paying a fair price

[sandbagger_one]

In the nineteen years I've been on eBay, I've seen items go for prices that range from the absolutely steal to the ridiculously obscene; in other words, from cheap-as-chips to daylight f****** robbery. Last night, I saw a Merseyside season ticket from the late 1970s for sale at the ridiculously high price of £156.71 and this is for something that was originally 99p and should only be £6.40 because that's how much it is in tday's money. No doubt someone will correct me on this, but one of eBay's core principles is charging a fair price for something, so how the slippery f*** can some sellers get away with charging Earth Orbit prices for some stuff? It shouldn't be happening!

Much as I would like to name the seller concerned, I can't. However, good luck to him if he manages to sell it because, trust me, he won't...he'll have to come crashing  down in price otherwise and I speaketh from experience. Thirteen years ago, I listed a British Railways lineside telephone from the 1950s for £40, which I thought was a fair price, given its age. I didn't even get that...I ended up having to relist it for £5, the same price I paid for it back in 1992.

Plus,  in a period of eighteen years from 1989, I went to a lot of bus rallies and I can say this without fear of contradiction, I did not see, not once, a Merseyside PTE season ticket (or indeed any season ticket from that era) on sale for such a silly price. Oh yes, I forgot to mention that I'm a bus enthusiast with an extensive collection of ephemera, although I have branched out into collecting rail-related stuff. I seem to remember thirteen years ago eBay looking into the amounts sellers were charging for postage; well, I think they should do the same on how much sellers charge for their items, because there are some right robbers out there.

[crafty_cat_lover]

No doubt someone will correct me on this, but one of eBay's core principles is charging a fair price for something

I'll correct you. With a very few exceptions (eg PPE during the pandemic) sellers can set their prices at whatever they like as there is no such thing as a fair price for the majority of items listed on Ebay. What is more important is what buyers are willing to pay and just because you think it is expensive that doesn't mean everyone else will. It's called a free market economy.

I have a couple of antique machines that normally sell for about £1000 but one sold on auction about six months ago for over £4000. There was nothing special about and I'm guessing it went to the US as they are ultra rare there. If the seller had listed it at the price it sold for there would no doubt be people like yourself having a grouch about it and saying it would never sell but hey, it sold and there must have been at least two buyers willing to pay that sort of price.

As for Ebay looking into postage prices that sellers were charging, that was for a totally different reason. At the time sellers paid fees on sold price but not postage and some unscrupulous sellers were setting BIN price at 99p with £100 postage in order to avoid fees. Ebay solved that issue by charging fees on postage as well as sold price.