sellers Shill bidding

[cyclone_yasi]

Hi all i have noticed quite a number of the Chinese sellers seem to be involved in shill bidding, you watch their auctions and almost like clockwork and amount of around $120 will be withdrawn in the last 30 seconds of the auction.

They all seem to have private listings so you cannot see it is the same person bidding on the items all of the time.

If you confront a seller about it  of course they deny all knowledge of it and play the "dumb" card, then complain that they are the victims! not the poor person who is bidding on an item, only to have it increase in price because of a sellers bid.

Here is a clear example,

Bid retraction and cancellation history

Bidder Action Date of Bid and Retraction

private listing - bidders' identities protected

Cancelled:

AU $121.00

Bid:

18 Sep 2018 at 21:45:37 AEST

Cancelled:

20 Sep 2018 at 19:12:10 AEST

[kopenhagen5]

Many members stay away from anything that remotely looks like an Asian seller.

[davewil1964]

As Kopes said - if you don't buy from Chinese sellers, you will

a) More likely get quality;

b) Won't have to put up with their shilling.

That's not saying there aren't other shillers out there, but the prevalence is far less than buyers seem to think.

[lyndal1838]

Wow....do you ever leave anything but negative feedback?

If your transactions are all so bad it seems to me that you should give up buying from Chinese sellers.

[davewil1964]

13 of the last 100 were positive. They obviously consider a 13% success rate acceptable. After all, a penny saved is a penny earned. At about 2 per hour, considering the time spent.

[springyzone]

I had not thought to look that up but it does seem the most recent 2 or 3 pages are all negs.

But they are also for the same handful of sellers. 

It might be a good idea in future, if the buyer still wants to buy from China, to buy just one or two items from a seller & see how those transactions go before buying any more. Certainly not to go buying about 100 things until he knows the seller is reliable.

I have had reasonably good experiences with Chinese sellers but I only buy small things, all other items I stick with Australian sellers.

If I suspected a seller of constantly shill bidding, I would not buy from them. I know this buyer would like to see the seller thrown off ebay but if they are in China, it probably isn't going to happen.

[*tippy*toes*]

What I find hard to believe is, that someone with over 600 feedback still leaves feedback saying they were ripped off and lost their money. Why not just lodge an INR or SNAD. Insane!

[cezm]

The seller accused of shill bidding has positive feedback except for the 2 negs left by the buyer accusing of shill bidding (and 1 neutral for 'not exactly same colour as picture').

Aside from that seller, the buyer would be wise to read the seller's feedback and lodge INR or SNADs as suggested. I would have given up purchasing by now.

[collect247]

My special list is growing every day 

[springyzone]

I agree. If I had a run of purchases, dozens of them, where either the products didn't arrive at all, or I felt every time that they were rubbish & nothing like the ads, I would give up buying on ebay.

Or at the very least, I'd give up buying those particular types of products on ebay.

I had not read the neutral feedback but I do know it is hard sometimes to show exact colours in photos. You have to allow for slight variations, otherwise shop in person.

Most definitely, if items did not arrive, I'd be making a claim on each and every one of them. Personally I have found that now there is paypal, the incidence of things not arriving or not being sent has dropped to almost zero.