Shill bidding (probably been said before)

[deelighted206]

Hi there, 

Where do you report obvious shill bidding? I've sent a message through help for buyers of all things...  The bidders 30 day history is 100% history with this seller, 707 bids on 387 items.... questionable surely? They put the price up on several items considerably over the course of this evening. Fascinating.

Not.

Ebay seems extremely disinterested in assisting with anything these days. *grumbles*

[*sparklz*]

Higher prices means more more money for ebay.

But it is hard to prove shill bidding and ebay do not seem to take reports seriously like they did years ago.

avoid that seller is your best option.

[deelighted206]

Thanks for posting. Those were my thoughts re the increased money.  

I'll definitely avoid the seller. I'll keep trying to find the appropriate place to report it though. 

[kopenhagen5 · Accepted solution]

Every listing has a report link with a specific sub category for shilling.

I think it's, 'seller using other accounts to inflate price' or similar.

[deelighted206]

Hey thanks, I tried the report item link.

The three options don't refer to suspected shilling/ suspicious bid history.

As far as I can tell it's another ebay dead end.

If this is genuine shilling, then it's amounting to theft as far as I'm concerned. 

[deelighted206]

Whoops amend that, had another look and found it this time - thanks Kop 😉

[papermoon.lady]

Last month or so I was looking at a rare antique item, then I looked at the seller's sold items list to see the prices they usually achieved at auctions and to my surprise I saw the rare item. At first I thought the seller was selling fake items, then I looked at the winner and the winner had 100% activity with this seller, pushing prices up at every single auction. And yes, that bidder had won the auction, so that's why the seller relisted it.

Exactly after that I don't know if someone else noticed and complained, but the seller started to hide the bidders to protect their identity.

The option to protect bidders' identity  private listings) seems to allow  shill bidders to hide their activities, although there are also many honest sellers I trust who use it,

[deelighted206]

Well, as an addendum, I heard nothing from ebay through the report item link. 

I got a dumb eBay response through the help me I'm a poor stupid buyer button which basically said we are taking you very seriousbly but we can do nothing, tell you nothing ...  😕

The seller is still up to her tricks.  The bidder I've pegged as a shill bidder pushs the item routinely up to over $30 and then lets it go. I just don't believe that a seller who has say forty items for sale on any one day, has had a bidder who has bid several hundred times on over three hundred items, exclusively to that seller is bona fide. (There are a handful of other lesser bidders too, all with 100% bids on that seller - I mean seriously?!). 

Hopefully lots of people are looking at the bid history wondering why the price suddenly went through the roof in the few hours before the item ending. And why items are endlessly re-listed (and with higher starting prices /buy it now prices this time around).  😕

Urgh. 

[lyndal1838]

A bidder with 100% bids with the one seller means nothing.

If they are only bidding on a few items in a month it stands to reason that they are all with the same seller.

Late last year I was bidding on a series of similar items from one seller only.....my record showed as 100% bidding with the one seller but I was certainly not shill bidding.

Someone who places one bid on one item in a month will have 100% with that seller but they are not shill bidding.