[SOLD] Auction: Hawaii Vacation Condo - 2 bedroom Dec 3-10 2011

[Jeremy West spendbitcoins.com]

You're taking my words out of context.  I was saying that you didn't specify your bid to be 66 BTC in your post.  You specified it to be 1 more than the previous high bid, up to 66 BTC.  And you didn't say that it would be 66 BTC if the "up to" bid was not a valid bid, nor did the rules say that the high end of an invalid "up to" bid would automatically be the high bid of that person.

I am not taking your words out of context.  I am showing you that your whole argument is based on fallacy and misconstrued logic.  The auction did not prohibit a bid such as mine.  Online auctions are typically handled in the fashion I bid.  Ergo the bid is valid.  Being the generous and understanding soul that I am, if Jeremy had come to me and said "Hey, I did not intend this to be a normal auction, but a flat auction, do you want this for 66 BTC, the maximum you were willing to pay?" I would have paid him 66 BTC, even though it was within my rights to demand the auction be concluded as per the rules..  

However, that's not what happened.  Instead, he saw the price was too low and decided to "reopen" the auction for "silent bids."  Even though my maximum bid was ALREADY PUBLIC KNOWLEDGE.  It's not a silent auction if the bids are known in advance.  In the public auction, my bid was KNOWN to anyone who cared to look - it was 66 BTC, no more.  It was not an open ended bid like you keep trying to make it out to be... this is functionally what your argument hinges on, and since it's fallacious to claim as such, when my bid clearly was NOT open ended, your argument falls apart.

His auction clearly stated "NO RESERVE."   He didn't get the price he wanted, so he changed the terms and actually instituted a reserve after the fact (nominally 40 BTC).  He got his 105 BTC (presumably Antares is good for it), instead of half or 1/3 of that.  Very convenient.  Very sneaky. Very shady. Very dishonest.

Because you edited your bid, I don't even know what your max bid was. You're saying 66 btc, but witnesses have said it was 100.

This whole auction in a forum thread thing was an absolute mess. Early on there was a bid that was placed and then deleted (I don't recall if that was you or not), another bid was edited downwards, goat canceled his bid for 70 btc, and then you bid with a different set of rules from everyone else and later edited your bid.

I will not do an auction on an editible forum thread in the future.

[SgtSpike]

You're taking my words out of context.  I was saying that you didn't specify your bid to be 66 BTC in your post.  You specified it to be 1 more than the previous high bid, up to 66 BTC.  And you didn't say that it would be 66 BTC if the "up to" bid was not a valid bid, nor did the rules say that the high end of an invalid "up to" bid would automatically be the high bid of that person.

I am not taking your words out of context.  I am showing you that your whole argument is based on fallacy and misconstrued logic.  The auction did not prohibit a bid such as mine.  Online auctions are typically handled in the fashion I bid.  Ergo the bid is valid.  Being the generous and understanding soul that I am, if Jeremy had come to me and said "Hey, I did not intend this to be a normal auction, but a flat auction, do you want this for 66 BTC, the maximum you were willing to pay?" I would have paid him 66 BTC, even though it was within my rights to demand the auction be concluded as per the rules..  

However, that's not what happened.  Instead, he saw the price was too low and decided to "reopen" the auction for "silent bids."  Even though my maximum bid was ALREADY PUBLIC KNOWLEDGE.  It's not a silent auction if the bids are known in advance.  In the public auction, my bid was KNOWN to anyone who cared to look - it was 66 BTC, no more.  It was not an open ended bid like you keep trying to make it out to be... this is functionally what your argument hinges on, and since it's fallacious to claim as such, when my bid clearly was NOT open ended, your argument falls apart.

His auction clearly stated "NO RESERVE."   He didn't get the price he wanted, so he changed the terms and actually instituted a reserve after the fact (nominally 40 BTC).  He got his 105 BTC (presumably Antares is good for it), instead of half or 1/3 of that.  Very convenient.  Very sneaky. Very shady. Very dishonest.

I'll just have to say that I disagree with you.  And so far, I haven't seen anyone agree with you.  I'll leave it at that.

[Inaba]

Because you edited your bid, I don't even know what your max bid was. You're saying 66 btc, but witnesses have said it was 100.

This whole auction in a forum thread thing was an absolute mess. Early on there was a bid that was placed and then deleted (I don't recall if that was you or not), another bid was edited downwards, goat canceled his bid for 70 btc, and then you bid with a different set of rules from everyone else and later edited your bid.

