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Very Possibly SHILL BIDDING What to do.
On an item, which ends very shortly, I have been buying from the seller for over 12 years but very apparent shill bidding on a few items each month caught my eye many months ago. This particular item listed shows many signs of shilling going on. Maybe I am just leary in my old age so am asking for fresh opinions on whether it would be worth my time and effort to even report it. The bids are many, but what caught my eye is the multiple bidders on it showing MANY bid retractions in their history. One bidder shows 139 bid retractions in the last year. How in the world does that not catch the eye of ebay. All help is appreciated.
2 comments
house*of*paws
Mentor3 years agoHi @cher4498h5
The bidder with 139 retractions only has 4% activity with the seller ... while bidding on 165 separate items in the past 30 days ... essentially ruling out shill bidding as the explanation. [Their high Feedback Score also suggests that shill bidding is NOT occurring ... as you usually see shill bidders with low (0-5) feedback scores. They don't want to risk losing a high-feedback account if caught.]
My guess is that bidder is placing bids on multiple auctions for the same item ... and then retracting bids if they win one of them.
BTW, I once saw a bidder with 4000+ bid retractions in 30 days ... making me realize that some bidders were using retractions as a bidding strategy, having nothing at all to do with shill bidding. They were trying to keep the bidding low ... rather than trying to give the seller a high winning bid. [That particular bidder retracted their bids multiple times during a single auction.]
In short, I see no evidence of shill bidding on that auction ... but I do appreciate your concern about it. 🙂
eburtonlab
Mentor3 years agoNot all serial retractors are necessarily shill bidders.
And apparently eBay is not very proactive when it comes to penalizing bidder retractions. Some unscrupulous bidders take advantage of this state of affairs to probe the high bids of their competing bidders, or just to back out of bids they have made.
A while back someone posted an image from a still-valid user profile that showed over a thousand retractions.
Bidding your maximum amount once at the end of the auction would seem to provide the least opportunity for shilling sellers, sport bidders, or serial retractors of any kind to interfere with your bid or to run you up and cost you money.