Guess Who's Back in Business?

[i-love-my-sheep]

The main account of that person with the several shill bidding accounts that we uncovered last month, selling the Nepalese paintings, has had her main account reinstated. She is now selling across 2 accounts and her account that wasn't closed down has quite a few shill bidders going crazy. As usual, no amount of reporting to eBay is making any difference. They just don't want to know with this one and are quite happy to let her defraud innocent buyers.

[padi*0409]

When I first joined eBay it was a reasonably safe place to buy stuff, but now that eBay seem very reluctant to deal with blatant breaches of policy violations, it certainly does not appear to be so any more. ( I note also the ease at which buyers seem to be able to get strikes removed at the drop of a hat...............grrrrr....)

We have all seen the proliferation of scammers, shill bidders, serial bid retractors etc etc etc lately.

It's not even the novice buyers that are being caught, a lot of experienced buyers are as well.

Such is life in a virtual monopoly................................

[i-love-my-sheep]

I suppose the scammers think they are safe due to the size of eBay these days, thinking no-one will catch up with them. Sadly, they are everywhere. watch them come out of the woodwork when there's a disaster!

I still remember after the earthquake in Newcastle in '89, people were being scammed left right and centre by people claiming to be builders. The scammers have only got more brazen as time has gone on and now with the ability to do it online, they think they are immune.

[bakeandfry]

Zoom, its all gone over my head, I'm still non the wiser, I re- read it three times? Maybe layman terms could help? Buggerd if I know

[i-love-my-sheep]

Sorry, what's gone over your head? Shill bidding? Shill bidding is where a seller has multiple accounts which they use to bid on their own items to increase the price.

There was a seller who was caught out a couple of months ago and it was talked about at great length on this forum. The seller was reported and all her accounts except for one were shut down by eBay, after some excellent detective work by forum members working out the identity of her fake accounts. We didn't know about that other account at the time. She started trading again on her remaining account, which it seems lately, she is up to her old tricks again. 

This account only had feedback left for others from for her main and secondry selling account which were closed down. When I checked the main account last night, I noticed that the formally shut down account is now active again and she is selling on it again. Interestingly, the same 0 or low feedback buyers are bidding on her items on that account too.

The issue is, she has been reported multiple times for this offence by numerous forum members, which isn't just an eBay offence, she is actually committing fraud, and no amount of reporting is seeing her shut down. Hence our reasoning that she is one of eBay protected ones, who can commit as many offences and breaches of policy as they like, and there are no repurcussions.

[i-love-my-sheep]

Here is the link to the original thread. It's 7 pages long, but you should get an idea of what's going on.

http://community.ebay.com.au/t5/Selling/SHILL-BIDDING-SHOULD-BE-ILLEGAL-PLEASE-HELP/m-p/1399465#M664...

[bakeandfry]

Ahh, understand shill bidding now. Thankyou. Although I wasn't aware anyone could have more than one account.

[i-love-my-sheep]

You can have more than one account, as long as they all have a different email address. Plenty of sellers have multiple accounts. You just can't use them to bid on your other accounts to increase auction prices.

[2106greencat]

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@i-love-my-sheep wrote:

You can have more than one account, as long as they all have a different email address. Plenty of sellers have multiple accounts. You just can't use them to bid on your other accounts to increase auction prices.

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or to interact with one another regarding feedback swapping etc

[cq_electrical]

Furthermore, if you have a number of accounts and one or more of them is suspended or made NARU (Not A Registered User) it is against eBay's rules to use any of your other accounts at the same time, yet it clearly made no difference to her (and as usual, ebay stupidly allowed her to continue unabated despite her being reported numerous times for doing so). Seems that some members here really are protected. 😞

[i-love-my-sheep]

Not only that, after her other account were NARU'd, they let her open a store on her remaining account!

Some examples 191308253894 and 191305518620 and 191303825311 and 191303450306. The bidder with the private feedback had 0 feedback before they went private. You will find the same bidders on nearly every auction. Funny how their feedback never increases, despite them 'buying' lots of stuff.

Some have appeared to bid on unrelated items and I wonder if that's just a decoy so they don't all appear to be only bidding on her items. Even then, despite bidding on other auctions, their feedback still never increases.

Another thing that makes me REALLY angry is, she is listing a lot of her stuff under the Aboriginal painting category, on both accounts.

You can find her other account under feedback left for others. The account that was reinstated.