Try it before you sell it

I can't in good conscious write about selling on Ebay without actually testing to see what the expirience looks like from the customers point of view.

Since one of my computers had a virus on it and I needed to reinstall (and said box did not come with a recovery disk because I got it used) I made my first Ebay auction purchase.

A legal (not bootlegged) copy of Microsoft Windows XP ($60.00, with free shipping)

A description of the expirience:

I searched on Ebay for "windows XP"

kept seeing low prices... low enough to make me wanna buy RIGHT NOW

each time I seem to have been outbid within 5 seconds of my bidding... it's as if someone KNEW what I was going to bid as soon as I knew???

This went on for days... I figured that the person or company offering the product had set a pre determined price that was the lowest they would accept.

I saw XP on amazon.com for $80, I saw the same thing on Ebay for $30 (but could never get that price) 3 days running I bid up a dollar and was outbid within milliseconds

What gives?

I gave up... the next day I saw it "offered" at $20... that whetted my apetite!

got outbid again (wonder why I thought it'd be any different???)

Then... I got smart (or the person offering the product got smart, haven't figured out which one of us "got smart" first)

I spotted a "Buy It Now" price... more than I'd wanted to pay but less than I saw it on amazon.com

Presto Chango: my first sucessful "bid"