Quote:
Originally Posted by Tony Smith
Believe it or not, there are unscrupulous people out there who will try to hoodwink a seller by trying all sorts of ruses to get them to sell an item below market value before bidding heats up.
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I certainly believe it Tony! However, knowing the price in this case (but not feeling free to divulge here) I can report that it was a reasonable offer for the two trucks, with no attempt made to cheat the seller. I suspect they would have fetched a bit more on ebay, but not dramatically more, and there's always the risk they would have fetched less, even if the phone caller had bid his offer (remember the seller only gets the SECOND HIGHEST bid, plus a small increment).
Note too that the phone offer was for both trucks together, which makes it impossible to set a matching reserve price, because there were two separate auctions. Furthermore, the price offered may have been CONDITIONAL on getting both trucks, ie. to spread the cost of recovery across two purchases. Apparently one truck is destined for the buyer's mate in NSW, so I imagine they'll split the recovery costs.
Anyway I can see why the seller accepted the phone offer - it was a reasonable price, he got rid of both trucks in one transaction, paid for and picked up the next day.