I will not do an auction on an editible forum thread in the future.

One person said, facetiously I assume, that it was 100 BTC, not "witnesses" - plural - ... but in either case even if it was 100 BTC, you STILL failed to live up to your agreement in the auction.  You did not honor your agreement to sell it to the highest bidder at 36 BTC, 66 BTC or even 100 BTC.  Instead, you unilaterally chose to change the rules of the auction after the fact to suit you.  You did not bother to contact me.  You did not try to work anything out.  You did absolutely nothing but restructure the auction so you will get more money because it did not sell for what you were hoping for, even though you listed it as NO RESERVE.

That, in a nutshell, is choc full of dishonesty.  

This whole auction in a forum thread thing was an absolute mess. Early on there was a bid that was placed and then deleted (I don't recall if that was you or not), another bid was edited downwards, goat canceled his bid for 70 btc, and then you bid with a different set of rules from everyone else and later edited your bid.

Honestly, what the F*!K did you expect, posting an auction on a message forum?  Seriously?  Every "auction" on this forum is a mess.  The whole concept of auctioning in a message forum is completely retarded to begin with.  The fact that you expected the auction to be perfect, without laying down any rules stipulated even though you clearly had an agenda to start with, is frankly mind boggling.  

I'll just have to say that I disagree with you.  And so far, I haven't seen anyone agree with you.  I'll leave it at that.

Disagree all you want, you are still wrong.  The fact that you are "leaving it at that" pretty much proves the point that your argument is completely invalid, since you have not been able to bring a single shred of evidence to support your suppositions.  Everything you have brought I have completely debunked.  As far as anyone agreeing with me, the only one "agreeing" with you is Jeremy... hardly an unbiased party.  The only other people chiming in are ones that "see both sides."  

I see you are the one that started the "100 BTC max bid" lie, as well.  After reading back a few posts and looking at your post, I realize that now you are as intellectually dishonest, or even more so than Jeremy.  At least he is being dishonest from an honest "mistake."  You are just outright lying (once again, to bolster your side of the argument.  Unfortunately, as with everything else, your argument falls flat in the fact of facts.)

[SgtSpike]

Disagree all you want, you are still wrong.  The fact that you are "leaving it at that" pretty much proves the point that your argument is completely invalid, since you have not been able to bring a single shred of evidence to support your suppositions.  Everything you have brought I have completely debunked.  As far as anyone agreeing with me, the only one "agreeing" with you is Jeremy... hardly an unbiased party.  The only other people chiming in are ones that "see both sides."  

I see you are the one that started the "100 BTC max bid" lie, as well.  After reading back a few posts and looking at your post, I realize that now you are as intellectually dishonest, or even more so than Jeremy.  At least he is being dishonest from an honest "mistake."  You are just outright lying (once again, to bolster your side of the argument.  Unfortunately, as with everything else, your argument falls flat in the fact of facts.)

Debunked?  Please... you didn't debunk anything more than I debunked you.  We have a difference of opinions in implication of information.

I didn't start anything about 100 BTC.  Someone else said it before me.  If that person retracted what they said through an edit, then I'll retract my statement about a 100 BTC bid.  I never saw it myself, nor do I claim to have seen it.  I was only relying on the word of the person who saw it.  I have no intentions of being dishonest or misleading.

[Inaba]

I apologize then.  It was Antares that started the 100 BTC BS.  It was hard to suss out of the nested quotes and it looked like you posted it, not Antares.

As far as the debunking goes, you haven't shown me anywhere in the rules that prohibits a bid that is the "natural" style of bidding online (ala eBay, the defacto auction site on the Internet).  On top of that, even if we are to disallow +1 to MAX style of bidding, my MAX bid would still stand.  You've not provided any rules, reasons or really much of anything as to why my max bid would not stand in place of +1 to MAX.  In fact, no one has.

Top this all off with the fact that Jeremy "magically" got 105 BTC after changing the rules of the auction, from a high bid of 35, 36 or even 66 BTC and it's not hard to see why he chose to change the rules when the final price didn't suit him.

[SgtSpike]

I apologize then.  It was Antares that started the 100 BTC BS.  It was hard to suss out of the nested quotes and it looked like you posted it, not Antares.

As far as the debunking goes, you haven't shown me anywhere in the rules that prohibits a bid that is the "natural" style of bidding online (ala eBay, the defacto auction site on the Internet).  On top of that, even if we are to disallow +1 to MAX style of bidding, my MAX bid would still stand.  You've not provided any rules, reasons or really much of anything as to why my max bid would not stand in place of +1 to MAX.  In fact, no one has.

