shill bidding

[56bsadave]

is shill bidding is it illegal

[foxette-in-sox]

Its against ebay policy.

[56bsadave]

and yet so rampant, is ebay turning a blind eye, for the sake of $$$$ in listing and other fees.

not to mention the one's how list (private listing - bidders' identities protected) which makes it impossible for the public to keep check on them ?

[leader-of-the-band]

my wife has some of those private listings, but they are Buy-Nows.  Sellers use that format for a variety of reasons.  Some include selling items that are personal  (health care products) or sensitive (sexy underwear) or valuable/collectable (coins or banknotes).

Don't think that it is done for the express purpose of shill bidding.  The thing you should look at on those private auctions is the time of bidding as this can be a way of looking for suspect bidding.

Bottom line is, report the seller to eBay if you think shilling is taking place.  They will look at the eBay ID and ISP used for the selling and bidding and take action if it turns out to be shill bidding.

I think you would be surprised how many posters come here to complain about shill bidding that turns out not to be shill bidding after all.  The private listing format just lends itself to suspicion, but is a valid listing format.

[polocross58]

Well, I've let half a dozen items go their merry way in the past couple of weeks, because it's been my opinion  (based on 10 plus years of ebaying under 10 years of IDs) that the seller and/or his buddies have been shill bidding

Out of all the many, many items for sale on ebay, those on my Watchlist would comprise maybe .00000001%.   I don't believe only the items I'm interested in are victim to shill bids.  Therefore, on percentages alone, yes, I suspect shill-bidders ARE 'rampant' on ebay.  And no, I do not believe ebay gives a toss

It's ebay which loses, of course.  But greed blinds

Sellers don't want to pay the fee for listing the item at a realistic start price.  So ebay loses there

The shill-bidding seller believes he's a real smart cookie by listing for 99 cents, after which, like the genius he/she obviously believes him/her self to be, the seller then attempts to shill-bid the item UP to (and, they hope, even higher) than what would have been a realistic start-price

And the same 'genius' shill-bidding seller believes buyers are total fools and won't wake up to it

Pretty sad, huh?  They hover over their screen, waiting for unsuspecting bidders to place a bid, in order they (shill-bidder) can 'outbid' all genuine bids.  Wow, what an original scheme.  No one will work it out.  And gee, who knows, they might manage to shill bid that item up into the millions -- then they can quit work, buy a penthouse in Surfers and place an order for a red Ferrari --- right ?

Wrong.  The big world is not a total fool and sees through their idiot plan, resulting in the shill bidder receiving far less, in many cases, than if they'd simply listed the item at a realistic start-price to begin with

But will shill bidders learn ? Probably not.  Because many of them are crooks by nature.  'Getting away with stuff' is what turns them on - in the same way many steal from shops or from work.  They LIKE being underhanded.  It's the demon-gene which drives them, it was born in them.  So in addition to refusing to play their twisted little games, I decline to buy their stuff because it's tainted with their sickness and I don't want it anywhere near me

[thecatspjs]

I list several auctions at a time at 99c starts to clear stock and generate interest in my other listings - NO shill bidding involved !

I am comfortable that I am likely to be out of pocket on the final price for an individual item - but the additional exposure on ebay that I gain from these listings ( supported by views, watchers & traffic patterns) is well worth it.

Most of my 99c auctions only achieve a low price between 99c and $10 - being significantly lower than the price I would achieve if listing as a buy-it-now.  There are also those that achieve fantastic, unexpected final sale prices 🙂 particularly those with two bidders going head to head to win or others who have placed a high bid to begin with and are nibble bid up by others.

Whatever the final price achieved there is significant value there for my business to continue to run these 99c listings - so for me "the realistic start price" that you refer to is actually 99c 😄

[lyndal1838]

You are probably letting good buys get away if you really believe there is so much shill bidding going on.

Just place your highest bid in the last few minutes/seconds of the auction and the shillers will not have time to push the bidding up.

[*sparklz*]

A seller had bid on every single one of his own listings with his buying ID and his wifes ID making him pay a huge amount in fees by winning his own auctions.

He even left and received FB for them with in minutes of winning his own items.

After being reported he was banned from listing for 2 weeks.

[kopenhagen5]

Not that ebay doesn't give two hoots, it's logistics.

They simply can't use the man hours to check before reported.

I know random checks are done.

[***super_nova***]

Not that ebay doesn't give two hoots, it's logistics.

They simply can't use the man hours to check before reported.

I know random checks are done.

I believe there are bots looking for suspicious connections between computers; but if somebody shill bids from totally unconnected computer from somebody else's house, it is not possible to detect or prove.  But buyers, mostly,  are not stupid and will stop bidding if the item is going over what it is worth.  And if somebody gets caught, they do get de-registered. 

i think lot of shill bidding would be stopped if eBay offered reserve price for more expensive items.  Maybe reserve could be set for minimum of $100.  Sellers believe they will attract more bidders if they start low, but cannot afford to give stock away bellow cost, so they do their own reserve price by having somebody place a bid.  But of-course, there are many people who want to get items for nothing or at least fraction of the real value.  If one person gets a great bargain that means somebody else's loss.

I also start some sale items at 99c just to bring attention to my other items.  And I do list them as "private"  as I do not want people to be able to see for ever if it sold for well bellow my normal price.  I do not want people to say :  " why should I pay $275 when she sold one similar for 1/2 that". Although, most of the time the 99c items go for price pretty much around the normal mark.   And no I do not shill bid, I normally start at price I am happy with.