Bidding on Ebay is a waste of time!

[san_us_rf7t8lazel]

Nothing I will post will come as a surprise. But, DO NOT USE THE BIDDING SYSTEM! Sellers allow private bidders. What that means is that the seller can set up private accounts as a guest to eBay to bid. They do this for high dollar items they want to get the most $$$ .  

PAY ATTENTION: when you bid, if you see any bidders with a number or a letter with periods in between, don't waste your time. No matter what you do, even if you increase your bid by thousands, you will always lose in the final seconds. 

GHOST BIDDING AND SHILL BIDDING. 

Ebay allows for ghost bidding. The seller can set up those private accounts, OR, professional collectors and auction houses do the bidding using private bidding. You will see 1...7private or a....n, or 1...4 to begin the bidding. You may see a couple of these typical private identifiers, as you bid your heart out for the item.

Open up two pages or two tabs at the end of the bidding, around 10 minutes. On the page that has the item listed in line order keep refreshing until the final 20 seconds. Go back and forth to the second tab and type in an amount you are willing to increase your bid to, so you can win! HA. That way you can click increase bid as soon as see that the listing was removed on the first page, the system removes it early so these private bidders who outbid you are not outbid by you when you get down to the final 5 seconds. 

NOTICE: what happens is that the system will change in 3 seconds before the end and you may think you are the highest bidder. NOPE, the private bid will show up in 1 second and unless you clicked on increase bid at the 4 second mark, you have no chance to win! EVER!  

I have followed this and bid on items only to see this same pattern. Rare to win any bid on any high priced or highly sought after item. Bidding on anything with more than 30 bidders is a waste of time. The system is just like Vegas, and every Casino, you won't win! 

Who wins? The seller, h is the higher bidder and now can place the item up for auction for a higher price on a legitimate site. You will never ever know just how this private bidding garbage involves. Dirty like many things in our modern world. 

[ebooksdiva]

What you are referring to is called shill bidding and is not allowed as well as illegal. 
As far as eBay IDs go all user IDs are masked. eBay started masking IDs years ago. 
If you see private next to a bid, that means the auction you are bidding on is set as private by the seller. 
If you are outbid within the last seconds of the auction that only means you were outbid by a sniper.

[mudshark61369]

@san_us_rf7t8lazel,

"Sellers allow private bidders. What that means is that the seller can set up private accounts as a guest to eBay to bid. They do this for high dollar items they want to get the most $$$". 

People who sign in as a guest cannot bid on ebay auctions, or make Offers. They can only buy from Buy It Now listings.  Do an online  search for "Buying as a guest, eBay".

"when you bid, if you see any bidders with a number or a letter with periods in between, don't waste your time. No matter what you do, even if you increase your bid by thousands, you will always lose in the final seconds". 

On an item's bid history, all bidders will see other member's usernames are broken down into the a***b format, while their full username is shown. If you have an auction you bid on still saved, and post its ebay item number we can open the bid history and show you what your username is by looking for your feedback number in (  ) after the scrambled a***b  name.

If you place a bid and are immediately out bid, you have bid against an earlier automatic bid for a higher amount.  If you only increase your bid by the next highest increment shown, what you are doing is known as Nibble bidding, which means you will always be reacting to other's bids, and when met by higher bid in the last seconds you will not have time to react. Usually when you bid early on an auction against other people the number to the right of their a***b name in (  ) will be a lower one.

Some bidders who are re-sellers and have a higher number in (  ) to the right of their name, will place an early automatic bid that is the most they are willing to pay for the item and still make a profit. They do that hoping to discourage nibble bidders early on, from outbidding them. 

 Serious collectors have a good idea of what an item is worth to them to fill in a gap in a collection, or its trending price. They are not going to get into bidding wars for it, but will wait until the last seconds to bid, which we refer to as Sniping.  If an item is rare or desirable enough the price can be increased substantially in the last seconds and it can take up to a minute for a winner to be declared, because several snipers bid.

What you really need to do is read the information in the link below.  Click on the Tips for winning auctions button in the link, and when that page opens click on the bid sniping button.  Click on the other links as well to get even more information. 

