Ask Lemmy

That’s just how eBay or any auction site works. Those have 4 to 30 days left and will go up in price. Look at “completed listings” for a better idea of current prices.

How many days are left on the auctions? My guess is 6 or 7. They'll sell for market value by the end of the auction. Serious buyers wait until the very end to submit their bids. Early bids just drive up the final selling price. If those are Buy It Now listings then there's zero chance it's legit.

The listings are for auctions that all end in 6+ days, one even has 30. Wait until the deadline is closer, as in minutes before, and watch the price skyrocket. You can place a bid right now and the price will just jump up to your price. Highest bidder usually has a price higher than the listed price and will remain highest bidder unless you actually outbid their real bid. For example, if I set a bid for $200, all of those listings are below $100, I will win the auction as long as nobody bids over $200. If someone bids $150, they instantly get notified that they were outbid and the price jumps to $151. AFAIK there is no way to see the auto bid price. There are also bots that will come in at the last few seconds to try to get it at the cheapest price possible. Find auctions that are closer to ending to see what people are actually paying for products.

This doesn't add much to what others have already said, but there's a useful saying that applies extremely well to low online prices:"If it seems too good to be true, it probably is."

The tricky ones are the ones that are between, say, 10% off and full price. Some are legit, others are scammers hoping you'll pick their slightly cheaper option. And you still need to figure out why the legit one is cheaper. They rarely do it out of the good of their heart.

With the long sell times it is possible that they could be real bids technically, but I can guarantee they will not end up selling for less than the average sale. They absoullutely will spike in price as they get closer to the bid ending as is the nature of auctions.

If the bid doesn't go up enough the seller will use an alt account to buy their own sale and eat the ebay fee before relisting the same card.

I found a lot these with buy it now prices on 9800x3d lower than retail. My guess is shipping scam. They mail you a box with another cpu in it. It gets flagged for the correct weight and certified delivery. Then you start the back and forth with ebay after the scam they hope you either lose or give up and they keep the money.

My advice is find a buy it now or one of the make an offer ones that are close to the price things should be selling for and shop that way. There are no free lunches on a platform as big and active as ebay.

Of course it's possible... it's highly unlikely though.

There might be some grandparent with a video card they have no idea what to do with or some bitcoin miner having a firesale.

How many times is it worth getting scammed to you?

A bit too cheap but they can be real, e.g. some cards that worked in crypto-mining for years with customized firmware that allowed them to run faster and hotter. They are somewhat unpredictable and can be half dead or work as intended for many years.

They’re just bids so this is common. Gotta start low so you can let people battle each other out and eventually get to the price you’re most looking for as a seller.

But it’s also common that if this auction were to end at these low prices, the seller likely is not going to just let it go as eBay lets sellers set a threshold and if that threshold isn’t met when the auction ends, they have the option to cancel the sale.

So even if you were to win at one of these prices, you’re not guaranteed to get the graphics card at this price. Though you could have a seller who doesn’t care or is willing to let it go for lower than they expected, so not totally out of the realm of possibility.

Did I imagine a scam with hacked bios as well?

Where the card looks a bit physically similar and the bios is updated to report it as whatever dynamite card but it's actually a pos and the performance is always rubbish.