Same bidder using multiple account names to bid on same item
Summary: The discussion revolves around concerns about bid manipulation and auction tactics on a popular online marketplace. 12345jamesstamps added information about 'bid shielding,' a deceptive practice where multiple accounts are used to manipulate auction prices, which a participant claims often goes unnoticed. albertabrightalberta described a personal experience of feeling misled during an auction when the final price matched a suspiciously specific earlier bid they had suggested. mudshark61369 responded by cautioning against making unverified accusations and emphasized the importance of understanding bidding processes.
I placed a bid on some coins and have constantly been outbid. No problem, but the bidder who outbids me has one account name, then when I get outbid has a whole new account name. I've bid 5 times and every time it comes back I've been outbid. But the bidders name always changes on the most recent bid and the other times I've been outbid. Is this right or is the seller trying to run up the price?
jce223
·2 weeks agoI HAD AN EXPERIENCE WHERE AFTER I WON THE AUCTION I FELT I GOT SNOOKERED. i found an item i was looking for at a good price say 20 bucks. i asked the seller to put a 40 bin on it and id purchase it at double her start price. 2 days later i check it out it has a 60 bin. kinda angers me p.o'ed at myself. i grovel over it for a few days and go to just put a bid on it there already is one. i grumble some more. im there for the end of the auction its an item id really like to have. so i put the 60 bid in with 3 seconds to go. i win at 41. a dollar over my offer to bin at the beginning. makes me wonder if its too convienient to manpulate bidding. you only need a buddy... the win didnt make me happy though and i wonder about who put the 40 bid in on it. was just a questionable win.
mudshark61369
·2 weeks ago@jce223 ,
You replied to a discussion on a different subject than what you experienced. You should have started your own, rather than piggy back on someone else's post.
You have 3 auctions currently running, but none of them have a BIN option, and I'd bet it's because you feel a BIN discourages bidding. I'm surprised that the seller you asked for a BIN to be added, didn't block you, especially if they often list items as auctions.
You are accusing a seller of using a shill, which not only goes against ebay policy but is a crime, without any proof. Did you check the bid history to see when the 2nd place bidder placed their bid? It may have been placed before your request was sent. Even if it wasn't, do you actually think that if you thought the item was worth $40, that others wouldn't feel it was worth that much too especially if it was a vintage item? You know you could have won the item had you bid $40.01
ccomic
·5 months agoI have too many sad bidding stories, but they are almost always the same. I mark an item, forget to bid, and then it sells for well under what I would have paid. Then I never see the item in the same condition again ... 😢
soh.maryl
·5 months agoIf this has happened to you more than once, you need to change your bidding strategy. Guess I didn't have to tell you that, did I?
simba6
·5 months agoNothing fishy it's just that other bidders are also bidding on them. You should not place you bid until just before the auction closes. An early bid will get " nibbled on ". You might want to look at bid sniping services. They will place your bid seconds before the close. But never bid early. Use your watch list to keep track of items you might want to bid.
luckybreaks1972
·6 days agoHappens all the time.
redmodelt
·5 months agoGee wis the item has a few people interested in it, WOW! You have no way of knowing if they are the same person or many people, bidding history tell you nothing in that regards. The only person that can see the actual names during the auction is the seller; YOU are not privy to that information so are making wild assumptions.
12345jamesstamps
·5 months agoIt's possible for a person to have two accounts for auctions to bid on.
Person makes very high on one account so others don't want to bid anymore...then person bids over his bids with second account on first account....and then person will retract his highest bid(s) from one account within the time frame...thus...his lower bid wins because of his retracting his very high bid(s).
Caught a buyer doing this on my auctions in the past...where he had two ID eBay accounts and winning items were going to the same address.
I guess looking for bidders who have high 'retractions' is when you avoid those auctions to bid on.
albertabrightalberta
·5 months agoThat's called bid shielding and isn't allowed. If there's a pattern that's been reported, ebay will suspend the user.
Unfortunately, sellers don't usually recognize the pattern and therefore don't report. And the culprit gets away with it.
tinsoldierunderground
·5 months agoFrom what you describe, it seems your own bidding strategy is your enemy here, not some phantom waiting to outbid you. I learned a long time ago to bid very late in the auction, just once, with a strong 'nuclear option' amount. I've found this to be a lot more effective over the years than trying to anticipate 'nibble bidders', 'sport bidders', etc.
mudshark61369
·5 months ago@tinsoldierunderground ,
" I learned a long time ago to bid very late in the auction, just once, with a strong 'nuclear option' amount".
