As 88Teo88 is eagerly cross-posting/advertising his keyboard/eBay listing, I am also posting this in all 3 threads where he did so.
The
auction has a starting price of $1,000, and there was a bid on it less than half an hour after it started (and now a second bid while I was writing this).
Here on DT, a concern was expressed that this first bidder might be the seller himself trying to boost the price.
I must say all odds are against this hypothesis. When in the
bid history you click on the first bidder's nick (coded as c***n (70)), you obtain an overview of
that bidder's bids of the last 30days: 8 bids by 8 different sellers on 8 items all in the categories Keyboards and Vintage computing. So no, I'd rather say the bidder simply got the link here (or on any other forums 88Teo88 might have also posted in) and did immediately bid.
But well, nonetheless 88Teo88's eBay account is obviously manipulated.
Short explanation: in eBay feedback views, buyers are coded, but sellers are not, and there is a link to own sales if in the last 6 months.
Well, as 88Teo88 was so kind as to provide a link to his auction, we can see that his eBay nick is
brauezsol-0, and that he has a global
feedback count of 4, with 2 as a seller and counting as just 1 because it was the same buyer, coded as 0***i (10).
Interessantly enough he also has 1 feedback as a buyer from a seller who happens to have the same feedback of 10 as his own buyer and additionally happens to have a nick very similar to his own, namely
braueteofi-0.
Now when we look at the 2 auctions where braueteofi-0 bought from 88Teo88/brauezsol-0 (
http://www.ebay.com/itm/112349134222 and
http://www.ebay.com/itm/112283046710 ), we see two BuyItNow auctions where simple pens were sold and the buyer bought the whole stock (respectively 10 and 29).
Conversely, when we search the completed sales of his buyer braueteofi-0, we find
an auction where he sold the exact same 10 pens he had bought from 88Teo88/brauezsol-0 and all were bought by the same buyer, who is obfuscated because it was a private listing but can be identified as 88Teo88/brauezsol-0 because he appears in his feedback view.
So it is safe to assume that 88Teo88/brauezsol-0 and braueteofi-0 had a few fake sales in order to build an "eBay reputation", as otherwise both would have had no feedback as sellers, only as buyers.
And it is more than safe to assume that 88Teo88/brauezsol-0 and braueteofi-0 are the same person ideed, because the latter had
listed another keyboard and cancelled the auction because of an "error in the listing", and the former then listed
the exact same item (including a pic of the label).
Now that's a fine person to buy from
And if anybody still is in doubt, here is another proof that 88Teo88/brauezsol-0 and his buyer/seller braueteofi-0 are the same person:
)
