Yep, another query about shill bidding

[asianantiquemaps]

One of the sellers i used to buy from may be engaged in shill bidding. My suspicions were raised when I saw that one bidder had 100% bidding with this same seller, low feedback score ( in the low 20's) but had never left any feedback on anything bought ( because, presumably, the transaction never went thru) and had never received feedback from the seller either for anything bought.

The bid style of the suspected shill bidder is definitely to always wait till there are one or more bids, then bid up but never place a late bid. Well, I played their game, bid my max a few hours early and lo and behold, the shiller bid not long after me. But I didnt bid again, so the suspected shiller won.

I think the 100% bidding with one seller must be a dead-set giveaway surely. But would like to hear your opinions. I did open a case with ebay as I reckon its being going on while from what I can see. BTW, its an overseas seller.

thoughts? or need more info?

[springyzone]

It sounds like it to me.

2 reasons.

The fact that there is no feedback at all after any supposed sale and the fact they consistently bid early, but never before someone else has bid.

It would be possible though for a person starting off in ebay to have bought from only one seller, if they had a particular interest in the type of product that seller had.

I love your strategy

But I wouldn't try it too often with this seller(unless it is for something you really want) or they will figure out you only bid once and they won't outbid you.

[mica357_4]

Yes, sounds suspicious, all you can do is refer the item and seller to eBay and leave it up to them to investigate. As a long term buyer I've seen pretty much all the scams and tricks. My advice is only to deal with reputable sellers and avoid obvious problem sellers. Certain items and certain country of origin should make "red light flash" ie don't buy apple products or designer items off eBay unless you can see that the seller is an established seller of authentic items and has the feedback numbers and positive comments to match. Otherwise you are just walking into a bad buying experience at best getting fake items, at worst getting nothing. And sadly, you can't always rely on PayPal to save you. Some of these sellers are super smart and super sneaky.

[kopenhagen5]

http://pages.ebay.com.au/help/policies/seller-shill-bidding.html