Shill bidding?

[lolobgo]

Hi Guys,

I've been bidding on an item that has been removed before the end of the auction once before, and the guy relisted it. The guy has a 0 Feedback rate.... i thought it might have just been a newbee seller.....

 Once again i bid on it, but was outbid in the last 5 minutes.... That was all good as i didn't want to pay that much anyway... but then i looked at the winners bidding details.... I dunno if i am reading this wrong, or there is shill bidding going on... 

heres the details

30-Day Summary Total bids: 18 Items bid on: 7 Bid activity (%) with this seller: 100% Bid retractions: 0 Bid retractions (6 months): 0 Vehicle Parts & Accessories > Other 1 Seller 1 <1h Vehicle Parts & Accessories > Classic, Vintage Parts 2 Seller 1 2d 7h Vehicle Parts & Accessories > Vintage Car & Truck Parts 1 Seller 1 1d 15h Vehicle Parts & Accessories > Engines, Components 10 Seller 1 1d 16h Vehicle Parts & Accessories > Other 1 Seller 1 2d 22h Vehicle Parts & Accessories > Engines, Components 1 Seller 1 2d Vehicle Parts & Accessories > Other 2 Seller 1 1d 23h I read that as the winning bidder has only bid on this particular sellers items.....  And bid on all 7 of his items?  Am i reading that info right? do you guys reckon it's shill bidding?  Thanks

[countessalmirena]

The bidder has only bid on 2 items over the 30-day period, having made a total of 5 bids. No bid retractions over a 12-month period. The 80% bid activity does not look suspicious to me in the light of those considerations.

[padi*0409]

"I tried to report a similar situation where a "buyer" had bid 80% of the time with the seller."

No, that bidder put 4 bids on that item and 1 bid on another item, that does not mean they've bid 80% of the time on that seller's items. They've had no bid retractions which can indicate shill bidding, so I'm not surprised eBay took no action on your complaint.

If you're really concerned about the possibility of shill bidding just bid at the last minute on items, not on the day the listing opens.

............or are you just peeved that the bidder was raising the anti for you ????????

G'day countess.  

[countessalmirena]

Good day, padi. <-- Just a little cash to make us all feel stimulated.

[repentatleisure1952]

That's good to know.

On those "other forums" do you also reply to people who posted seven years ago?

[padi*0409]

Countess, we could get 5 times the amount of the new RED ones out of those you know............

[4channel]

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@sloanranger62 wrote:

(763feedbacks star level)
In response to lolobgo

on ‎12-02-2014 09:56 AM

I had the same experience several months ago bidding on stairs & concluded that with little doubt that it was shill bidding. When I posted to this board that I suspected SHELL BIDDING I was castigated uphill and downdale for even thinking it! If you search this board you will see how nasty it got.

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Some sellers can have at least 3 of their sock-puppets bidding in their own auctions. It may not be immediately obvious due to them using the sockpuppets for other transactions.

[4channel]

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@lolobgo wrote:

Hi Guys,

I've been bidding on an item that has been removed before the end of the auction once before, and the guy relisted it. The guy has a 0 Feedback rate.... i thought it might have just been a newbee seller.....

 Once again i bid on it, but was outbid in the last 5 minutes.... That was all good as i didn't want to pay that much anyway... but then i looked at the winners bidding details.... I dunno if i am reading this wrong, or there is shill bidding going on... 

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Hi, I think the best you can do at this stage is just watch the seller for a while to see if there's a pattern and the use of sock-puppets to bump up the bids.

[padi*0409]

4chan, I guess you didn't notice that the 2 members you replied to posted over 6 YEARS AGO, so your replies are pretty much irrelevant and have no bearing on the post that alancooper made when he bumped the thread, and which shows no evidence of shill bidding at all. Did you even read the replies countess and myself made to that ?

Just saying........................

[springyzone]

Shill bidding definitely happens, plus there are some dodgy things being sold on ebay, especially if you're looking at buying from China.

But the example you gave to illustrate shill bidding might not actually be shill bidding. people sometimes put in multiple bids on the same item and if you're buying one item from a seller, you might find yourself interested in other items from that seller as well, especially if they are in a  similar category.

So for example, if the seller was selling off a few camera items or lenses, a buyer may have a flurry of bidding on those things.

Where I'd be suspicious is where the same person bids on a whole range of things from the same seller and doesn't win, even retracts bids if they look in danger of winning, or if you see they have 'won' something that may eg be second hand but it magically appears for sale again a little while later.

[*tippy*toes*]

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@alanccooper wrote:

I tried to report a similar situation where a "buyer" had bid 80% of the time with the seller.  eBay were not interested as the transaction had ended.  How serious are they in trying to stamp out shill bids?

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A few years ago, I was buying a truckload of stuff from a Chinese seller (reputable, over 200,000 feedback and no negs for over 10 years, and even then, it was only one before that). They ran mostly auctions. There were a few things I didn't want, but most I was interested in (collectables), so would place bids at the auction end. Some I won, some I didn't.

If you had looked at my stats, you would have seen "total bids, 500. Items bid on, 400. Bid activity with this seller, 100%". It would have been like that for well over a year. To the untrained eye, I could have been labelled a shill bidder. The big difference being, the seller wasn't relisting items. Very rarely there would be a non payer, which of course they would relist, but it wasn't the same or next day. It was minimum 2 weeks after the sale.

Just because a buyer has 100% activity with one seller, doesn't mean they are a shill bidder. Especially if they have no bid retractions. That is usually the give away.

No "sock puppetry" happening here (whatever the heck a sock puppet is).