[sbfinley]

Honestly, I think more bids are retracted to scare bidders off an item than there are to inflate a hammer price. It's not spoke of as much as shill bidding, but yes plenty of people have alternate accounts just to bid and retract multiple times to thin the buyer pool. I've argue before, as many have, bid your max and forget about the rest. To me it's not worth losing sleep over if I overpaid by 20% on a baseball card. To some it is, and they'll believe to the end it's bad for the hobby. It's no different than someone's political affiliation. Those that believe it's a minor nuisance will likely always believe that and those believe it's systemic cancer will also always hold that point of view. EBay isn't going to change their business model in a way that negatively affect their bottom line and an upstart competitor can't take their business without massive capital, at which point it would more than likely be eBay 2.0. I'm interested to hear Brent changes, but based upon the setup site he uses, it can likely only stunt the problem.