Hi, I've been pulling out my hair this week dealing with a new seller (zero feedback, registered last year).
I was the winning bidder in their auction (last second snipe). Afterwards I took a look at the bid history and suspected the underbidder (newbie zero bidder, 100% activity with the seller) may have been up to a little nibble bidding on the sly (had been upping their bid numerous times by small increments while already the high bidder). Does the bidding pattern (below) look a bit fishy to anyone else?
Anyway, as the end price was below the buy it now price, I thought I'd let any report of shill bidding slide on this occasion just so the transaction would go ahead (I've no idea what happens in circumstances where ebay identify shill bidding- whether they remove the listing entirely or if just the offending bidder/bids are removed).
Now the seller has finally contacted me after I attempted to pay (after previously not responding to an earlier total request or follow up message). And I say 'attempted' to pay because the paypal payment was immediately flagged as pending and 'Unclaimed'.
Surprise, surprise now they don't want to sell for less than the buy it now price which was $60 more than the end price claiming they're new to listing on ebay and indicating they believed the buy it now price was the minimum they'd have to sell for (which just smacks of playing dumb to me).
Anyone know if there's any point reporting suspected shill bidding after a listing has already ended? (ie. do ebay do anything about shill bidding reports 'after' listings have ended?
Also, as I've left things in the seller's court for the moment on the off chance they might decide to come through on their side of the deal, is anyone able to offer advice on how to proceed? My understanding is that I should open a not received through ebay if they eventually don't send which I will do once I'm satisfied of their intention not to send, but can anyone advise what to do about the 'Unclaimed' paypal payment? Do I need the seller to sort out their paypal account in order to refund me, or can I cancel this by going into paypal myself? I should say that having being given the run around by the seller, I'm not too eager to 'agree' to cancel the sale, but I don't know if ebay still require you to tick that box regarding cancellations these days.
Anyway, thanks for reading. I've noticed from a couple of experiences now that it can be hard work at times dealing with new sellers - especially when it comes to receiving simple replies to messages (was a bit like this one was hoping it'd all just go away and I'd forget about paying -which is a bit hard to do when you've got ebay sending payment reminders daily).
BidderBid Amount Bid Time
| f***t | AU $132.50 | 20-Mar-17 21:41:43 AEDST | ||
| f***r | AU $130.00 | 20-Mar-17 17:11:11 AEDST | ||
| f***r | AU $125.00 | 20-Mar-17 07:53:39 AEDST | ||
| f***r | AU $120.00 | 20-Mar-17 07:53:23 AEDST | ||
| f***r | AU $115.00 | 20-Mar-17 07:53:13 AEDST | ||
| f***r | AU $110.00 | 19-Mar-17 15:52:07 AEDST | ||
| f***r | AU $105.00 | 18-Mar-17 20:52:09 AEDST | ||
| 3***y | AU $101.00 | 20-Mar-17 17:58:42 AEDST | ||
| f***r | AU $100.00 | 18-Mar-17 18:43:27 AEDST | ||
| 3***y | AU $95.00 | 13-Mar-17 16:19:22 AEDST | ||
| Starting Price | AU $95.00 | 10-Mar-17 21:41:44 AEDST |
@padi*0409 wrote:
"Sleuth of the Month Award" to ya slr................
Well, I couldn't let that go through to the keeper.
I had to have a look.
And I've never seen anything like it. 
@many*splendid*things wrote:I had made a point not to include the item specifics or the seller ID in this post due to confidentiality reasons (being a presently unresolved situation and to avoid the possibility of transaction interference), so the 'sleuthing' is kind've at the stalky end of the spectrum I have to say.
But thanks again to the members who have offered helpful advice and suggestions in regards to the concerns I've raised.
okay, I'll start by saying that I rarely take issue when posters post about my posts. Many times I have had to come back and explain a little further what my post was meant to say, but I can't remember the last time I felt the need to defend myself about the content of one of my posts. I also don't rate sly digs at me as anything but swat fodder.
I do remember the time I posted and recommended a poster self-report his post as he had inadvertently posted information that infringed on other members personal identifying information, and he then accused me of computer hacking in that instance. That member got a suspension so I can't comment further about that instance, suffice to say that that member would not acknowledge the privacy infringement that he enabled and refused to self-report.
As for my post being at the stalky end of the spectrum is something I will take issue with.
YOU came here asking for advice. I saw this thread after others had posted and decided not to post as my advice would have been along similar lines. However, I did click on one of the hidden eBay IDs on your Opening Post and looked at the bidding pattern from the listing. On that bidding pattern page it had a link to the original item through the listing Title, which I did look at to see if I could add anything further to the replies that had been given by well respected members of this community. I had nothing more to offer, so I did not post. Nothing stalky about this.
It was only when I saw that advice was being offered that did not take into account all relevant information that I posted about the two items. Had the subsequent posters had the information regarding you winning two items their advice may have been different. THAT IS NOT "STALKY" BEHAVIOUR, and it was YOU that freely 'enabled' access to that information you tried so hard to not divulge.
Next time you post here, remove all links if you don't want those links to be available to others. Take a screengrab and edit out the information you don't want us to see if you don't know how to remove the links in a cut-and-paste. Be more careful, rather than careless, when you post.
Here's an example of how you should have posted the bidding pattern (try clicking on the anonymous IDs and you will see that it is not possible as this is an image)
I eagerly await your reply to this post of mine.
. . . . . and another thing, you didn't want to include item specifics for privacy reasons . . . . . but did not hesitate to divulge information (listing number) in your other thread that was still an 'unresolved situation' at the time you posted that item number 
So much for being concerned about the possibility of transaction interference when posting on these boards !
