example: he'd snatch it up for, say, $40 and throw it on half.com for more than double.

 

mymusicfix2 is at it again. He has a sealed UDII copy of Steely Dan Gaucho on eBay right now with a Buy It Now of $174.99.

I'm guessing that he's been getting a lot of grief for ending auctions early because he has this disclaimer on the auction page:

Here is more of his blather:

Here's a link to the auction:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2582516020&category=1573

 

Wow- I looked at the link, and went to the bottom where he lists some other auctions EEEEEKKKKKK!

You can be the first(or last) on your block to own the LAST SEALED version of Santana Abraxas for the bargain basement price of $250!!!


All I gotta say is he's growing some really great $%^& out in his backyard, and I hope he brought enough to share with the rest of the world!

What will the market bear???



Chris

 

Following up on my own post-

How many folks out there will sit there and say--"WOW- if his sealed version is REALLY worth $250- then my my opened and played only once version is gotta be worth HALF!!!"

I bet it would be a real great deal selling mine for a FOURTH is that sealed price. Better yet- mines gotta be a real bargain for $50 BUX!!!


Maybe he bought all this stuff when prices were SKY HIGH on Ebay before the crash. Kinda reminds me of another guy out there buying up every MFSL Moody Blues CD he could get his bids in on. "Carolinadood" looked like he was trying to corner the market in this stuff back a couple years ago.


Chris

 

He's actually $25 less than the Music Direct (MFSL) price!!

Still, these are out there to be found for $40, who's kidding who. Besides, it is available on SACD and soon DVD-A, plus the original DIDX CD is a much better buy at 10% of the price when you can find it!

 

Perhaps he's deliberately setting his prices just below the MD prices. That way, if you buy from him, you've "saved" money - in this case, $25.

 

Some of that guy's winning bids were just jaw dropping. Since it takes (at least) two bidders to drive the price up, I've wondered how many times he was victimized by shill bidding. If you get a reputation for sky high bids, you should at least wait until the last second to bid!

 

I bid on a few of his "$0.01" specials. All were cancelled by the seller.
I e-mailed the seller and have copied both my message to him and his response below. Also e-mailed e-bay but did not get a satisfactory response (something about insufficient evidence).

He did offer to sell one of the titles (The Doors) at 10% but even with a discount it was way too high for my wallet. Also offered to sell me 3 Classic Records 24k's at a good price. I took him up on that deal. I felt funny doing that because it seemed like I was feeding the hand that bit me. His e-mails to me were cordial. I'm not sure what to think.

Quote:

It's not dirty pool, it is ending a listing when the auction does not come close to even the wholesale cost to us of the item. Sellers, as well as bidders, have the right to cancel within a time frame.

E-Bay suggested we do this program to encourage bidding on items for PowerSellers in Music. We are unable to put a "reserve" on 1100 listings because of a "glitch" in the E-Bay software - we would have to completely redo all of our listings and start over.

Sorry that this has happened; we have let several go through trying to be Santa-like but those that are nowhere near our wholesale cost are ended.

If you are interested in an item, please e-mail us and we'll give you the lowest price we are looking at for the particular item. We have about 40 left at this $.01 program and once those are gone, will not be doing this again.

----- Original Message -----
From: [email protected]
Sent: Thursday, December 11, 2003 6:00 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Question for seller -- Item #2580942166

Hi,

I think you need to be careful with your auctions. I've had three separate auctions cancelled by you in recent days due to an "error in the listing". I've given you the benefit of the doubt so far though I find it strange that you yank these auctions at the last second. I find it hard to believe the $0.01 starting bid is a mistake because you continue to post at that price. Appears to be dirty pool in my books.
End quote

 

Keep us informed Blair and thanks.

 

Interesting thread - I've been avoiding this seller for a long time, although admiring the goods:


http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=1053&item=2570883053


When I was in my early twenties, the owner of the company I worked for said "Michael, a fast nickel is better than a slow dime..." MMF2 doesn't know this obviously.

This seller couldn't have paid more than $20-30 for this disc. Like most of his items, a 300-400% markup, with no real thought put into it.

Hopefully no one is encouraging him and paying these prices.

 

I hate the copy in his ads..

The guy's bad news...avoid him.



Ben

 

The recent listing of DCC Elton John's GH. $149 BIN. Now that's really absurd!!!!!! Lucky I already have one!!!!!!!And about $130 cheaper!!!!!!!!!!

 

A little request from me - lets try not to openly bash any seller on a personal level (i.e. no name calling).

It's not the case with this fellow, but in the past there have been personal attacks made on ebay sellers who turned out to be members here.

Attacking their business practices, though, is fine.

 

This whole notion of killing an auction right before it ends, because a person doesn't like the final bid price is unethical, and posssibly borderline Ebay fraud. It just ruins the whole spirit of the auction process.

A whole group of people ought to give this gent a taste of his own medicine. That is, a pair of people should bid up some outrageous prices on an item -- maybe even on a number of auctions -- and then cancel their bids at the last second. Think he'd be so cordial and matter-of-fact then?

Normally, I'm very defensive of Ebay sellers, giving them the benefit of the doubt. But if this person is truly cancelling auctions at will, for no other reason than not liking the outcome, he deserves all the scorn he gets.

Of course, there are real world circumstances that on slim occasion *might* warrant an auction being stopped. But only rarely, and certainly not at the last second!

 

David said:

The only problem there is that I am pretty sure that eBay will not allow you to cancel a bid in the final 24 hours of an auction. Unfortunately, eBay is not equitable. The seller can end the auction in the final second, but bidders cannot cancel their bids right at the end. I think eBay should not allow sellers to close auctions in the final 24 hours.

 

I don't care about the time limits, but the fact remains that if a seller cancels a bid at the last moment because the auction's closing price didn't go high enough, it's bid avoidance. Granted the seller had a supposedly legitimate excuse in the e-mail reply above, but I would be interested to see if this behavior continues. It sounds like it's been going on for some time.

If Ebay wanted to curtail bid avoidance, they should really impose a no-cancellation policy 24 hours prior to the auction closing except under extreme circumstances. (And in that case, I'd make the seller pay the listing fee and possibly some kind of penalty for closing it early...maybe have them pay the final value fee for whatever the bid was when they ended the auction.) Ebay's too lenient with sellers IMHO, but I think the abuse would be reduced if they started enforcing the rules and imposing stricter rules and/or fines. It's the few sellers like this one who ruin the Ebay experience for all the others.

 

It's 12 hours, with some addition rules for various circumstances:

http://pages.ebay.com/help/buy/bid-retract.html

 

Holy Zoo, O.K. I knew there was some time restriction. I don't know the exact policy because I don't retract bids!

 

@(#$*&(*&!!! Guess what I found at Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/t...00004THDJ/all/ref=dp_bb_a/102-3194381-7486513

It's not just the price that cheezes me off, it's also the fact that this ###### is listing it under SACD where it doesn't belong. Wish there was a way to turn in these listing spams. This seller just comes across as an opportunist who's using any way possible to push his/her wares.

(At Amazon and half.com, I call something a "listing spam" if first, it doesn't match the description of new, very good, acceptable, etc., and second, if it's a different item than what's described in the listing. I see some sellers put new, sealed copies under "used" categories in order to make their listings appear on the first page. I make it a point not to buy from deceptive sellers.)