Auction foolishness

Stuart Wright

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Went to an auction yesterday in Shrewsbury following an advert in our local paper advertising 37 and 42 inch plasmas and LCDs with a reserve of £200.
I was disappointed that the only two screens there were a Daewoo 42" non-HD ready plasma and an Akura 720p LCD.
I took the kids for a McD while the Mrs bid on some stuff she wanted. I instructed her to go no higher than £280 for either of the TVs.
The auctioneers bundled in a cheap DVD player and Altec Lansing speaker system (together worth much less than a ton) and managed to slam the hammer down on £900 for the plasma.
So the final price was £900 + £90 (10%) + VAT = £1163.25.

Considering that new, the Daewoos are less than £900, and are pretty much redundant technology, I think the buyers made a very unwise puchase.
The LCD went for about the same. Which is too much for a non-name brand, I think.

They should have done 20 minutes of 'net research first.
 
You can see 24 hours/day examples of this on auction sites like ebay. There are just thousands/millions of people that get carried away while bidding and are ending up paying more then when they would have gone to a normal shop.
 
Went to an auction yesterday in Shrewsbury following an advert in our local paper advertising 37 and 4 inch plasmas and LCDs with a reserve of £200.
I was disappointed that the only two screens there were a Daewoo 42" non-HD ready plasma and an Akura 720p LCD.
I took the kids for a McD while the Mrs bid on some stuff she wanted. I instructed her to go no higher than £280 for either of the TVs.
The auctioneers bundled in a cheap DVD player and Altec Lansing speaker system (together worth much less than a ton) and managed to slam the hammer down on £900 for the plasma.
So the final price was £900 + £90 (10%) + VAT = £1163.25.

Considering that new, the Daewoos are less than £900, and are pretty much redundant technology, I think the buyers made a very unwise puchase.
The LCD went for about the same. Which is too much for a non-name brand, I think.

They should have done 20 minutes of 'net research first.

Went to one of these at Radbrook Hall Hotel a couple of years ago........ people were paying £300 for a PS2 with a couple of platinum titles.......

Problem always is they lure people in with the headline prices and then put on the scally sales technique.
 
Amazing! In my experience the bidding usually goes the other way. You ring up the retailer, ask the price, tell him'I can get it for £x at Y sound and vision', he says 'I'll chuck in the cables and a doberry watsit, and do it for £x + small amount, and come and press the buttons for setup', etc etc. Offering to pay more? I'm in the wrong job!
 
Who were the culprits, hands up ? :eek: :rotfl:

I would like one of those 4inch plasma TV's in my car ! :devil: :rotfl:
 
Strangely enough, I just got some 7" LCDs for the car, scarily cheap. £51 each, from a website I turned up through google. PS2 and DVD will keep the kids quiet, I hope!
 
I have been to these auctions a couple of times and seen exactly the same thing. Many people seem to have in their head that a plasma TV costs £X, usually about £2000 and don't adjust for quality and are unaware of how much prices have fallen.

Thus I have stopped going to the auctions!

I also get e-mails for a Panasonic auction site and see similar bizarre prices paid. I think Panasonic use this site to help set RRP.
 

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