how do I know that a hidden buyer is not a schill

[jdemill-rgl8eucfz]

how do I know that a hidden buyer is not a schill , just there to boost the item to what he wants to sell it for

[takikawa4]

@jdemill-rgl8eucfz

You can't really tell if someone is shilling or not. What I do is wait to place my max bid in the last few seconds of the auction. Sometimes I win, sometimes I don't. Either way, I determine how much I'm willing to bid and don't react to how someone else bids.

There's a lot of claims of shill bidding on these boards. Most of them are the OP not knowing how bidding works.

[jdemill-rgl8eucfz]

I usually do that I always have an amount that I will spend , unless I am first bidder and mine will come up as my regular so called name and others bid and it will be hidden or private .like to night someone outbid me and that's ok but they changed their bid and went to a new item of the same thing , this has happened twice this week 

[mycarolinavintage]

You can't KNOW for sure unless the seler tells you. And that, we know is highly unlikely. It's a risky business for a seller to do that unless he is willing to hold on to the item if the bidder does not come back with a higher bid.  My suggestion is to make  decision on how much you want to bid, wait until the last minute if possible and go for it. And don't get caught up in the bidding of it. I have seen this at live auctions and in my early days of bidding. Good things come to those who wait and it usually works out for the better. Otherwise you may end up bidding against yourself.

[7606dennis]

How, precisely, would other bidders know that you were not the criminal you are worried about them being?

[mudshark61369]

@jdemill-rgl8eucfz,

  "I am first bidder and mine will come up as my regular so called name and others bid and it will be hidden or private".

All of us see our own user ID when we bid, but everyone else sees it in the a***b format.  If you look at the first post of the other topic about Shill bidding, the author of that post's name appears in a screen shot they took. The third reply to the topic has a screen shot of the bid history taken by someone else, and all of the user IDs appear as a***b.  When you bid only You and the seller see your full user ID. 

 "to night someone outbid me and that's ok but they changed their bid and went to a new item of the same thing , this has happened twice this week".

None of us like when a bidder bids against someone's earlier Automatic bid, exposes it, then retracts it, if the amount  is more than they are willing to pay. It is generally not shill bidding, and what those people are doing is against eBay policy.  Unfortunately, eBay doesn't enforce it, and believe me sellers wish they would. Those people cause others like yourself to think shills are at work, and hurt their trust in eBay's auction system. Read the info in the links below.

https://pages.ebay.com/help/buy/bidding-overview.html

https://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/invalid-bid-retraction.html

The advice given to you by takikawa, is the best way to avoid shills or serial bid retractors. Place a bid for the most you are willing to pay in the last seconds of an auction.  Then a serial retractor or shill will not have time to react to your bid.  Placing a max bid earlier allows them time to bid against you. The only time I will bid first in an auction, is if there is a Buy It Now (BIN) option, and I want it to go away. Even then I only bid the starting price, and place my real bid at the end.

[lintbrush*]

Lots of people suspect shilling.  I'm not saying it doesn't happen, but not as often as people think.

Even though it's in Hidden ID format, you can still view the member's bidding activity in a limited capacity

If the seller has many items in multiple, unrelated categories and the same member (hidden ID) is bidding on a slew of them, it could indicate a shill.  

e.g. Bidder has 100% bidding activity with this seller for 50+ different, unrelated items.

However, if it's a niche category seller, it won't be uncommon to have loyal customers with bids on many items.

If the bidder shows 15 bids with 12 different sellers - generally not a shill.

Does the person you think might be a shill outbid you, expose your maximum bid, then retract and re-bid to right below your maxiumum?

[mudshark61369]

@jdemill-rgl8eucfz,

You can find the info lintbrush* mentions by loking at an item's bid history and clicking on an a***b ID. That opens a page that shows the members bid history for the Last 30 days.

Things that could be added to lintbrush*'s list that are sometime mis-interpreted

100% with the seller, can be a member who does not participate in auctions frequently, a new member. 

Bids on several of a seller's auctions when they do have many items listed, even in different categories, can mean the bidder buys from the seller because they trust them,  just likes the things a seller lists, is taking advantage of combined shipping or special offers. There are times when viewing a person's feedback profile that we see dozens of feedback to or from a seller of things like beading supplies for example.

Lots of bids on a sellers items, but also many bid retractions can be an indicator of a shill, but also it can be a serial bid retractor, who exposes others Auto bids. Bid retractions are shown as last 60 days, while the history is only for 30 days.