General Forum

Was bidding on some cards that probably valued around $20, starting bid was low with outrageous shipping 13.00  imho(60 cards) but since it was below the 20 I bid on it, I stopped at a total of 20. The bidding went from 7 bucks and ended at 160 in the last minute.(not a flurry of bids, but I was high bidder at 7, and appears like the next bid was 160??? I did not win (not the issue), but within seconds after auction ended I  got a msg, asking if I wanted the item for 160+ shipping (quickly declined)

Is this just a weird coincidence/incident or is that something thats "normal"?? maybe a shill bidder??? someone seems to want  173 rather than the 20??? I dont consider myself an avid ebay user and Im not out anything, but really seems like some hokey pokey stuff. 

Not normal.   Sounds like a shill.    Something smells.

Normal.  If you're looking at Bids you have to turn on "Show Automatic Bids".  Ebay uses proxy bidding. And some bidders use outside proxy bidding software which waits until the last seconds to place bids.  These people wrongly think it gives them an advantage. But ebay's proxy bidding always wins "same bids".  If I use ebay and set my max at $10 and you use a proxy bidding software and set your max at $10, I will win.

Absolutley not normal; if you were outbid, why would you immediately recieve a message about the option of picking up the lot for the amount you bid. Bidders would not get this sort of message until after the 'winning' bidder has not paid within a set time.

But if his bid was high at $7 and $20,  how did it shoot to $160 without any intermediate bids?

If you only bid a maximum of $7, then that should have been your official "Second Chance" offer amount.  Even if the shill bid it up to $160, that won't change your commitment to a max of $7.  The only scenario I see this happening truthfully is if you accidentally entered $700, instead of $7.00 for your max bid.  Otherwise, the seller is using the shill bid as a fake "demand" for the card, and trying to get you to believe it is worth that much.  Definitely a scam.

I have done this to someone before, I know exactly what you're talking about.

The seller contacting you to buy it seems shady but the jump in bids happens to me all the time. All it takes is a couple people having proxy bid apps set to a certain amount that all hit at the same time. For example the app bidnapper has a default of bidding with I think 3 seconds left but you can change it. If multiple people are using that app and set it to bid on that auction they will all hit at the same time.

Shady As F . If you got a "second chance" offer the MAX it should have been was whatever your original MAX bid was 

I haven't bought anything on ebay since 2018 or 2019 but that used to happen to me then too. It wasn't as drastic of a price difference as this case, but several times the "second chance" offer was higher than my max bid. I immediately declined in all of those cases. Most of my second chance offers were at least 2 days after the auction ended though.