What would you do? Opinions wanted

[markf31]

Originally Posted by Bliggity

He can do this by bidding in the minimum possible increments and seeing where the next auto-bid from the high bidder comes in. If the current bid is $500, the shiller bids $505, and the auto-bid moves to $510, then the shiller knows he can take it another step. But, if the current bid is $500, the shiller bids $505, and the auto-bid moves to $507, the shiller will know he has almost reached the winner's top bid, and will not bump the bid again.

It seems obvious what is going on here. I would out the seller here so that we can all avoid him. And just another example of why I only snipe-bid on eBay.

Not even one win though in 195 items that were bid on, makes this even more strange and odd to me. I understand the scenario you laid out but on 195 items bid on, the odds of never once winning by accident seems incredibly small.

Take your example of a auction currently at $500. Ebay bidding increments state (I think) that the next bid has to be at least $10 over, so if they try to shill bid at $510, it is entirely possible the previous high bid was only $505 and now the shill becomes the high bidder. But that never once happened on 195 items and 833 bids.

I do believe something is up here, but I dont think its as straight forward as blind shill bidding.

[cardinalcollector]

Jantz, look up the seller and shillers IDs on Ebay and see where their locations are. If they are both from the same location, that would be very telling.

[botn]

Originally Posted by cardinalcollector

Jantz, look up the seller and shillers IDs on Ebay and see where their locations are. If they are both from the same location, that would be very telling.

That cannot be done any longer since ebay has blocked buyer ids to everyone but the seller of the particular item. Has only succeeded in allowing stuff like this to go on regularly on ebay.

[orly57]

What would I do? I would pay for the card that I bid on. I would pay the price I willingly agreed to pay for a card I wanted. Then I would either never buy from that seller, or bid carefully in his future auctions.

[pokerplyr80]

Originally Posted by orly57

What would I do? I would pay for the card that I bid on. I would pay the price I willingly agreed to pay for a card I wanted. Then I would either never buy from that seller, or bid carefully in his future auctions.

I'd probably do the same. If I was bothered enough to create a thread about an issue like this I would also include the seller's eBay id so the rest of the community here can avoid this guy.

[CTDean]

So the possible shill bidder has no bid retractions for the auction. Does the auction show any retracted bids from anyone else? It could be done with multiple people. One bids & retracts immediately to find the max bid, and could then pass that number to the shill bidder.

[Rhotchkiss]

Originally Posted by orly57

What would I do? I would pay for the card that I bid on. I would pay the price I willingly agreed to pay for a card I wanted. Then I would either never buy from that seller, or bid carefully in his future auctions.

I agree 100% with this. You bid on the card and you won it, at a price you were willing to pay. Chances are you got shilled, live with it, and live and learn: (i) dont buy from this seller anymore, and (ii) why on earth does anyone in an ebay auction ever bid a dime unless its 4 or less seconds before the auction ends??

That said, sure report the seller just in case this is happening. But you should honor your contract.

[bnorth]

Originally Posted by markf31

Not even one win though in 195 items that were bid on, makes this even more strange and odd to me. I understand the scenario you laid out but on 195 items bid on, the odds of never once winning by accident seems incredibly small.

Take your example of a auction currently at $500. Ebay bidding increments state (I think) that the next bid has to be at least $10 over, so if they try to shill bid at $510, it is entirely possible the previous high bid was only $505 and now the shill becomes the high bidder. But that never once happened on 195 items and 833 bids.

I do believe something is up here, but I dont think its as straight forward as blind shill bidding.

I hate to add to Dan's description on how to shill bid. The part you are not understanding is even if the shill bidder does accidentally become the top bidder in the last day. They still have all the snipe bidders to fall back on. Thats right snipe bidding helps shillers sometimes. Even if knowing how to shill up to a persons top bid and the snipers don't save one of your shilling accounts from winning, they can just cancel the transaction with themselves/friend.