Accidental over-bidding stories

[JustinD]

Well I sorta dinged myself in the pocketbook last night by misjudging that a crazy bidder was out there.

I placed a gavelsnipe proxy way higher than I should have thinking it would never get near that high but tossed in 200 bucks out of silly habit.

I thought the card just may come close to 30 or 40 bucks but at the last second a sniper hit it with 190 likely thinking no one would top that.

Well I did.

Lesson learned on lazy bidding.

Anyone else have dumb lessons learned?

[BruceinGa]

A few years ago I left out a decimal point. It took me a little while before I found that I could cancel that bid.
Now I double and triple check.

[pawpawdiv9]

No, but I apparently 'gave' someone a lesson last night in a PWCC auction.
A card I wanted, I set a crazy snipe on. 150+ than previous sale. Heck I gota say it was a PSA 10, so a registry guy must of wanted it more than me.
No worries, I find another.

[jhs5120]

I was on the receiving end once. I consigned a 1935 Shutter-Johnson Joe Cronin card to PWCC which sold for $787. The buyer emailed PWCC and said it was a bidding mistake and never paid. The card sold for only $32 the second time around.

[JustinD]

Originally Posted by pawpawdiv9

No, but I apparently 'gave' someone a lesson last night in a PWCC auction.
A card I wanted, I set a crazy snipe on. 150+ than previous sale. Heck I gota say it was a PSA 10, so a registry guy must of wanted it more than me.
No worries, I find another.

That may have been me, lol.

Was this modern, like 1982 modern?

[pawpawdiv9]

it was a 1982 RC ripken

[midmo]

When I was about 16 I was at an estate auction and there was a small binder of silver pesos (which I knew nothing about). I bid something like $6 or $7 and won. I thought cool, that has to be a great deal. Then he quickly added them up. The bid price was for each coin individually, not the complete binder. It totaled well over $100. I quickly learned to know exactly what you're bidding on.

[pete zouras]

It happened to me recently when I put what I thought was a proxy bid (in a major AH) but turned out it was the bid (about $50 higher than the next highest bid). No harm no foul, I like the card and next time I won't make the same mistake.

[JustinD]

Originally Posted by pawpawdiv9

it was a 1982 RC ripken

Well close, but mine was an even more common 82, lol

[FourStrikes]

Originally Posted by jhs5120

I was on the receiving end once. I consigned a 1935 Shutter-Johnson Joe Cronin card to PWCC which sold for $787. The buyer emailed PWCC and said it was a bidding mistake and never paid. The card sold for only $32 the second time around.

.

[D. Bergin]

Originally Posted by jhs5120

I was on the receiving end once. I consigned a 1935 Shutter-Johnson Joe Cronin card to PWCC which sold for $787. The buyer emailed PWCC and said it was a bidding mistake and never paid. The card sold for only $32 the second time around.

Similar story here with one of my own auctions. This time last year with a Roger Maris newspaper and a bidding war. Guy who won, decided right after he won that he had made a mistake on the bidding, 3 days after he put his bid in. Decided he wasn't going to pay for it unless I sold it to him for $450+ less then the final bid.

Put it up again, blocked him, the underbidder also disappeared, and it went for about $450+ less next time around.

Did a little digging, realized the guy bragged about having several copies of that issue already, and it struck me that he may have been artificially enhancing the results of that item in ended auctions, in order to make his copies appear more valuable.

Since, even though I hung a unpaid item notice on this guys neck for this item (which he did not like at all), it still showed in the SOLD auction section as a realized price.

[JustinD]

Proud to say I have never withdrawn a bid and never non-paid in my life.

It's going to end that way too as my mistakes are always mine.

[Sean]

I let my girlfriend use my ebay account. The first bid she made was supposed to be $12.00 for a pair of shoes. She left out the decimal point. We won the shoes for $130. Luckily the seller let us out and sold the shoes to the underbidder.

[GasHouseGang]

For me it was some Kobe signed cards with uniform swatches. I decided I wanted one that was limited to 25 each, and there were 3 auctions for similar cards all closing on ebay the same night. So I put in snipes on all 3. Well the night of the auction something happened to the snipe website. When I checked the website didn't show that I had won the first card, so I let the next item close, and it still didn't show I had won, so I let the last one close. Next thing I know, I had won all 3! Well, I wasn't happy about it, but I paid all three since it was my fault. Well, my fault and the snipe website.

[steve B]

I've over paid for stuff I didn't know enough about, but usually not by much and I can't recall going so far over that I was really unhappy or put in a tight spot because of it.

I did have a sort of one as a seller. When I was starting on Ebay I had a guy buy a few really cheap cards. Maybe 4-5 cards at $2 each. (Before I figured out how much of that I lost in fees even before Paypal) After a few days I get an email claiming to be the guys girlfriend and that he'd just started and didn't really understand Ebay. So he'd browsed cards and a few other things and bid on a LOT of cheap items figuring he wouldn't win them. And that he'd won so many he owed way more than he made in a couple months.
Checked his bid history............yep, bid on 1000+ items on the same day, maybe one that was more than $5 total had to be around $2K.
So I told them that we all make mistakes, and just pay whenever they can. Oddly, I got paid in about a week, and got some nice feedback (back when I actually cared and it was exciting to see the number go over ten, then over 25 :-) )
I have a feeling the people that gave him a hard time ended up with a long wait.

Steve B

[dabigyankeeman]

This is just about a very small amount, but it fits the category.

I saw many many years ago a NY Giants football team set on Ebay, at the time it was worth maybe 3 - 4 bucks at best, and decided i really wanted it, didnt see any others up at the time, so i bid like $28 figuring i would outbid anyone who bid a little high like 5 or 6 bucks. Well someone else apparently had the same idea, he must have bid about 24 bucks, so i won it for like $24.50, man i was NOT happy but realized i did it to myself.

[Beatles Guy]

Originally Posted by midmo

When I was about 16 I was at an estate auction and there was a small binder of silver pesos (which I knew nothing about). I bid something like $6 or $7 and won. I thought cool, that has to be a great deal. Then he quickly added them up. The bid price was for each coin individually, not the complete binder. It totaled well over $100. I quickly learned to know exactly what you're bidding on.

I've done that before in my early auction years. I've learned to verify with the auctioneer whether it's a group price or by the piece

[Leon]

I have seen some sales where it was hard to tell what you were bidding on. Moral of the story, make sure.
I don't remember over bidding but I am sure I have...My guess is many addicted collectors have over bid...

Originally Posted by Beatles Guy

I've done that before in my early auction years. I've learned to verify with the auctioneer whether it's a group price or by the piece