[VAC] Re: EBAY Trailers

[Susan Wallace <cyberia@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi,
I've been keeping a daily eye on the ebay trailers as well. The problem with
bidding on something that is across the country is that you are risking the
money on something you can't actually lay eyes on or examine except in
photographs and whatever answers you get from the questions you ask over email
or phone.

I was really interested in one that was within 3-4 hours driving time from
where I live, but the guy who was auctioning it claimed that he got if from
someone who didn't seem to know much about it, and he admitted he didn't have
the keys to the access doors. He told me a bunch of people were coming by on
the Saturday before the auction ended to look at it. After that weekend, I
didn't notice that the bids had gone up high enough to make his reserve (which
was $3000), which didn't exactly constitute a vote of confidence. The pictures
of the trailer all looked nice, but even I know there's a lot of stuff you'd
want to look at in person.

The auction is supposed to be a legally binding transaction, and if you don't
go through with it you're branded a "deadbeat." I don't know if there's
anything the seller could *legally* do to you, but ebay deducts a certain fee
from the final bid price and it costs quite a bit upfront to list an item that
has a $3000 reserve. I would never bid thousands of dollars on an item I hadn't
looked at in person. Just my 2¢.
Susan