Stupid over priced listings & postage fees

[mapleleaf-collectibles]

Why does Ebay allow people to list a $5.00 book for $50,000, or shipping at $87,047.67? It seems more and more idiots are trying this selling technique, as if there is some chance in hell someone might actually buy a $5.00 book for $50,000? If I had a $50,000 item, and brought it to a auction house, I would expect they would want to verify its authenticity and value before the auction. By Ebay allowing this type of listing, it actually makes them look stupid, and probably drives potential buyers away from buying from a normal honest sellers. Any listing over lets say $5000 should before thoroughly scrutinized by Ebay, and based on a reasonable search of past prices, should be removed if the price is not comparable to past sold items. Stupid sellers are ruining Ebay with this selling technique, and it should be stopped. If you need a example, search these 2 books:

Contemporary Christian Hits: Piano/Vocal/Chords, paper, Staff, Alfred Publishing

$15.95 plus  Shipping: US $71,500.00 (approx. C $87,047.67) Standard International Shipping | 

The Day I Stopped Taking Vitamins by M. A. Lawnicki  Price: US $50,004.01 Free Shipping

[momcqueen · Accepted solution]

I would suspect there is very little danger of sellers with extremely overpriced listings 'ruining' ebay because every buyer who sees a listing such as that, rolls their eyes, and moves on. Ebay cannot and should not 'police' listings like that: the market itself will. And if ebay tried, it would ruin the fun in listing a gorilla-shaped Cheetos for $86,000 USD. You can't buy that kind of publicity. 

[momcqueen]

But if you believe a listing is fraudulent, by all means Report it using the form halfway down the listing page at right. 

[mapleleaf-collectibles]

Oh yeah, I forgot about the Jesus toast and things like that. Good point!

[momcqueen]

Don't forget the 'Naked Man Reflected in the Kettle' listing. Gold, pure comedy gold.

[reallynicestamps]

Well, it is possible that the seller got a case of the 'fat fingers' and the prices are just typos.

But there are sellers who, when they run out of a product, leave the listing up and raise the price to ridiculous heights to drive away customers.

Lord knows why they think this is a good strategy.

There is a mega-bookseller in the US who is notorious for this.

I do my Searches as Highest Price plus Shipping  because it takes less time to drill down to my price point than it does to wade up through thousands of inaccurate listings to find what I am looking for, so I see that sort of thing from time to time.

Nitwits.

EBay needs a Blocked Sellers List, so we can ignore  them more easily.

[ypdc_dennis]

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@mapleleaf-collectibles wrote:

... By Ebay allowing this type of listing, it actually makes them look stupid, and probably drives potential buyers away from buying from a normal honest sellers. ...

Contemporary Christian Hits: Piano/Vocal/Chords, paper, Staff, Alfred Publishing

$15.95 plus  Shipping: US $71,500.00 (approx. C $87,047.67) Standard International Shipping | 

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Not going to drive buyers away from eBay.  I regard those listings with amusement.

The example above has Free economy shipping in the USA. And Expedited shipping in the USA for the bargain price of $70785.00US (so they are only adding $715 to ship across the border).

-..-

[mapleleaf-collectibles]

I guess every buyer on Ebay is the same as you, right? It would drive buyers away, if they were searching for a particular book, saw it on Ebay for $50,000? They would instantly search elsewhere, therefore driving them away from Ebay.

[reallynicestamps]

Only if it was the only one on eBay, which is pretty unlikely.
My go to example of a 'rare' book is Spike Milligan's Puckoon.
Even that has over 50 listings- although only one for the hardcover.
It's not a valuable book. Just not common.

[femmefan1946]

That sounds like a seller who is so dim, he doesn't understand how to Block non-US bidders and/or how to use the Global Shipping Program (spit spit spit).

[cousinquiller]

It's not a selling technique, it's a management technique. There are tens of thousands of listings like this on Amazon every day. There, one reason sellers use it is to keep people from placing orders on items that are not currently available. Instead of taking the listings down for a period of time and then relisting them, they up either the price or shipping charge until the items are available again. It's annoying for shoppers, but it doesn't seem to hurt the sellers. If it did, they'd stop doing it.