Shill bidding on eBay

[ZPD]

Has anyone experienced shill bidding on eBay? For those that don't know, that is where the seller or a friend of the seller bids on the item under a different username just to drive the cost up. I just won an auction on a new transmission and during the last few minutes there was a bidder who repeatedly bid on the item driving the cost up to the point where is was 1$ under my max bid. Ultimately it raised the selling cost up by $100. At first I didn’t think much of it until I looked at the bidding history and this bidder just registered today and there were 2 other bidders on the auction who were all very recent eBay members all with a feedback of 0 and this item was the only item they have ever bid on. There are similar transmissions that have sold near the end time of this one and none of the auctions have had 0 feedback, new members bidding on it.
So what do you think? Do I have a right to be suspicious? Is it worth reporting to eBay for investigation?

 

[johnnyc]

Ha. I think that just happened to me.

I bid on an item. There were no bidders for 7 days and I bid the minimum with 15 minutes to go. Then "someone" bid $10 more and "won" the auction.

Didn't think much of it. Until yesterday when the SAME item went back up for sale on E-Bay. So I think someone bid on it just to make me bid higher. But I didn't take the bait.

Don't know if it's worth reporting. It would be hard to prove.

 

[seanyb505]

Well that hasnt happened to me, it was a little different. My roomate put a blackberry up and then he sold it another way so he bid 5000 dollars with my account. It wasnt to make someone pay more for it, just so no one would bid on it. But that would have been a sweet sale.

 

[BRIANHO13]

As long as your max bid is what you are actually willing to pay then you got a deal.

 

[aparke4]

yes it is worth reporting though the actions technically are legal... i doubt there is much they can do about since so many people run around using ebay in ways that it shouldnt...i have to admit my friend who selling a palm asked me to bid just to get an appropriate price for his device... i wasnt being unfair but helping him get a good bit for his barely used like new palm and accesories... i guess i feel bad now that you have mentioned it on the other end of the deal... i will look into their bylaws and see what i can find - if you send an email or such could you post the results? i am interested just for reference...

 

[ZPD]

As long as your max bid is what you are actually willing to pay then you got a deal.

Well I still got a good deal but it could have been better since it would have been over $100 less had it not been for the possible shiller.

Here is a link to eBay's policy for those who are curious:
http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/seller-shill-bidding.html
Technically it is illegal and in some cases eBay gets the law enforcement involved. It is just difficult to prove and I don't think that there is any restitution to the buyer.

 

[dspilot]

Can't hurt to report it. All you are out is a few minutes of your time while possibly bringing justice to some of those that abuse the system.

 

[ChuckD]

I have noticed the same pratice. I also noticed sellers pulling items because they were not meeting their undisclosed sale price. Unfortunaely Ebay can no longer be trusted, I only do the "buy it now" deals and read the fine print on all those high $$ Shipping and Handling charges.

 

[Weasel]

Ebay sorta sucks now. Used to be you could find all kinds of used stuff a decent prices. Now most of it is all new and buy it now at normal online prices. I wish they would have a totaly seperate site for the stores, ect.

And then you have shill bidding, ect which sucks.

 

[JrTxJ]

That happened to me last week and I reported it. One of ebay's employees got back to me and wrote a long personal message, that didn't seem like he just cut and pasted my name into a prewritten response. However, they weren't able to do much of anything for me.

I asked them to trace the IP to see if it was the same as the seller's but they said there was not enough proof. I doubt it's that difficult for them to do and it would be nice if they started cracking down on those kind of activities.

It's total crap when someone who just registered that day who has zero feedback can bid that many times just to bump up the price...but at the same time, it could be someone new who just wants that item. Perhaps I will, and you should, search for that name/account after a week or two and see if they're involved in any other auctions. Sucks, but it is part of the game of ebay.

 

[aparke4]

x2 i think ebay profited greatly from the stores and the buy it now style... even now with ebay express might as well shop online and forget about auction style purchases

 

[AkJeepKid]

hmmmm auctionsniper.net? I think that is the website. Basically you put your ebay info in, how much you wanna bid and the time you want it done (like say 10sec before closing). I think u get 3 free then need to pay or something. I've used it in the past and it was useful...

 

[JohnX]

Truthfully it doesn't sound like shilling to me. The auctioner is never told the amount of your max bid, so how would he know when to stop "shilling"? If the guy stopped a $ under your bid, it sounds like a coincidence. As for bidding it the end of an auction, it seems to be common practice on ebay. People wait to see the price near the end, and then try to out bid at the last second. I will admit to buying several vehicles on ebay this way. If I don't bid until the end, then there is no "battling" over the item. If I bid early, then another guy outbids me, then I rasie my bid, then he does too...It really jacks up the price. I wait until the end, bid what I'm willing to pay, and win some, lose some.

In all fairness, it does take away from the total price...but I am a consumer and I won't pay more than I have to.


Flame on.

 

[ZPD]

Truthfully it doesn't sound like shilling to me. The auctioner is never told the amount of your max bid, so how would he know when to stop "shilling"? If the guy stopped a $ under your bid, it sounds like a coincidence. As for bidding it the end of an auction, it seems to be common practice on ebay. People wait to see the price near the end, and then try to out bid at the last second. I will admit to buying several vehicles on ebay this way. If I don't bid until the end, then there is no "battling" over the item. If I bid early, then another guy outbids me, then I rasie my bid, then he does too...It really jacks up the price. I wait until the end, bid what I'm willing to pay, and win some, lose some.

In all fairness, it does take away from the total price...but I am a consumer and I won't pay more than I have to.


Flame on.

Don't get me wrong. I snipe all the time. I have gotten some real good deals that way. I am not ashamed to say that I snipe and I don't find anything unethical about it. Infact I commonly use the strategy of bidding unusual amounts like $100.10 instead of $100 just to beat anyone who bid $100 earlier.

On this particular auction today I had something to get to so I had to bid about 10 minutes earlier than I had planned. This other bidder who registered this morning bid once this morning and jacked the price up $100 and then 4 times from the time I bid until the end of the auction. His last bid was two minutes before the end and he didn't keep going. Was it a coincidence that he stopped just $1 short of my max bid- of course it was- he doesn't know what I bid. It is all just a bit suspicious because an identical item sold an hour before and another 2 hours later and he didn't bid on either one.

 

[BRIANHO13]

I Also wait until the last second to bid as well. So what if this is the first time this person bid on something, you have to start somewhere right.

MAybe it was a friend who really isn't a friend fawking with you, there is no way to know what your max bid was.

 

[RichP]

I have not bid on anything in a long time, if I want it and the price is in my ballpark I 'buy it now' if offered. I just picked up a NEC DVD burner for my IBM thinkpad, $80 'buy it now', $400 from lenovo, in the smartbay carrier so it slid right in. Paypal has also given me fits and I finally gave up on it, tried paying for it with my existing account and they seemed to get stuck in a loop when I selected that card/account, everytime I tried to use it it kept telling me 'it's already there' NO SHIT it's already there, I want that 15 minutes back.... so I sent them a MO and got it 3 days later but then they were in the next town over from me in NJ...