Seeing more of this lately. Consider this a good thing myself. Very few of the cars are as claimed.

Always was somewhat dangerous to buy there but looks even worse reciently. A lot of Mercedes examples with claimed lower milages but the steering wheels are worn down for example. Also totally restored examples on originals with less than 100k claimed milage on some non diesel models. Looks more and more like scammers all the time.

It has been that way for quite awhile. I'll hazard a guess and say that only about 15% meet the reserves.

Apparently, folks are not all that stupid and refuse to pay a penny more than wholesale for a sight unseen product that is probably misrepresented.

If you pay your money on an ebay deal before inspecting the car in person or having someone else competent to do so is extremely dangerous. It was bad enough years ago with ebay cars and looks substantially worse than ever now.

Which is why I deal locally in person. I find craigslist to be better for this sort of thing, especially since I tend to stay in or near the bottom feeder price range.

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Whoever said there's nothing more expensive than a cheap Mercedes never had a cheap Jaguar.

83 300D Turbo with manual conversion, early W126 vented front rotors and H4 headlights 400,xxx miles
08 Suzuki GSX-R600 M4 Slip-on 22,xxx miles
88 Jaguar XJS V12 94,xxx miles. Work in progress.

Some have no Reserve. Not to mention the sellers that shill-bid their auctions. Unless you know your prevailing prices for anything in particular, fleabay can be a very costly minefield to the uninitiated.