Jump to content

Sketchy looking ebay listings

QXC

Ok ok ok I know you've heard this before, but hear me out.

 

So, I was paroozing ebay to see how bad the post mining GPU market was doing, and saw some pretty sketchy looking listings. You know, the sub $100 high end GPU that has a stock photo for the listing? Those listings. I might not want to buy it, but I figured I'd take a look at the actual listing. However, when actually clicking the listing, I'd always end up on a different listing page without the usual "This auction has ended but hey we're just gonna show you something entirely different now anyway" message.

 

So upon slightly closer inspection, when I click on the link I am getting a HTTP 301 (redirect) from the old URL to the one that I end up on. However, if I remove the ?hash portion of the URL, which you can usually do to get a cleaner URL, it gives me an "item not found" page. The sketchy listings also don't have the "epid" part of the URL, which normal listings seem to have. I can't say I know what it's for, but it's missing either way.
 

Normally I might disregard this, but there's also a LOT of these listings marked as sold, and when sold they will not turn up a listing page when clicked.

So, what do you think is causing this? Maybe these are malicious listings that ebay is trying to block and somehow they can prevent the listings from working before they can be removed from search? Do you think this is a seller somehow taking advantage of ebay? Maybe it's being done to manipulate the average sold price of cards by flooding the sold listings with fake sales? Or maybe people are just trying to buy these and getting sharked?
 

Sounds like something ripe for rampant speculation no matter what :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now

×