Buying a bike off Ebay: The Good, Bad and Ugly

[Beane]

Anyway - it now appears that the guy has removed the "Buy it now" price that was there initially. I didn't know he could do that or I would've taken that deal.

For some reason ebay has the policy of removing the buy-it-now option once the reserve price is met.

[cherinyc]

For some reason ebay has the policy of removing the buy-it-now option once the reserve price is met.

I have been bidding on this since the start, and while my initial bid was up (the starting bid that he set) the "Buy it now" was still there. If I wasn't meeting the reserve price with my initial bid, it would tell me "your bid has not met the reserve price". Which it didn't.

[spokewench]

When I was looking for a Giant frame a few years ago, I bid on a lot of bikes; even one that belonged to one of VeloGirls' teammates; but I was outbid at the very end every time.

I got frustrated because there were not that many Giant frames in my small size being sold, so I found a year old frame for sale at a shop in Phoenix and ended up buying that instead.

So, hang in there; you may or may not get the bike; and the bids that outbid you usually come in the last few minutes of the posting on Ebay.

My husband bought a snare drum on Ebay from some guy in NY City and that was almost a nightmare; he kept saying he was going to ship it and that it was going to come overnight and when it did not come, hubby would email the guy back and the guy would get back to him 4-5 days later and say he got delayed or something; we tried to stop payment at Pay Pal, but I hear if the seller takes the money; sometimes you don't get it back. Anyway, finally, many weeks later, the guy (flake) actually came through and shipped the snare to us via snail mail.