Do not pay attention to ebay's opening statement about bidding on auctions being a way to get things at a bargain price.  If that were true sellers would not list items as auctions, because they DO want to get the best price for their items.

https://www.ebay.com/help/buying/bidding/bidding?id=4003

[san_us_rf7t8lazel]

So True, but let's be clear Mr. (unknown), a company like eBay are paid the big bucks to make sure the fools who make them the billions are not made fools when believing they were engaging in a fair, legitimate and "same play" level as the DARNED INGENIOUS! Obviously, the eBay bidding system is not proofed to be a  "clean" process for all the little fools around the world, and not a 100% "cheap" format for the professional and big auction house dealers. I left out collectors because collecting is what the little fools do on eBay, and the 1...7 private, 1...4. a...n, and other private accounts have zero competition. Again, fair business practices are meant for all sellers and buyers, thus the word "Fair" must be "FOOLPROVED"  https://www.ftc.gov/business-guidance 

[san_us_rf7t8lazel · Accepted solution]

P.S. Mud - anonymous, the long drawn out copy and pasted explaination you replied to my post with does state that Shill bidding is illegal, and yes, Sellers like the seller s.........auctionhouse have to click on "private" that allows for this dirty game. It appears that Mud-anonymous, again, a brave man or woman who is obviously an eBay insider proves my point. If eBay is going to provide a bidding system than at least make sure sellers offering auctions are separated on the site, simple, and then operate bidding just like all the others like Invaluable, Mercari, Ruby, and on and on. Then all bidders should be private, and the seller MUST BE RESTRICTED FROM INFLUENCING BIDS MADE BY MUD-ANONYMOUS TYPES, OR THE SAME PRIVATE ACCOUNTS USED ACROSS SIMILAR ITEM AUCTIONS. 

GET IT TOGETHER EBAY, OPERATE YOUR BIDDING SYSTEM UNDER THE SAME RULES AS ALL THE REST. FOOLPROOF IS NOT AN EXCUSE FOR FAILURE. 

[monica-sells]

what is a 'big' auction house?

how is their bidding more transparent than ebay?

I am so confused by your allegations.......................

[gosimus]

        @san_us_rf7t8lazel  wrote:

the eBay bidding system is not proofed to be a  "clean" process for all the little fools around the world

---

I won an auction this very afternoon.  You must think I'm one of your little fools.  😢  Well, that's okay.  I wish all my auction competitors were like you. 

[san_us_rf7t8lazel]

Good for you, as explained, it depends on the item, the value obtained from auction sites, which you just might find the same item posted for sell, that occured for a frame print of the original painting from 1800s, Southern Belle. I found it on sale on a site for hundreds of dollars less than what it was going for on eBay. 

Congratulations, I too have won some bids, but nothing involving high dollar items. 

You are confused, I did not call you a little fool, I was referencing mudshark.... who called us fools. Reference above in the thread. We are not fools, and you, like millions, including myself have spent lots of our money on eBay and got great deals. If the system works for you and you are bidding on items that our thousands and thousands of dollars, and are considered "valuable" based on the fact that you could turn around and sell it for two or three times more, your experience could change. If my experiences, and advice are not useful or possible to you, that is great. When I did my research to see if my experiences were just flukes, I was shocked to find online complaints for the exact same circumstances. 

[mudshark61369]

@san_us_rf7t8lazel... anonymous, 

"I was referencing mudshark.... who called us fools". 

If you must know, I am a man. and have used this ID since `01, It refers to my nickname and the date it was given to me. I am not an eBay insider or employee, and assertions of being one are offensive to me, and most other long time board members.

You are taking my signature which is on every post of mine, personally, like I only wrote it for you. 

 It happens to be a Quote from an unknown author. Found in the book Murphy's Law and Other Things That Go Wrong, attributed to "unknown".   Some use quotes like "You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make them drink.   A fool and his money are soon parted"  and other well known old saws.

