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Technology Stocks : eBay - Superb Internet Business Model -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: tiquer who wrote (49)	9/4/1998 11:22:00 PM
From: Scott Moore	Respond to of 7772

From what I've seen the incidents of shilling are increasing in the Computer category on eBay. SafeHarbor will probably eventually catch the major abusers, but the crooks just get another juno,hotmail,wowmail or other free Email address and do it again. I'm sure eBay and the credit card companies are in constant contact on fraud issues. Especially in this pre-IPO period, eBay will need to show authority in dealing with collection problems. There are still good buys to be had, especially from sellers with very low feedback, as I believe people are more likely to pay more to a seller with +20 feedback than say a new seller. All of my bad experience (4) have come with sellers with less than +20 feedback. One of them I have even had the Wichita police Email me for my experience, as the guy had defrauded at least 50 bidders on items ranging from $50 to $300 bucks within a ten day period. Fortunately I was burned on only $70. You've got to think eBay also got burned on their credit card fees from this guy also. Unfortunately eBay may have just picked a poor time to go IPO. ONSL, EGGS, and others that are taking a dive right now, may taint the exhuberance of online sales in this market. eBay should be the clear winner, but it may take a little longer for momentum to gather due to the market. ---------------- eBay hints of the week. Look for auctions you like ending between 0000 and 0400 on Sunday morning. Many seller are unaware that eBay takes their computers down for maintenance routinely during these periods without obvious warnings. I've seen as little warning as 15 minutes on the 24hr support thread, or in the announcement section. Occasionally, eBay has extended the auctions to end after the maintenance, but I don't think that is the norm. Anyway, there is a chance to bid before midnight and then everyone else is locked out from bidding during that time. I've used this at least 10 times to my advantage and think eventually eBay will start warning or extending auctions, so the window of opportunity maybe be dwindling. Here is another: If you are a last minute scalper, turn off "play pictures and sounds" in the options section of your browser. This will allow you to refresh quicker and get fewer lost packet errors during high internet traffic times. Open two browser windows on the item you are interested in. Three minutes before the end of the auction make a higher bid than the current one, but one that you are still comfortable with if you end up using it. On that bid, don't click the "accept bid...." button on the bid confirmation screen yet. Switch back to the other browser window and keep refreshing every so often as the auction comes to a close. Then in the last 30 seconds switch to the other browser window and click "accept...." This gives you a tremendous edge over the poor guy that has been sitting there on the best bid and has already shown his poker hand. I always feel if I'm bidding on an auction with only one available, it is in my best interest to search the bidding history of the previous bidders to see if they are token or sophisticated bidders. It takes more time, but usually pays off in what bidding tactics to employ. Good luck to all Scott