Why the Error in Price Given for a Sold Item

[cousinquiller]

I have a question about the sold price that ebay is showing for an item. The title includes the words “Singing Birds In Brass Cage Circa 1900s” and the item # is 163637324626. When I bring it up in a list of Sold items on ebay.com it says it sold for US$160, but when I open the listing it says it sold for one bid of US$42. Why the discrepancy? I'm researching values and if I hadn't opened the listing, would have thought the value of this item was $160. Thanks.

[cousinquiller · Accepted solution]

I called ebay and they explained what happened. The buyer listed it with a Buy it Now price of $42. Someone offered $160 for it (they must have wanted it badly) and the seller accepted that offer. I guess their computer system isn't programmed to deal with that kind of situation properly. 

[lady.stark · Accepted solution]

In fact, I think it was an auction with an "Best Offer" option. I see this more and more on eBay.

[ypdc_dennis]

Probably an auction that had a BIN purchase option of $160 -- so the ebay software picks the wrong value (BIN) instead of the correct value (AUCTION) to display.

-..-

[pjcdn2005]

It says that $42 was the best offer that was accepted.  I don’t think that they usually show the amount that the offer was accepted for but perhaps they did because $42 was also the starting price.

[cousinquiller]

Hum. That sounds like it makes sense, except for this: Where did the $160 figure come from? I thought perhaps IT was the "starting" price. Also, note although it's a Best Offer listing, I see "1 bid" on the page both before and after you open it. Listings in which a best offer was excepted don't have that. It's all very strange.

[cousinquiller]

To lady.stark: Thanks, but the ebay support person could see the entire history of the listing and it wasn't listed with a Best Offer. And I could tell that it wasn't because items that close with a best offer have a line through the price and when you open the listing, ebay doesn't post what the item sold for. (For example, if it was listed at $100, when you open the listing it says that it sold for $100, but that's not the case because ebay doesn't divulge what the accepted offer was.) 

[esclyons]

yes i checked from the canada site, and see the same discrepancy , sold for 213.94 ca.$, then when i click on it , it shows sold for 56.16ca.$.  very weird, indeed.

[cousinquiller]

Thanks for looking at it and confirming that it's strange. I thought I was misunderstanding something.