Shill bidding

siouxsie · Post by **siouxsie** » Mon Jul 05, 2010 7:11 pm

Mods, if this is in the wrong place please move to the appropriate forum.

I am in an auction currently, where the high bidder is a person with zero feedback and his stats show he has only bid on 5 items, all with the same seller. It is suspicious, don't you think? The items he has bid on are 4 different categories, very different things. It's not like they're all shaving related.

I have reported it, but we will see what the auction site does, if anything. I imagine it is hard to prove, if that is in fact what is happening.

Does anybody have any experience with this? I suspect it happens more often than we would like to believe.

KAV · Post by **KAV** » Mon Jul 05, 2010 7:42 pm

1. It's a shill

2. Auction websites take care of audtion websites.

3. Unless your spirit guide is a magpie set YOUR maximum price.

4. Few people have been found hanging near their monitor with a YOU'VE BEEN OUTBID AND DIDN'T WIN THE AUCTION or made homeless missing out on a NIB PEE WEE HERMAN doll.

brothers · Post by **brothers** » Mon Jul 05, 2010 7:53 pm

You're wise to trust your guts on this. If your instinct tells you there's something wrong, it probably is. Those guys aren't fooling anybody.

Changing subjects ever-so-slightly, never get into a bidding oneupmanship challenge. Some folks might put in a minimum bid at the beginning, or no bid at all, until you throw in your carefully calculated maximum bid via one of the excellent sniping services in the last 2 or 3 seconds before the auction ends. Those guys that think they have to have the high bid at all times are only wasting money. I think they call that "nibbling".

If I really want to be the winner, I can almost always make that happen. It's all about the money. There are too many folks interested in the auctions nowadays for anybody to get a steal.

siouxsie · Post by **siouxsie** » Tue Jul 06, 2010 6:26 pm

Well, the auction ended with me trying to snipe it but someone else went higher. In the end, the shill probably didn't influence the final price, but it is still unethical not to mention illegal. I don't know if they didn't get the report in time to do anything or if they decided NOT to do anything (the auction site).

KAV, I really don't know what to say about that post.

notthesharpest · Post by **notthesharpest** » Tue Jul 06, 2010 11:26 pm

siouxsie wrote:KAV, I really don't know what to say about that post.

I think KAV posted in his own invented language. I can translate at least partially:

Yes, that's obviously a shill. The auction site is not going to help you much because they are in this to make money for themselves, and not you. Don't get sucked in to bidding higher than you wanted to pay. Losing an auction is almost never a big deal.

AACJ · Post by **AACJ** » Wed Jul 07, 2010 4:27 am

I think this is an alright forum for this. I would also think it is most likely that the person selling the razor sells them as "better than new." This person has been a known shill on ebay and has even come to this and other shaving sites to either buy them cheap and resell them on ebay or sell them overpriced on the forums.

siouxsie · Post by **siouxsie** » Wed Jul 07, 2010 4:59 am

It was a DE razor and the seller was eager to add to the listing something like "contains original cartridge razor blade.".....

There sat an old Super Blue Blade. I told him to take it out and throw it away and send me a pic, which he did, but I'm sure he put it back in and whoever gets it, if they're like me, will forget that the dingus shipped with a razor blade in it.

So I'm not sure if this seller knows much about razors but maybe it's all an elaborate ruse.

I had posted in the General forum but someone moved it for me pretty quick.

Squire · Post by **Squire** » Wed Jul 07, 2010 7:38 am

Scott this stuff is common and ebay apparently doesn't care.

jtpca · Post by **jtpca** » Wed Jul 07, 2010 10:29 am

Squire wrote:Scott this stuff is common and ebay apparently doesn't care.

+1 - Ebay does not care. If you pay through Paypal and are taken, they might care for five minutes. Then they join the latter.

KAV · Post by **KAV** » Wed Jul 07, 2010 12:06 pm

I won an auction for a First Edition. Before I even walked out the door to send off a money order, theseller had an identical volume posted. I emailed and asked if there was any difference in condition? I was assured all 24 volumes were NIB! I bid on a reprint. I explained I was collecting true 1st ED and asked to cancel the sale. He got mad, left negative feedback. I left negative feedback. The next thing I know it's gone to arbitration. The bobblehead didn't have a clue what a 1st edition meant, telling me I could still read the book. We went through 5 exchanges and I refused to withdraw my feedback ( I posted these were reprint facsimilies.)
A month later I again am contacted by an arbitrater, refused to reopen the 'case.' His negative feedback was deleted.Mine remained.
When Meg Whitman sends me voting materials I am returning them via Postal Form 1500 for pornographic materials.

siouxsie · Post by **siouxsie** » Thu Jul 08, 2010 8:12 pm

I am watching the guy to see if they do anything. His auctions all ended today with no new ones. We'll see, but I have a small hope of repercussions.

siouxsie · Post by **siouxsie** » Fri Jul 23, 2010 12:36 am

I think this seller may have at least been suspended, since he has not listed anything since that batch of auctions ran their course, and that doesn't fit his pattern.

paydepst · Post by **paydepst** » Tue Jul 27, 2010 8:23 am

A while back I ran across a guy that was running a scam on Ebay. He did tremendous volume and as a result had a high feedback rating but that was deceptive. If I had bothered to open the feedback descriptions I would have seen he was averaging about 10-15 negatives a month! That should have alerted Ebay but no he's a POWER SELLER and putting plenty of cash in their pocket on commissions. The thing is he had so many sales that quite a few people fell through the cracks and didn't get their merchandise--like me. Of course he never responded to messages through Ebay and he ignored the PayPal dispute for three days. This is where the scam comes in. The guy would refund the money and ask you to tell Ebay that you didn't want the item which of course puts the buyer in violation of the contract. He then has the nerve to ask that you agree to a retraction of the negative feedback since you have your money back--never mind that you've blindly walked into a situation where he could leave negative feedback on you if he chose. I reported this to Ebay as well. He had obviously been doing this for a while otherwise he wouldn't have proposed it and there must have been a number of people out there foolish enough to go along with it. He no longer sells on Ebay--at least not under that name anyway.

Caveat emptor as they say!