dfn_deux I am not sure if I understand what's the problem. Suppose, there is a car worth 3000$ (according to some average price on the market), someone wants to sell that car and initiates auction setting starting price to 1$. Not many people are interested and the highest bid is 1000$. Unfortunately, poor seller forgot to specify minimal bid (e.g aforementioned 3000$) and instead of withdrawing the car from the auction needs to sell it for 1/3 of its market price.
As far as negative bids, there are such auctions. Instead of buying goods people buy services. The best example is rentacoder.com, but I've heard of an internet auctioning web page where one can
"sell" e.g. bathtub replacement. Companies and individual plumbers bid offering smaller costs. This can be considered as negative bids.
dfn_deux I thought that your initial post is a joke because according to some theories in economy goods are worth what other people are willing to pay for them. Therefore, any winning bid on an auction is what should be considered as a market price. You didn't specify that this was your intention.
I am not the original poster, but I know one case from newspapers.
In Poland there is, similar to ebay, auctioning service called Allegro.
Rules are basically the same, like on ebay. Whoever bids the highest bid
that person wins auction. Once, there was a seller who wanted to sell
a used car (Jeep Wrangler, as far as I remember). Unfortunately, the seller
forgot to set the minimum price and the winner offered much less for the car
than its actual value. After the auction ended the seller wanted to
withdraw the item from the auction. He lost in court and now is obliged to
sell that Jeep for the amount bade by the winner.
I think that the court decision was fair. Although, on the other hand, sellers
can make mistakes and all the auctioning services should provide several steps
asking for conformation, so as sellers are aware of what they are doing.
From what I know prior to initiating an auction allegro asks seller to confirm
all the settings (i.e. initial bid, minimum bid, etc.). Presence of all these
conformations was a reason why the seller lost the case in court.
By the way, negative bids are rather unusual for auctions. I wonder why dfn_deux
found only this solution to the above problem. Hey dfn_deux, do you know any
jokes about logical thinking?
Slashdot Mirror
dfn_deux I am not sure if I understand what's the problem. Suppose, there is a car worth 3000$ (according to some average price on the market), someone wants to sell that car and initiates auction setting starting price to 1$. Not many people are interested and the highest bid is 1000$. Unfortunately, poor seller forgot to specify minimal bid (e.g aforementioned 3000$) and instead of withdrawing the car from the auction needs to sell it for 1/3 of its market price.
As far as negative bids, there are such auctions. Instead of buying goods people buy services. The best example is rentacoder.com, but I've heard of an internet auctioning web page where one can "sell" e.g. bathtub replacement. Companies and individual plumbers bid offering smaller costs. This can be considered as negative bids.
dfn_deux I thought that your initial post is a joke because according to some theories in economy goods are worth what other people are willing to pay for them. Therefore, any winning bid on an auction is what should be considered as a market price. You didn't specify that this was your intention.
I am not the original poster, but I know one case from newspapers.
In Poland there is, similar to ebay, auctioning service called Allegro. Rules are basically the same, like on ebay. Whoever bids the highest bid that person wins auction. Once, there was a seller who wanted to sell a used car (Jeep Wrangler, as far as I remember). Unfortunately, the seller forgot to set the minimum price and the winner offered much less for the car than its actual value. After the auction ended the seller wanted to withdraw the item from the auction. He lost in court and now is obliged to sell that Jeep for the amount bade by the winner.
I think that the court decision was fair. Although, on the other hand, sellers can make mistakes and all the auctioning services should provide several steps asking for conformation, so as sellers are aware of what they are doing. From what I know prior to initiating an auction allegro asks seller to confirm all the settings (i.e. initial bid, minimum bid, etc.). Presence of all these conformations was a reason why the seller lost the case in court.
By the way, negative bids are rather unusual for auctions. I wonder why dfn_deux found only this solution to the above problem. Hey dfn_deux, do you know any jokes about logical thinking?
You may try at www.ectaco.com, but there is only word-by-word or simple sentences translation.