I am suspicious that a seller is getting his friends to bid.

[gramophonerecord]

Hi, I was suspicious of a seller, because many of their Auctions were being relisted as buy it now after the actions had finished. So I went to their completed auctions and had a close look at the bidding history. Many of their items have had the same highest bidder. These items are not alike. This has also been over a long period of time.

I personally do not think this is fair.

Can any thing be done?

[phorum_junkie*]

I presume you think it is shill bidding, if it is then they are not very good at it as the idea is to push the price up, not to win the items.  I wouldn't have a clue if shill bidding was taking place or not, I enter my maximum bid and don't look at it again. If I get an item won message I pay up and that is all I do, I don't go back to the listing and look at the bidding pattern.

Shill bidding is against the ebay rules and you can report it but unless a seller is daft enough to use the same name, address, telephone or isp address it is impossible to prove, if it is an unrelated friend then ebay cannot do anything..

[gramophonerecord]

Hi, I found the "report item" link on the pages, so I have reported all the items.

It just seems strange that every item the seller has listed has the same highest bidder. And the items are not the same, they are all very different.

And in completed listings, the items that this bidder has won, were then relisted as buy it now.

I hope that by reporting it, that ebay will see the strange pattern.

[davidc4430]

thats how i bid too, no point in looking at other bids once it over. if i win on my highest bid or anything less i'm happy.

if a seller outbids me then he's lost a sale hasnt he.

[fixnwear]

feedme -

I can't see how is it any of your business what seller does

Especially if it's not affecting you - and it can never affect you if you decide on a price - you are in control, shill bidding can't compel you to keep increasing your bids, surely?

And how can you even justify the time in searching backwards all the listings and then reporting them - unless you get paid to that?

Not your problem, if you think Ebay is all that interested in the activities of sellers - let them investigate it by themsleves.

Which they won't do, as it's tiresome and lengthy and their paid staff have better things to do with their time.

That is why they are asking people to report other people - and like mugs we are all expected to comply with that!

And I do the same as the others when bidding:

Decide on how much I want to pay and put the amount in - and they can shill bid all they like - it wouldn't  ever make want to alter my top price (same as if no one shill bids, just a normal bids from other people).

Not that I would actually know what a shill bidding looks like, even if I tripped over it - just really not interested in it, and even less interested in reporting other people.

[lyndal1838]

Shill bidding is almost impossible to detect now that ebay uses the partial bidders IDs instead of the full ebay ID of bidders.

I can remember when it was quite easy to detect and report correctly but even then there were ofter members coming to the boards to report it and a bit of invetigation revealed that it was not suspicious at all.

If a so called shill bidder constantly wins the items then they are either very poor at what they are doing or it is not what it looks like.

In this case I doubt that ebay will do anything about it.

[collect247]

Ebay won't do nothing about it because ebay still receives the fees.

And the seller is a numpty as they still need to pay the fees unless they go an cancel all the sales.

[springyzone]

Well, I find it very suspicious too. Extremely so.

A bidder might bid on a range of items from the one seller, but the give away is the seller still has those items later, to relist as buy it now.

If you were a seller and had some shonky bidder who kept bidding on your items & not paying, you would block them. If they were legit bidders, then you would not have the items afterwards to offer as buy it now.

That is, unless you were selling brand new items & had multiples. If that is the case, then it may not be shill bidding at all.

If it is an attempt at shill bidding, it isn't too successful as the friend isn't supposed to win!! I am surprised the bids were not withdrawn.

I hate shill bidding. I don't care if someone says they only enter the top amount they are willing to bid to, what it means is a shill bidder can drive your auto bidding up & make you end up paying more than you otherwise would have. They can also be used to suss out your max bid amount. They are fake bids. It's dishonest.

If I were you, feedme, join one of those sites such as Auction sniper, where you can put in your top bid and it will bid on your behalf a few seconds before the end of the auction. That way, you've more chance of avoiding any trouble.

[fixnwear]

springyzone, you hate shill bidders - and

I hate bidders who are hoping tto get items as cheap as they possibly can! At the expense of the seller.

Without any regards to the seller - or the value of the item.

I know that most sellers will/should put the amount they are happy to accept as a minimum to start the bidding - but in my experience as a shopper 100000's of them either don't know that or naively listen to Ebay and take their advice - and start the bidding at 99c.

If I am watching the item I can see how it takes 8 bidders to get to the price of $2

Never even knew that it is possible to bid so low - and on the end of the sale seller is no better off.

Disgusting, almost predatory, enough to make me sick to my stomack at such awesome display of greed!

So - that is why I said I couldn't care less what seller does, shill bid or not shill bid - my bid will be a fair price for his item so if I do happen to win it I can go home and sleep well at night.

That is not to say that sellers who do shill bid can compell me to keep bidding way past of what I wanted to pay to start with.

And can someone please explain to me how would the end result be any different anyway if many other people bid instead of or as well as the seller shill bids? 

SAME result - you are either going to win the item or you won't - at the price that YOU control.

[amber-eyed-girl]

"springyzone, you hate shill bidders - and
I hate bidders who are hoping tto get items as cheap as they possibly can! At the expense of the seller.
Without any regards to the seller - or the value of the item."

Sellers place their own value upon their items by fixing a starting price for auctions, or a buy it now price.

No buyer can purchase below what the seller, prices their items at...not the buyers at fault here if a seller is unhappy with the price they get.

Every seller should bear in mind what the actual costs are to list, what they want as a profit, and above all have a realistic expectation.