As I wrote in my first post, when YOU look at an auction history, YOU have bid on. Only you see your whole username posted.  If I bid on the same auction, my username might be scrambled to appear to you as m***9(3010) , but I would see my whole username and yours might appear to me as s***8 (76) 

  On an auction with Private listing, bidder's identities protected. We would still see our whole user names, but others would not.   Only a few auctions have "Private Auction, Bidder's Identities protected" and on them.  Those might be on some very high end auctions, for niche category items. or on ones where the item is of a very personal nature.  There might be some seller's doing that to hide shills, but it wouldn't hide the shill from ebay. 

  As I wrote before if you post the ebay item number of an auction you participated in, or if you do an advanced search for the auctions item number without logging into ebay and select ended listings, to view the auction. Because you are not logged in your username will not appear but you might see your bids because of your feedback number (76) after the scrambled a***b name.

"If eBay is going to provide a bidding system than at least make sure sellers offering auctions are separated on the site, simple, and then operate bidding just like all the others like Invaluable, Mercari, Ruby, and on and on".

Every one of the site's you mentioned and others, would love to be able to use ebay's proprietary auction system.  It is much more efficient than the "time added" auctions they run.

    eBay for years did display full usernames on auctions, but that lead to a host of different issues.

Bidder's conspiring together, to run up the price for another member. Not working with the seller mind you, but more like what happens on the show Storage Wars.

Losers of auctions contacting the winner, trying desperately to buy the item from them, off ebay.

Losers messaging winners cursing them out and even threatening them because they lost...

You would not know about those things however, because the displaying of full usernames ended, Years before you joined ebay.  

I have bid on, and won items posted on this site that sold for over $10K and many more that sold for over $1,000.,  back when full usernames were shown, and I was accused of being a "Monied up shark" who was stealing items because I could pay more for the items.  Most are still in my collection. 

The seller I bought most of the items from moved off ebay in `08 and started their own site, and guess what.  I still use mudshark as my username on that site, and two other well known auction house's sites, that sell those particular items, because it strikes fear in the hearts of others who know the username from their time on ebay.  They know if I'm participating that I might be bidding on items they too are interested in, and that I bid to win. When I attend the live/online ones in person, those who know me both personally and by my username, pray I'm not after something they want to bid on. 

If you have found complaints online about ebay auctions, they were probably written by people like you, who do not understand how bidding on ebay works. They nibble bid and get run over at the end of an auction, or they start bidding against an early Automatic bid and keep getting immediately outbid, and blame the seller, the site, the system instead of figuring out how to bid successfully on ebay.  Look up Vickrey type auctions and compare them to English outcry auctions.  Then I triple dog dare you to use the FTC link you posted, to report your allegations about ebay auctions to the FTC. 

[myangelandmyprincess]

"if you see any bidders with a number or a letter with periods in between, "

Every bid you see except yours will look like that.  eBay started masking ids due to privacy issues years ago. 

[san_us_rf7t8lazel]

Thank you for your comments. It appears that you certainly have had some great experiences. As for all the Auction Houses wanting to be on eBay, I have pointed out, already, that many of the items sold on other Auction Houses are on eBay, and every Auction House is connected to eBay. How do you think the items on eBay are available? Your point is moot. Ebay is the company first and foremost. Many sellers do work for these other Auction House businesses. How do I know this? I bid on other sites too. It is no mystery.  Many of the same items are listed by many of the same sellers who use several sites to sell high dollar items. 

Point? I know that the system is manipulated when it comes to the time frame when it comes to the final seconds. Adding 15 seconds to the time that was expired is a fact, not an eBay talking point you are posting from the eBay "tips" and references. 

Have a great rest of your week. Thank you for the mudshark explanation. It is what it is. Ebay must address the manner in which they handle high value bidding, period. As for winning? Again, it is all about the money! The more you buy, the more you win high dollar bids, the more eBay's system is calculated to focus on. How hard is this, Casinos reset and calibrate their machines before the day starts, during the day, and anytime the machine pays out more than it should. Fact. It's business. Social media sites keep track of hits, likes, no likes, and the system is calibrated to promote or limit based on the input.  

