Suspected Shill Bidding

I'm sure shill bidding happens very frequently, i've caught people out on a couple of occasions. At the moment i've been bidding on 2 light shades, I was outbid to $46, then the person that bid retracted their bid so I was winning at $41.... I suspected shill bidding so my initial course of action was to retract my bid, they were again winning at $39... The next morning I checked they had again retracted their bid, I was winning at $11.50.. I decided to increase my bid & put in my maximum bid, I also reported the member to ebay.. They say there is no suspiciousness here, they are not connected with the seller, this bidder has 49 bid retractions in the last 6 months..



This same bidder has again bid but not above my initial bid, so from where i'm sitting they are trying to increase the bids but don't want the shades..



I again rang ebay this am, they say nothing suspicious..



It's not rocket science, dodgy going on's here!!

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Re: Suspected Shill Bidding

The trouble is unless the bidder is in some way connected to the seller, there is no proof.  If such bidding was sufficient to punish sellers, it would be the easiest way to deal with competition.  All what people would have to do is to get account in their granma's name, and do bit of shilling/retracting on their competitor's items.



To avoid shilling, most experienced eBayers only bid in the last seconds with their max price; no chance of somebody shill bidding them up.

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Voltaire: โ€œThose Who Can Make You Believe Absurdities, Can Make You Commit Atrocitiesโ€ .
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Re: Suspected Shill Bidding

Can you give the full item title so we can check it out.



Sounds to me more like somebody just trying to find out your max bid than shill bidding but without being able to check it is hard to tell.



What was the rival bidder's percentage of bids with that particular seller.



Ebay can only act against shill bidding if there is proof and that means there has to be a point of commonality between the two accounts, same name, address, phone number or ip address, without that then they will not act.



I have never even looked to see if an item has been shilled, I use a snipe program to bid what I consider a reasonable price 10 seconds from the end and if I win then I have only paid what i thought it was worth.

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Re: Suspected Shill Bidding

I believe I was hooked in with shil bidding, as a very new Bidder


this bidding, in the last minute, on a very ordinary set of Pearls,


I bid in the last minute $4,000, by mistake, then the bids went
$150,$200, $220. I won the bid as I had put in $4.000 instead.



$40.00, that is all that this necklace was worth.
Why would anyone bid that much , when all the Sellers other pieces are paste jewellery worth app. $40.00.



I have checked all the pearl necklaces, and with a history, and
a guarantee, is worth app. $100.00 and upwards.






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Re: Suspected Shill Bidding

cherie, if you go back to the answer centre your question has been answered there.


I realize you have already paid for the items.


To reiterate, if you make an error in the bid you can retract the bid and enter the correct amount or if you win you can ask the seller to cancel and perhaps they can list one at your Buy it now price.


Make sure to use a fullstop between numbers as a comma doesn't register, a common mistake.


 

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