Extremely suspicious bidding activity - Shilling?

Question

Hello,

I was bidding on an auction when I noticed some extremely suspicious bidding activity.â€ƒ

sus bidder.png

This account is placing dozens of bids, only on items from a single seller. This seller is an extremely small account with only 2-4 auctions max and 30 items sold lifetime. If it was a larger seller I could understand it, but this comes off as extremely suspicious.

Should I be worried about bid shilling? And if so, is there anything I can do as a bidder?

The screenshot is a day old and they've already placed another 10 bids since on the same seller, no activity on any other seller.

gl1tch3d · Answer

" If you are suspicious however, then I would suggest finding a different seller."

Thanks for your help everyone.

I dropped out of the auction because I was quite certain there was something suspicious going on. The suspicious user ended up winning the auction when I didn't increase my max bid to match. The item has already been relisted and yet based on their bidding history they're still putting in new bids on the same seller's auctions.

Seems normal behaviour to me.

eburtonlab · Answer

Shill bidding can be very hard to distinguish from typical clueless newbie nibble bidding or careless sport bidding, or otherwise just regular not-very-disciplined bidding-to-win bidding.

For users that do not bid on many auctions, it is very easy to have 100% of bids all be for the same sellers' items -- particularly if the seller has several items in the same category, and the bidder is expecting to combine shipping. Lots of bidders find one item that a seller has that the buyer wants, and then check to see if the seller has any other items of interest to bid on as well.

A really successful shill bid does not really look like much of anything except just another bid with nothing to distinguish it from all the other bids.

Conversely, any bid could look like a shill bid to another bidder who has been bid up.

Being overly worried about shill bidding is often an indication that one is bidding too early in the auction and leaving a bid exposed too long.

Many veteran bidders recommend deciding in advance the most you are willing to pay, taking into consideration any shipping or taxes, adding a few cents if the amount is a round number (to avoid a potential tie which would go to the earlier bidder), and then bidding that amount once, as late in the auction as you are comfortable with. That gives a potential shill bidder very little time to react and possibly bid up the amount.

inceptions · Answer

Without being able to see the listing, I don't see anything "extreme."

This appears to be a new buyer who nibble bids and may not know about automatic bidding. Many buyers purchase multiple items from the same seller to save on shipping.

Since shill bidding is illegal, a seller would be risking his reputation to do it. eBay has methods of detecting shilling (not to say they always catch every instance of it). If you are suspicious however, then I would suggest finding a different seller.