Ebay needs to make sure all bidders are clearly transparent. Timing calibrations must be professional online. Adding seconds after a win is not a glitch. Sellers should not allow for private bidders to eliminate inside influences. A competely separate tab for bidding must be created for buyers who save a seller they bought from or won a bid from, to access the high dollar items. No listing should be removed from the general listing upon their computer choosing a winner. Fact, that takes place. Bidding should be done on a day, and time. This 5, 9 day bidding nonsense is useless, a waste of time for buyers, and they allow auto bidding which goes against the reason for more than one day bidding. Joke.  Buyer is lucky if they waste time until the final seconds to bid according to the $$$$ and ghost bidder. Why tell everyone to bid at the final minute or seconds? because they tell buyers, the average buyers, that they are helping us by allowing multiple day bidding. But, they "tip" and say bid at the final minute or seconds, or sign in as a guest, set up as a private bidder, and blah...

Going back and forth over who knows more is over. If it works for you, great. If there are constant complaints and online comments that many are losing in those final seconds, then eBay better address their process, because their "tips", and oh wells, or messages from people like you fail to address the problems. 

[san_us_rf7t8lazel]

Thank you. Privacy issues meant that people were contacting those bidders and not being very kind. However, transparency always works better. All they had to do was to block contacting the bidders when they won for a 1 week period. There are not privacy issues with selling and bidding for the entire system, and people still get nasty and contact sellers. Seller, Buyer no difference when it comes to the few who contact over this or that. Blocking is not transparent! Our names and addresses end up being exposed each time you purchase or sell something. Bids from sellers are not private, why? they need to deal with what it means to be the one selling the item via a bid. 

Again, each time eBay or other companies, and even with our laws, and in the classroom, when a blanket change occurs to end an issue, it never ends the issue, it always creates a bigger issue! Punishing or changing a process for the one or the few, punishes or affects the whole. Plus, not all fixes work out, reason for team collaboration and go back to the drawing board and decide if the old way worked, and a simple change can address the headaches. customer service - Buying and Selling was never going to be easy when you deal with $$ and products. 

[myangelandmyprincess]

"Thank you. Privacy issues meant that people were contacting those bidders and not being very kind. However, transparency always works better. All they had to do was to block contacting the bidders when they won for a 1 week period."

It wasn't just an issue for those who won either.  And blocking being contacted for a week for some would mean no one would ever be able to message them with as much as they bid/win.   Plus there wasn't just an issue of contacting the bidders but of contacting the seller pretending to be the winner.  Knowing the winners Id gave an advantage to that working. That scam is almost non existent now without the winning bidders id showing. 

"Again, each time eBay or other companies, and even with our laws, and in the classroom, when a blanket change occurs to end an issue, it never ends the issue, it always creates a bigger issue! Punishing or changing a process for the one or the few, punishes or affects the whole. "

Definitely aware of that. Because changes are made constantly on here to try to reduce scams, fraud, etc.  There is always those who try to find loopholes.  Hiding ids doesn't have much negative side affects though.  Showing them wouldn't help you determine if a seller is shill bidding. 

[bonjourami]

Wow, organized confusion. Interesting that you pick your own posts as best answer tho.

[tobaccocardyahoo]

Bidding strategies are designed to win the item at the lowest price possible.

They are also influenced by how much a bidder wants to own the item.

As Ebay as evolved, for other than the most desirable items, there is a strong likelihood that an item will not exceed a fair wholesale price by more than one bid, Many action items on Ebay now sell on one bid.

There are those of us who know what we want to pay, and place an initial bid for that amount.

There are those who believe that if the bid more than 3 seconds before the end of the auction, they will stimulate other bidders to bid higher - the snipers.

There are those who are so worried about overpaying they place multiple small bids trying to win - the nibblers.

I rarely see a nibbler win at a bargain price. They usually give up before the first group or get creamed by the snippers.

I bid my maximum, and usually ignore the auction, but there is nothing I am passionate about owning, and willing to exceed my price on.

I often win on a single bid because there is no one else who knows anything about the item or cares about it.

For years, I bid against other resellers at in person auctions. With 25 to 50 pros in the room, it is amazing how little competition there was on many items. And it is amazing how high the collectors and institutions had to bid to make the purchase.

Bidding on Ebay with anonymous bidders is a very inferior experience. Knowing who you are bidding against and watching them bid makes it a lot more fun. And bidding up someone who is out of control is an added pleasure, especially if they are an ignorant nibbler.