[Dale]

G'day,

An astute Ebayer has published an interesting essay on the practice of shilling in Aus.

Link

Really fascinating

[Gooshin]

thats a long read holy shit

[Dale]

Yeah,

A bit over long, he needs an editor. Still, just another way to get e-fleeced.

[ve2vfd]

I was a good read nonetheless...

I've always suspected some vendors of shilling their bets... thats why I ONLY bid on an item in the last seconds of a sale (sniping). If I don't get the item, then oh well... maybe next time.

Bidding early and entering a maximum bid is a sure way to rapidly increase the price of an item. That defeats the purpose of auction buying (where the point is lwest possible cost to me as a buyer!)

My 2 cents

Pat

[whojammyflip]

Maybe this is a better example of potential shill bidding: item 120455680363, 35 bids, look at the bids from bidder 9 against bidder 6. Bidder 6, no track record, enters a high starting bid, bidder 9 chases it up with 10 bids. This is obviously cheaper than putting in a reserve for an item. And who pays GBP60 for a lens which normally sells for GBP30....

My tips for bidding
1) Always snipe
2) Check the sellers previous auction bid histories. Funny bid patterns with prices sky high and many small incremental bids to buyers with low ratings are a bad sign
3) If you are going to enter a bid in the middle of the auction, make it the lowest possible. Then a shill bidder can only bid once to be the best bid, and will be forced to stop shilling
4) If you expect there is a shill bidder in the auction you are in, the price is higher than it should be. Stop bidding.
5) Watch items in groups and avoid ones which are too high relative to the other auctions

[K-9]

The person posting that would have done a lot better if he had stayed away from using "and ebay knows it" several times over. At least say something like "ebay must know this is happening" as you are just sounding slanderous otherwise.

I always bid in the final seconds, and I have noticed it is pretty odd when someone makes an auction private when it's not adult or possible embarrassing things up for sale. I have to be more cautious about those, as I have bid on one or two items lately which were just normal things and the seller marked the bidders identities as private for no apparent reason. I didn't really think of it until now.

I don't like the 2nd chance offers, as it doesn't tell you if the high bidder didn't pay or if the seller just had a 2nd one. If the high bidder didn't come through, I would tell the seller I would only buy it for one bid increment over the 3rd highest bidder, because if the high bidder never bid, I wouldn't have been paying one increment below them.

Just bid last minute, and don't bid more than what you want to pay. With mobile phone access, I can just bid even when I'm not home so I don't have to bid 4 hours early and get bumped up.

[whojammyflip]

Shill bidding up to GBP 55 or USD 100 for a Vivitar 28mm f2.8. Check out the history on ebay.co.uk:

120517011278

7 incremental bids from a bidder with no history, in the middle of the auction, driving up a resting bid some unwitting buyer stuck in from the get go.

[PhilipCohen]

<b>eBay: Dead Man Walking</b>

Let me then cut straight to the chase with a simple statement from an ex regular eBay user’s point of view: eBay (aka “the eBafia”) is a criminal organization!

How could that be, you ask? Well, with some effort and some multi-auction analysis, it can be very clearly demonstrated (see the below link) that shill bidding fraud by unscrupulous professional sellers, at least on nominal-start auctions, is rampant on eBay auctions, and the executives “in the know” at eBay, unless they are actually as stupid as they apparently think all we simple consumers are, cannot but be aware of that criminal activity. And yet they do nothing proactive nor truly effective to prevent such criminal activity—indeed, they have done the very opposite, they have introduced a non-unique masking of bidding IDs, which serves no purpose other than to further obscure such criminal activity and aid and abet said unscrupulous sellers to, by fraudulent means, maximize their sale prices, thus maximizing eBay’s FVF. (It’s even worse in the UK, where buyers have effectively got absolutely no chance of detecting the unscrupulous professional sellers that infest eBay auctions.)
AuctionBytes :: View topic - Why is the ?eBafia Don? killing eBay?

It’s called “criminal facilitation” and, in most civilized countries, anyone who knowingly facilitates such criminal activity is also considered to be a criminal. It’s as simple as that! Is it any wonder that buyers are staying away and this business is now going down the toilet?

PayPal is a banking-type service, a service that would be more competently carried out under the auspices of the banking community via their credit card company partners. Without the bankers’ knowledge of the entities involved in the transactions, PayPal will always be handicapped—even more so while under the management of such incompetents as those who currently control eBay.

The head turkey at eBay, “Noise” Donahoe, will occasionally talk of the possibility of selling off PayPal because he is just barely smart enough to know that when the major credit card companies do get off their butts and introduce a like card/terminal-less payments system to complement their credit card system, they will do it properly, and the “clunky” PayPal will then sink like a stone—other than, possibly, on what is by then left of the Donahoe-ever-shrinking eBay marketplace.

From an ex regular buyer’s point of view, an introduction to an introduction to the full sad story at
AuctionBytes :: View topic - eBay: ?Dead Man Walking?