eBay vrs42?

From: Bill Sudbrink <wh.sudbrink_at_verizon.net>
Date: Sat Feb 12 13:27:01 2005

> >If this were an in-person art auction, and I noticed that Nathan
> >Myrvold (just to pick a random wealthy and famous person arbitrarily)
> >was really keen to get an item that I wanted, would it be unethical for
> >me to avoid bidding on it?
> >
> >If I saw Nathan Myrvold before the auction and asked him if he was
> >going to bid on the item, would that be unethical?
>
> Or, as I did at an in person auction once... I wanted a pair of power
> bricks out of an assortment lot of cables and junk... another guy and I
> started to bid back and forth, so I flat out asked at him what he wanted
> from the lot. He was after a set of cables. So we agreed to stop bidding
> against each other, and split the cost that we had run it up to. Then we
> each took the items we wanted out of the lot (and actually recouped part
> of the cost later as someone else approached us and asked about some of
> the other items in the lot).
>
> The auctioneer was none too happy, but like Eric said, ethics isn't about
> being sure the seller gets the highest price.

This reminds me of an ebay auction some time ago where the lot
included some items that I was interested in. I noticed that
another classiccmp'r had also bid and I emailed him. I didn't
think that he was interested in the same parts of the lot that
I was and I was correct. I suggested that we combine our bidding
power (add my max bid to his) and split the lot if we won it.
He blasted me saying that such a thing was unethical. I didn't get
it and still don't. If I bid on a lot knowing that I can resell
part of it to someone else, what's wrong with that.
Received on Sat Feb 12 2005 - 13:27:01 GMT