Because both of the potentially winning bids had been edited, with no way of proving the original bids.

[Inaba]

I apologize then.  It was Antares that started the 100 BTC BS.  It was hard to suss out of the nested quotes and it looked like you posted it, not Antares.

As far as the debunking goes, you haven't shown me anywhere in the rules that prohibits a bid that is the "natural" style of bidding online (ala eBay, the defacto auction site on the Internet).  On top of that, even if we are to disallow +1 to MAX style of bidding, my MAX bid would still stand.  You've not provided any rules, reasons or really much of anything as to why my max bid would not stand in place of +1 to MAX.  In fact, no one has.

Because both of the potentially winning bids had been edited, with no way of proving the original bids.

Yet, somehow, both of the "winning bids" agreed on what happened in at least enough detail to determine the actual winner. Therefore no conflict existed.  In fact, the details of the winning bid aren't even in question as far as I can tell, nor have they been.

[SgtSpike]

I apologize then.  It was Antares that started the 100 BTC BS.  It was hard to suss out of the nested quotes and it looked like you posted it, not Antares.

As far as the debunking goes, you haven't shown me anywhere in the rules that prohibits a bid that is the "natural" style of bidding online (ala eBay, the defacto auction site on the Internet).  On top of that, even if we are to disallow +1 to MAX style of bidding, my MAX bid would still stand.  You've not provided any rules, reasons or really much of anything as to why my max bid would not stand in place of +1 to MAX.  In fact, no one has.

Because both of the potentially winning bids had been edited, with no way of proving the original bids.

Yet, somehow, both of the "winning bids" agreed on what happened in at least enough detail to determine the actual winner. Therefore no conflict existed.  In fact, the details of the winning bid aren't even in question as far as I can tell, nor have they been.

I don't see any agreement on who should be the winner in the preceding posts.

[Inaba]

I apologize then.  It was Antares that started the 100 BTC BS.  It was hard to suss out of the nested quotes and it looked like you posted it, not Antares.

As far as the debunking goes, you haven't shown me anywhere in the rules that prohibits a bid that is the "natural" style of bidding online (ala eBay, the defacto auction site on the Internet).  On top of that, even if we are to disallow +1 to MAX style of bidding, my MAX bid would still stand.  You've not provided any rules, reasons or really much of anything as to why my max bid would not stand in place of +1 to MAX.  In fact, no one has.

Because both of the potentially winning bids had been edited, with no way of proving the original bids.

Yet, somehow, both of the "winning bids" agreed on what happened in at least enough detail to determine the actual winner. Therefore no conflict existed.  In fact, the details of the winning bid aren't even in question as far as I can tell, nor have they been.

I don't see any agreement on who should be the winner in the preceding posts.

Seriously?

Let me lay it out then (I thought this was obvious):

1. Auction is stated to end at 20:00:00 UTC.
2. Antares bids 35 BTC at 19:59:50
3. I bid up to 66 BTC at 19:59:57
4. Auction ends

I had a) the last bid prior to the close of the auction and b) the highest bid.  Any editing done after that, by your rules, is immaterial.  Antares agrees with this.  I agree with this.  We are both the highest bidders.  Neither of us question the actual events and the time stamps are not editable.  The sequence is irrefutable.  The two parties involved agree on the relevant details.

Antares posts this, confirming that I won even though he disagrees with the method:

SgtSpike,

My initial bid was BTC 35...
However, Inaba posted a bid of "up to 100 BTC, 1 BTC higher than the highest bid" 2 sec before the end of the auction, which isnt a real bid imho. He then edited his bit to be 36, so I was a tiny bit frustrated because of his way and put mine up to 40...

so he in fact won, however not in a fair way.

(Incidentally, this is where the 100 BTC fallacy came from, which is immaterial to this discussion.  Whether I posted 66 BTC or 100 BTC is irrelevant, either bid is more than this initial bid of 35 BTC).

He publicly stated that his initial bid was 35 BTC prior to the close and that it was edited to 40 BTC after the close AND after I edited my bid to 36 BTC which is the SAME as bidding +1 up to 66 BTC.  There was no dishonesty there.  However, Antares bid of 40 BTC AFTER the fact, AFTER I had edited my bid to reflect the final close price is dishonest.

So again, do tell how you aren't seeing any agreement, when the other party involved publicly posted that my bid was higher just before the close of the auction.

