SHILL BIDDING SHOULD BE ILLEGAL! PLEASE HELP!

[kaos2015]

I want to report a member on behalf of my friend who was been trying to buy an item but the seller seems to be a scammer by driving up the prices with fake accounts. Maybe we are wrong and maybe we are not but-  it looks like a fishy and it smells like a fishy so it almost has to be fishy!

Item number: 181468915740

ITEM NUMBER 181 468 915 740 ( this is only one example- nearly every current listing has 2 bidders driving up prices on the sellers items and going through all the items in the feedback history the 2 bidders are constantly bidding)

They are using fake accounts to drive up the price and that is illegal!!!!! I think it is called shill bidding.

We have checked the sellers items sold, the number of bidders and all the feedback left and it DOES NOT MAKE SENSE!!!!

And the strange thing is these 2 bidders who have bid thousands of times on her items in 30 days cant be found in her feedback yet they are bidding large amounts but never seem to win or leave feedback. That is strange.

SELLER ID godblessmaria

We have gone through all the current listings and a lot of recent listings and it is the SAME BIDDERS ALWAYS DRIVING UP THE PRICES!!!

Currently 1 person bidding is b***0 (4) with 4 feedback.

In the last 30 days it says they have made 2282 bids on 451 items and 90% of the bid activity is with godblessmaria.

That DOES NOT MAKE SENSE that someone has made 2282 bids in ONE MONTH and only has a feedback of 4??????? They have made 2053 bids on godblessmaria listings and has only 4 feedback in one month?

ANOTHER bidder is g***i (48) with 48 feedback. In 30 days they have made 1493 bids on 426 items, 99% of them with godblessmaria. And only have a feedback of 48?????

This is shill bidding and is illegal and they are STEALING from other Ebay bidders by driving the prices up!!!

And they are not bidding small amount but large amounts!!!!!! Sometimes over $200

What we think they are doing is driving up the prices to MASSIVE amounts and then not completing the checkout- they are just paying the 10% fees and then giving second chance offers hence recovering the costs for the FVF transactions they never complete and STILL making sales with 'second chance offers'.

Is there anyway Ebay and Paypal can check that the sales made on Ebay through the possible fake bidders are actually getting completed through Paypal?

How is it that 2 people have made 3775 bids on ONE SELLER in ONE MONTH with a total feedback of only 52 between them???

THAT DOES NOT MAKE SENSE!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Why is this allowed to happen?

My friend wants to bid but it is plain to see that godblessmaria has people driving up prices with THOUSANDS of bids that never win!!!!!!!!

Please tell me what is going on! And please correct us if we are wrong

Thank you.

[i-love-my-sheep]

She's up to 25 new auctions now, and counting. There have been several reports put in about this account, so hopefully eBay does something. I think it took a bit over a week to get the others shut down, so it might just be a matter of waiting.

The other seller that I reported for shill bidding is still active and still listing and has still got the same low feedback 'buyers' bidding on his items. Might be time to put a new report in I think. He is low feedback (28), so I think it might be a feedback building exercise. These buyers have 'won' quite a few items, yet their feedback never increases, and his does......

[imastawka]

So,  I just had a look and, blow me down, ebay let her open a store!

Last time I looked she was a lowly 4fb selling BINs.   Now there's 25 auctions.

At least the USPS postage has been replaced with free express post

Wish I could find her B & M

[lalala-au]

This is disgraceful! I can't belive this.... How can Ebay allow this! No wonder they have such a bad rep in the media.

[i-love-my-sheep]

I think one of the other board members knew where her B&M store is.

She has a bid on one of her auctions....from a 0 FB bidder. I would take a wild guess and say she has opened a new account. Could just be to increase her lowly feedback score, but I guess we'll have to wait and see.

Given she has now opened a store, prior to listing the auctions, she would've had to pay for those listings wouldn't she?

I noticed that she is also selling on Gumtree, using her original name on here. On there, she also advertises that she sells on etsy, so she's definitely getting around!

[diecastcode3]

just come across this one item number 161387225958 shill bidding again this one is from nsw but do feel same seller 

[i-love-my-sheep]

That is the other seller that I have reported. I'm not sure it's blatant shill bidding because those 2 'buyers' seem to bid off against each other in every auction and end up winning every auction. I think in this case it could be a feedback building exercise as they still have low feedback.

If you go through all the sold listings for that seller, every single auction features those 2 bidders. Interesting how they have won so many items between them, yet none of them seem to have increasing feedback.

[cq_tech]

Bidder Information Bidder: h***k( 1 ) Feedback: 100%Positive Item description: Item Title: large thanka 50cm * 50cm. Beautiful thangka 18K gold mandala thanka Bids on this item: 2

30-Day Summary Total bids: 178 Items bid on: 20 Bid activity (%) with this seller: 100% Bid retractions: 0 Bid retractions (6 months): 0

Definitely a shill bidder. Look at the bid activity with the seller.

If we can see it, why the hell can't eBay? 😞

[cq_tech]

Bidder Information Bidder: u***3( 7 ) Feedback: 100%Positive Item description: Item Title: large thanka 50cm * 50cm. Beautiful thangka 18K gold mandala thanka Bids on this item: 3

30-Day Summary Total bids: 194 Items bid on: 30 Bid activity (%) with this seller: 87% Bid retractions: 0 Bid retractions (6 months): 0

This one is just as bad. I reckon it's beyond time that the police became involved as eBay clearly couldn't give a toss.

[i-love-my-sheep]

The reason I wasn't sure if it was shill bidding or a feedback building exercise was because those pair seem to win all the auctions. Rarely does someone else bid/and or win, which made me wonder if it was just a feedback building thing.

Either way, they are breaking the rules. EBay clearly doesn't want to act on this one.

[cq_tech]

Even if it is more a feedback building exercise than a specific attempt at shill bidding, if a genuine bidder should happen to jump into the fray and ultimately wins the auction, he will clearly be paying a hell of a lot more than he should be, in which case it then becomes shill bidding in the most accurate sense of the term.

I'm sure that if Tazz were to become involved and contact eBay and discuss the matter with them, the seller concerned would probably find themselves NARU in double-quick time. As they should.