Why Pay If You Did Not Win? | Ramblings of an e-trader

Tuesday, 6 March 2007

Why Pay If You Did Not Win?

There were a few times that I came across scam victims who paid for an item after bidding on a auction despite not winning it.

There are two possible scenarios. Either the victims is the second (or third) highest bidder or the auction was not ended by the Seller, and in the time when Buyer made payment and auction ends, somebody else bidded and won the item.

In the first scenario, this is usually called the Second Chance offer. There is a procedure to this and the Seller has to follow it exactly to allow the second highest bidder to buy the item provided the winner did not close the transaction successfully.

In the second scenario, never ever pay the Seller while the auction is still live. Who knows, maybe the Seller is the one who outbidded you with a proxy account and then pocket your money? What recourse do you have since you are not the winner and there is no buy/sell contract between you and the Seller?

In such cases, the only thing to do is to say Bye Bye to your money. If really such an unfortunate event happened, treat it as a lesson well learnt and shop smarter next time

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