Thursday, April 16, 2009

The eBay error

Husband and I have been watching our favorite TV shows on DVD. We first started with the show Lost, and now we’ve moved on to watching The Office. It’s been fun to curl up on the couch together and just laugh for an hour (or two) at our favorite shows. But we’re quickly going through our DVD supply. So I turned to eBay (where else?) to find some good deals. A couple days ago, I bid on a DVD set that we wanted to see. Yesterday, while I was cooking, I realized that it was nearing the end of the auction. I ran to the computer and placed another bid. I usually do all the eBay bidding, but this time I asked Husband to watch the auction while I cooked. It was about 10 minutes left in the auction, and he’d shout out the current bid. “It’s up to $15, do you want to bid higher?” We crept up our bid. $16, $17, $18. At some point, Husband remarked, “This is kind of fun!” He then figured out our strategy would be to put in our maximum bid at the last 45 seconds of the auction. I ran over to the computer to watch. The seconds were ticking away, and he hurried to place our maximum bid of $21. Except that instead of typing “21.00” he misses the decimal. He types in 2100. As in $2100! I screamed, “Nooo! You missed the decimal!” Horrified, he immediately exits out of the screen. We were both silent, in shock that we might have just committed ourselves to buy a DVD set (that usually retails for $40) for over two thousand dollars! For a used DVD set! He slowly gets back to the eBay website. By this time, the auction has ended. We held our breath as we see the final selling price: $21.50. We breathed a sigh of relief. We realized that, though he placed the bid, he never confirmed it. We lost the auction. But, happily, we just saved over two thousand dollars.

16 comments:

the cubicle's backporch said...

Wow... maybe your hubby REALLY WANTED that DVD set! hee hee.

Glad to hear you 'saved' a couple grand.

d.a.r. said...

Oh my gosh!! That would have been a disaster!

d.a.r. said...

Oh my gosh!! That would have been a disaster!

Amber said...

Oh my gosh, I got nervous just reading this! Close call!

Jenna said...

Oh my gosh, I would have had a heart attack!

Allison said...

hahahahaha. That was a relief. I bet losing never felt that good.

Lindsey said...

Hahaha that would have been bad! Good catch!

Allison said...

wow. I wonder if they would have made you pay it?!?

LarramieG said...

Now that's a tale of terror. To save $$ on almost anything -- including DVD's -- try this. It's still a bit of a game.

Miss. Beach Bound said...

Oh goodness! I would have been scared too! Glad there is a confirmation screen!

-BB

GypsiAdventure said...

hahaha...that would have been really not funny! On the upside though..hulu usually has all the episodes of some pretty awesome tv series...hubs and I totally caught up on the office by watching it ...yes, we hooked the computer up to the tv too a few times...i know, we're geeks! :(
~K

jlc said...

Hahah!! Wow and I love how he first thought it was kinda fun.

I'm thinkinnnnn he'd like Vegas. Wild guess. :)

Ou and yay The Office!!!! Classic show.

Ann M. said...

whew!

megan said...

haha that's funny!

Just so you can be relieved even more... if the bid is over a ridiculous amount, ebay will ask you something like "Are you sure you meant $2100 instead of $21.00? Smart lil' ebay!!

Darci White said...

OH.MY.GOSH - that would have been horrible?!!!

Grace said...

Breath-taking!!!!
I can almost imagine the scenario.
I wanted to try bidding, too... maybe tomorrow... :)
How was your weekend? :)