Are you looking for a Mac G5? Well, I may have "accidentally" bought a G5, but you can save me from my mistake!

The backstory: Yush and I were talking about Chris' extra G5 that he got that he's selling on eBay. We decide to help a buddy out and try to make the auction seem really active by bidding on it. (How great would it be for Chris to wake up and see his is the most active Mac G5 auction!) Except we bid in $25 increments cause we really don't want to be the high bidder in an auction. I figure (without researching) that as long as we keep our bids under $2K, we'll be "safe" (in that, somebody will come and outbid us).

Me, being an alpha male and the top of the pecking order, defeat Yush handily in a mighty bidding war (eBay bidding log) with the last bid of $1725. Then I do a search on completed eBay items and find that .. they ... don't ... really ... go ... higher... than... $1800/$1900 with the lower configured systems.

Oops.

I may accidentally end up buying a Mac G5 (if I end up winning, I'll get to fulfill that long-life fantasy of owning a G5 for pure aesthetics, as I don't plan on using it for anything in particular).

But please, help me fix my mistake by telling all your friends to bid on this Mac G5 and save me from my mistake-of-the-month!

Update: I won!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Posted by roy on September 4, 2006 at 09:51 PM in Foolishness | 10 Comments

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Comment posted on September 7th, 2006 at 10:28 AM
I would love a G5 but can't afford it right now. Damn camper took my money. I still struggle along with my G4, but someday........
Comment posted on September 5th, 2006 at 09:44 AM
And the spam continues unabated from 84.19.180.72

IP banning doesn't work for tagboards it seems.
Comment posted on September 5th, 2006 at 04:53 AM
btw, thanks for the free press.

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Comment posted on September 5th, 2006 at 04:50 AM
i will LMAO if you end up winning this thing. and i hope this "shill bidding" business doesn't screw me.
Comment posted on September 5th, 2006 at 07:48 AM
or maybe they changed their policy! i know in the past you were allowed to bid up your own item (perfectly legally); now it looks like there is a shill bidding policy (after a google search)

in any case, i would gladly buy a g5 for $1725 ... but itd' still be funny as heck.
Comment posted on September 5th, 2006 at 07:46 AM
fortunately for you, ebay allows shill bidding

PM5K (guest)

Comment posted on September 5th, 2006 at 12:19 AM
Have you honestly never heard of shill bidding?
Comment posted on September 5th, 2006 at 01:46 AM
what about it?

PM5K (guest)

Comment posted on September 7th, 2006 at 11:06 AM
It's illegal....
Comment posted on September 7th, 2006 at 11:12 AM
actually, it's not. look at the definition of shill bidding on eBay:

Shill Bidding is bidding that artificially increases an item's price or apparent desirability, or bidding by individuals with a level of access to the seller's item information not available to the general Community. Shill Bidding is prohibited on eBay.

we don't have more access to the item information (it's a standard box), and we weren't "artificially" raising the price.

i know for a fact that eBay allows you to bid on your own item (which you could use to boost the final price of the auction by guesstimating what the high end of the bid is for the last bidder); that's essentially what we did, except in this case i ended up winning.