But did you ever have that A-Bomb go off in your face?
Better photo
I did a long time ago and it cost me $350 more that I was actually willing to pay, a hard lesson to learn. I no longer play with nukes. Now I bid only the most I'm willing to pay plus a few odd cents, and let the chips fall where they may.
tinsoldierunderground
·5 months ago@mudshark61369
I've had the amount climb high on several occasions, but not where I felt it cost me more than I wanted to pay. I've also been outbid by someone else's nuclear bid. It's usually a situation of a once in a lifetime opportunity that I act out like that...like the Dr. Strangelove pic!!
roccotacodad54
·5 months agoSlim Pickens riding the A bomb, a classic.
Yeee Hawww!.................
mudshark61369
·5 months ago@conservativeman54 ,
"the bidder who outbids me has one account name, then when I get outbid has a whole new account name".
On the bid history page only you and the seller see your whole user ID, every one else could see it as
c***m (272) as kathiec pointed out. It could change to c***n (272) on the next auction you bid on.
"I've bid 5 times and every time it comes back I've been outbid".
If you get an almost immediate outbid notice it is because you were bidding against another bidder's earlier Automatic bid. If you were outbid near the very end of the auction it could be because several "snipers" placed bids. Sniping is bidding in the very last seconds of an auction and placing a bid for the highest amount one is willing to pay for the item, plus a few odd cents in case of a tie, as @roccotacodad54
wrote. You should open the link below read everything in it and click on the Tips for winning auctions button. At the bottom of that article click on the Bid Sniping box to see how that works.
"... is the seller trying to run up the price?".
Sellers cannot bid on their own auctions easily. It would mean creating a new ID that does not share any of the same street address, financial or ISP info with the selling one. They could get a friend to bid (shill) for them, but run the risk of the friend winning auctions, then having to cancel them, which ebay would take notice of. While shill bidding does happen on ebay, it is not as common as many think, and the readily available info is often misconstrued by inexperienced bidders.
If you have saved a recently ended auction you bid on, post the ebay item number for it. We could then look at the bid history, and explain what you are seeing.
roccotacodad54
·5 months agoJust as msha3039 advises.
You stated "I've bid 5 times". Why do that?
I figure out what I'm willing to spend for an item at auction, wait till late in the auction as to not show undue interest then bid my max bid. Once.
I'll bid say $300.11 (the 11 cents are in case someone else has a $300.00 max bid) on an auction and often win for $250.00 or less. No need to watch other bids, doesn't matter. I go to "Purchase History" at my convenience to see if I won or not. If so Yeah! If not, I didn't want to spend more than my max bid anyway...........................
tobaccocardyahoo
·5 months agoUnless this bidder is a shill for the seller, your explanation of what you see is probably incorrect.
If you feel you are the victim of shill bidding, stop bidding.
soh.maryl
·5 months agoWhat would be the point of the seller "trying to run up the price" ?
That would mean he'd have to buy the item from himself if he became the winner.
And also the fact that eBay has rules about this.
ccomic
·5 months agoYes, but I also believe it happens. I have not sold in a long time, so I don't know, but I was told by a seller that they were limited as to where they could use "buy it now" and were forced to use normal auctions because they were new. This seller did not say they shilled auctions, but if an item was going well under the price they wanted, they might elect to sell it to themselves and perhaps have the buyer request cancelation later ...
All guesses on my part, but I wouldn't dismiss the idea of shilling. I actually just view it as a reserve and ignore it, but you will need to bid in the closing seconds of the auction to avoid being run up.
jce223
·2 weeks agoAND NOT SELL IT DIRT CHEAP?
kathiec
·5 months ago@conservativeman54
When you see the bidders in a bid history you aren't seeing their actual user id, you're seeing an eBay anonymized version of it, using two characters from the id and asterisks. That anonymized version isn't static; it can change every time you look at it. So the bidders are the same, only the anonymization of their id changes.
To get a better idea of this, logout of eBay then go to the bid history of an auction you're bidding on. You'll see the anonymized version of your user id. Then refresh the page and you'll see that version change.
msha3839
·5 months agoPointless for seller to run up the price because he/she can end up the highest bidder..simply set yourself a maximum that you willing to spend and move on..