[Jeremy West spendbitcoins.com]

I bid 70 but had to take away my bid (this was 100% my fault for not checking with my wife).

It seems 66 is the winning bid so I would like to pay the extra 4 bitcoins to make the full amount of my bid. Please PM an address you would like these sent to. Thank you and sorry for the trouble.

No trouble, goat. The winning bid ended up being 105 btc. I'm sorry I brought you into this, I was just saying I learned a lesson that a forum thread where people can cancel or edit their bids is not the place to hold an auction.

[Inaba]

Goat is the one that should get it.  But of course you're going to take the 105 BTC instead of the winning 70 BTC bid, because it was all about capitalizing on the auction instead of adhering to your agreements.  The winning bid was not 105 BTC.  The auction ended at 20:00 UTC according to you, but since the amount wasn't enough you extended it... even though you CLAIMED it was a no reserve auction.  Talk about dishonest.

As I stated in the other thread, I'm done with this.  You lied, plain and simple.  I took you for an honest business person when I reached out to you several months ago so you wouldn't close up your shop, but I see I misread you entirely back then.  If you had even made a token effort to afford me the same courtesy and contacted me about it after the auction ended, I would have gladly worked with you to solve the problem in whatever way made everyone happy.  But you wern't even decent enough to do that - it was just all about the money for you.  Very sad.

[ForceField]

Sounds like some of you really do need a vacation.

[Jeremy West spendbitcoins.com]

Sounds like some of you really do need a vacation.

For anyone who missed out, before you book your next vacation accommodation, get a quote at http://vacations.spendbitcoins.com. You just put a general place and date and I'll let you know whether anything is available and for how many bitcoins.

Cheers!
Jeremy

[P4man]

Jeremy, just a suggestion if you would reconsider a second attempt, I think some extra rules could make it work.

-1  disallow sniping. Very simple, set a deadline, but also allow bidding up to, say 1 hour after the last bet, even past the deadline. That way you dont get ebay nonsense with people trying to bet 1s second before the deadline.
-2 to make editing at least much more difficult, set a minimum bid increase and require people quote the previous winning bid. Okay, its not quite a secure bitcoin chain, but it should be good enough, particularly if mods can verify if needed.
-3 Disallow any edits (again hoping mods can check if there is any controversy).
-4 obviously, explicitly disallow a "maximum" bid.  You bid one number, and thats what you commit to pay.


I think with those rules, it could work. Not that Ill bid, unless you put an airplane ticket on auction too .

[Jeremy West spendbitcoins.com]

Jeremy, just a suggestion if you would reconsider a second attempt, I think some extra rules could make it work.

-1  disallow sniping. Very simple, set a deadline, but also allow bidding up to, say 1 hour after the last bet, even past the deadline. That way you dont get ebay nonsense with people trying to bet 1s second before the deadline.
-2 to make editing at least much more difficult, set a minimum bid increase and require people quote the previous winning bid. Okay, its not quite a secure bitcoin chain, but it should be good enough, particularly if mods can verify if needed.
-3 Disallow any edits (again hoping mods can check if there is any controversy).
-4 obviously, explicitly disallow a "maximum" bid.  You bid one number, and thats what you commit to pay.


I think with those rules, it could work. Not that Ill bid, unless you put an airplane ticket on auction too .

The mods have now created an auction subforum where deletes & edits are disallowed. I don't forsee myself doing another auction of this type, but if I do, I'll put it there with some of your other suggestions. Thanks!

[Matthew N. Wright]

I'd like to interject that Hawaiin property on the main island has gotten ridiculously cheap in these past years. Rather than paying for a vacation, one might want to buy a house.

[P4man]

Good thinking. I was just booking a flight to Thailand for December, but then it hit me; why not buy an airplane instead?

[Matthew N. Wright]

Good thinking. I was just booking a flight to Thailand for December, but then it hit me; why not buy an airplane instead?

You've never owned an airplane? Loser. 

[P4man]

Actually, I do own one (or rather, half a plane). Just not one that make it all the way to thailand. And not enough room for luggage either. Not too mention the girlfriend would have to sit on the tail.  I hear 747s have dropped in price over the past years though .

[Matthew N. Wright]

Actually, I do own one (or rather, half a plane). Just not one that make it all the way to thailand. And not enough room for luggage either. Not too mention the girlfriend would have to sit on the tail.  I hear 747s have dropped in price over the past years though .

I'm absolutely obsessed with getting my first jet. Only another $200k to go. I won't be able to fly it alone for another 5 years though at this rate.