SHILL BIDDING SHOULD BE ILLEGAL! PLEASE HELP!

[kaos2015]

I want to report a member on behalf of my friend who was been trying to buy an item but the seller seems to be a scammer by driving up the prices with fake accounts. Maybe we are wrong and maybe we are not but-  it looks like a fishy and it smells like a fishy so it almost has to be fishy!

Item number: 181468915740

ITEM NUMBER 181 468 915 740 ( this is only one example- nearly every current listing has 2 bidders driving up prices on the sellers items and going through all the items in the feedback history the 2 bidders are constantly bidding)

They are using fake accounts to drive up the price and that is illegal!!!!! I think it is called shill bidding.

We have checked the sellers items sold, the number of bidders and all the feedback left and it DOES NOT MAKE SENSE!!!!

And the strange thing is these 2 bidders who have bid thousands of times on her items in 30 days cant be found in her feedback yet they are bidding large amounts but never seem to win or leave feedback. That is strange.

SELLER ID godblessmaria

We have gone through all the current listings and a lot of recent listings and it is the SAME BIDDERS ALWAYS DRIVING UP THE PRICES!!!

Currently 1 person bidding is b***0 (4) with 4 feedback.

In the last 30 days it says they have made 2282 bids on 451 items and 90% of the bid activity is with godblessmaria.

That DOES NOT MAKE SENSE that someone has made 2282 bids in ONE MONTH and only has a feedback of 4??????? They have made 2053 bids on godblessmaria listings and has only 4 feedback in one month?

ANOTHER bidder is g***i (48) with 48 feedback. In 30 days they have made 1493 bids on 426 items, 99% of them with godblessmaria. And only have a feedback of 48?????

This is shill bidding and is illegal and they are STEALING from other Ebay bidders by driving the prices up!!!

And they are not bidding small amount but large amounts!!!!!! Sometimes over $200

What we think they are doing is driving up the prices to MASSIVE amounts and then not completing the checkout- they are just paying the 10% fees and then giving second chance offers hence recovering the costs for the FVF transactions they never complete and STILL making sales with 'second chance offers'.

Is there anyway Ebay and Paypal can check that the sales made on Ebay through the possible fake bidders are actually getting completed through Paypal?

How is it that 2 people have made 3775 bids on ONE SELLER in ONE MONTH with a total feedback of only 52 between them???

THAT DOES NOT MAKE SENSE!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Why is this allowed to happen?

My friend wants to bid but it is plain to see that godblessmaria has people driving up prices with THOUSANDS of bids that never win!!!!!!!!

Please tell me what is going on! And please correct us if we are wrong

Thank you.

[lalala-au]

Yes I did, then I went and bidded on another item and reported that too. I have heard nothing from ebay and I see she is still ripping people off. So I don't think Ebay has done anything.

[imastawka]

Why would you bid, and then bid again, if you suspect shill bidding?

[lalala-au]

Because I thought Ebay may react faster if I was bidder and reported, also I like the print and I only bidded $5.00.

[i-love-my-sheep]

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@curraone wrote:

So, not to get off track here - has anyone reported the seller from the original post to ebay?

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I reported all the listings that had bids on them and also sent a lengthy message to eBay this morning.....as a 'concerned buyer'. All the listings I reported a still there. I have just reported another couple that gained bids over night (from either 48 FB or 4 FB or both)

I too have been using the search by bidder in advanced search up until earlier this week, so definitely only a recent thing.

48 FB bidder has made another 200 bids since the original message was posted. Now up to 1656. and 4 FB bidder has increased their tally by 100, now up to 2380 on 30 days. If eBay ignore all the messages and reported listings, then you can safely say that this seller is one of the 'protected ones'

[twyngwyn]

OP...are you aware of this?

http://pages.ebay.com.au/help/policies/listing-multi.html

[cq_tech]

The seller has used her alternate ID (which is g***i (48)) to bid up the price in every current auction of hers which has 2 or more bids.

In many cases, the other shill bidder (b***0 (4)) has also helped to increase the price on her current auctions.

In those auctions where the bidders IDs are private, it's pretty safe to assume that either of both of these users have also shill bid, given that in every case there has been a single high bid of at least $100, and in some cases, considerably more.

What I'd really like to know is why haven't eBay acted yet? The longer eBay waits, the more complicit they appear.

[i-love-my-sheep]

I got a reply from the report I sent and hopefully it's not just the usual generic drivel. I removed the usernames so the mods didn't jump on me, but it was the seller in question and also the one of the same name with the added numbers on the end. I did also mention about the 4 FB bidder and the 7 FB bidder.

Hi Jane,

Thank you for contacting eBay and reporting XXXXXX and XXXXXX.

Jane, I can assure you that we are investigating on XXXXXX and XXXXXXXX's account and appropriate actions will be taken if ever we find any violations.  We are also investigating further on their feedback scores and listings as of the moment. We are extremely concerned about members who take away the integrity of a fair trade.

As soon  as these sanctions accumulate on their account, then our actions will progress and in some cases this means that the member may be allowed to continue to use eBay, but on a limited and closely monitored basis.

In order to protect members’ privacy, we can’t discuss the results of our investigation or any action we took. This will assure you that we’ll also keep your account information private.

We're glad that you communicated with us and brought this matter to our attention.

Thank you for choosing eBay and always keep safe.

Warm regards,

Ryza O.

eBay Customer Support

It will be interesting to see whether item number 181471862397 gets relisted in 4 days because the only legitimate bidder only bid 77c and the item sold for $US285.

I'm wondering given that she's in Victoria, how she could post this item via USPS priority mail. Am I missing something? I thought the item would have to originate in the US to be able to be posted via USPS?

One other thing, just to make my already too long post even longer, if bids are withdrawn, does that show up for all to see on the bid page, or can only the seller see those?

[cherry*135]

Ones with higher number of bids (about 17) Start at 1c, next bid low e.g..77c, then *4 & *48 jump it to $150, then all the way up to nearly $300.

When you own an  'original' painting, you own the only original.  Any more are prints or copies. Whereas this seller has several paintings of the samepicture being called 'originals'

They appear to all have been painted recently in a workshop in Nepal, imo.

[1800signshop]

Yes, definitely something fishy going on.  I see they have a facebook page.  Anyone interested in making a comment on their facebook wall?

[lalala-au]

It is an automated response from ebay, I have gotten the exact same wording from them about something else.