The truth about mystery auctions … The super finds, the hot lines and the land mines. This is a guide to the seemingly baffling world of the mystery auction. You’ll find out how to uncover the fabulous bargains (the super finds), recognize the deals (the hot lines) and avoid the rip-offs (the land mines). The fact is they are all out there and they are fairly easy to discern. First the ones to avoid: 1. Money sales Does it make any sense to sell ten-dollar bills for $5.00? Can anyone actually believe they are going to pay $275 for $1,000.00? How can they make the promise? Many different ways from foreign currency to shredded bills. The U.S. Treasury Department actually recycles bills that have been in circulation too long. Of course, they shred them first. You can’t spend them but they do sell them by the pound. What was once thousands of dollars is available for a few bucks. 2. Gift certificates That is, gift certificates for an unnamed retailer. One can start a website and offer overpriced items. A not quite sterling silver necklace, or gold plated bracelet by Taffany (not Tiffany’s) can cost $3.00 wholesale and have a retail price of $1,000.00. Who would buy it? Nobody. But someone that wouldn’t pay ten bucks for the jewelry might bid $100.00 for a gift certificate they thought was worth a thousand. Then all they do is mail in the gift certificate and $20.00 postage and handling. Do you get it? 3. Wild retail value: How can the retail value really be $1,000.00 and the final bid be $21.00? Seven-year-old cell phone belt clips once sold for $6.95 retail. How about an entire box of these? Only problem is no cell phone will fit it. There is useless merchandise available from betamax and eight track tapes to WWII military surplus that once sold for many times the current price! The real sales and how to spot them: Q. Why would a legitimate seller have a mystery auction? A. Simple. Too much stuff. Too much to keep. Too much to list. There are numerous quite legitimate reasons that people downsize there belongings. They are moving from a house to an apartment, they are getting married and merging homes. The reasons are endless. And frequently it’s as simple as a desire to have “less stuff”. Undoubtedly much of all eBay sales in most every category are made up of sellers cleaning house. To the skeptic they say why wouldn’t someone maximize their income and list each item separately. Frankly, the simple reason is the significant time to list a multitude of items. In my own life, that was my plan, when I first decided to start selling on eBay. However, the reality was quite different from the fantasy. I started by going into my basement and deciding to put together a list of items I wanted to sell on eBay. I remember looking at just the first few shelves (of literally hundreds of shelves). Shelves one and two had envelopes and boxes. Each manila envelope contained several dozen truly rare baseball cards. In a box was a small part of my Zippo lighter collection (several hundred different new lighters). Next a whole storage box of exceptional autographs and three huge plastic boxes with collectible U.S. coins. When I started with the baseball cards I soon realized each card needed to be photographed separately, described in minute detail (condition is all important) and a short search to find out approximate value to see where to start. I quickly realized just those two shelves represented hundreds of hours of works. A simple computation and I estimated I needed a little over 106 years to list all the items I wanted to sell. For me disposing of these items in mystery boxes seemed to be a simple solution Q. How can you spot a legitimate sale? A. The money back guarantee. Its been said that the trouble with some restaurants is the cooking is never as good as the descriptions on the menu. In the world of mystery auction advertising that’s all too true. The simple fact is there’s a real simple way to spot the legit offers from the scam. If the merchandise is as wonderful as the description the seller should have no problem offering a money back guarantee. If they really intended to ship you $100.00 in merchandise for $50.00 why wouldn’t they offer a money back guarantee? If the mystery boxes are really crammed with such fabulous merchandise, gift certificates and bubbles and bangles why wouldn’t the seller offer a money back guarantee. If you think about it almost everything sold at retail from department stores to the Internet offers a 30 day money back guarantee. If the mystery sales are such a better deal it seems the seller would be happy to give you a chance to return the items if you are not satisfied. The mystery boxes are described as brimming with the merchandise and gifts of a lifetime. Therefore if the products equal the promises than it would seem that the honest seller would offer a money back guarantee. In the interest of true disclosure let me say I am a seller of mystery packages. I say this not only in the interest of truthfulness but to note I bring a level of hands on experience. I write this piece because I think its pretty easy to find some great mystery auctions and also to spot the ones to avoid. In fact mystery auctions can be an unmatched shopping experience. You just need to know which are the super finds, the hot lines and the land mines. Now you know how to tell which is which.