Shill identification help
Hi, how do I tell if I’m bidding against a shill. I try to wait until the last minute if I can, but figured I’d try tossing out a max bid, now I see the error in my ways. When looking at competing bidders history, they either show all recent bid history on the same seller or a majority on the same seller. I can post screen shots. Thanks for any feedback.
15 comments
mudshark61369
·2 years ago@t-bird1007,
When you want to reply to a specific person you can tag them by clicking on the "@" which will open a list of people who responded. Click on the one you want. They get notified that you answered their post if you do that.
"Appreciate the feedback. I didn’t have that additional info until the second post as my suspicions were raised. The seller is US based and after further inspection, appears there are many accounts with similar history bidding on their items. Many have retractions over the last 12 months. Seems the system is ripe for this sort of abuse and now I know what to look for in the auction environment".
Unfortunately, some new members bidding activity mirrors some of the things a shill might do. They may bid against an automatic bid to uncover the price and then retract if it is more than they are willing to pay. They may bid on several auctions many times until they reach their price point, then drop out...
Because ebay helped many sellers from China mostly, to register in the U.S. it can be hard for newer members to know how to weed them out. The info below can help you to identify them. If you still have one of the auctions saved, post its 12 digit ebay item number which is on the right just above the item specifics. With it we may be able to give you further help identifying one who uses shills.
Since you are new to the site, to check a seller's feedback profile scroll down a listing page until you see their name in a large font. Below that will be a couple of feedback comments and under them is an oval with See all feedback in it. Click on that, and on the page that opens, if the seller has received neutral and negative feedback you can click on the numbers of them to read only those comments.
On Listing pages:
On a Feedback profile page:
It may take a little time to use the above lists, but in the long run can save time and possibly money. It becomes second nature after awhile.
Bidding late in an auction is the best way to defeat shills. However bidding in the last seconds, does take practice, because the countdown clocks are not always accurate, so start by bidding with about 30 seconds left. Also add a few odd cents to your maximum bid instead of bidding in round numbers. You can actually win an auction by as little as 0.01 cents, by doing that.
12345jamesstamps
·2 years agoI look at bidders to see if they have "retractions" of their bids.
Have to understand if a seller has someone he knows win the auction....someone has to pay the eBay fee for that auction...not a smart way to do business.
I prefer to bid on numerous items in a seller's auctions to save on postage.
stevescho
·2 years agoYes, as indicated, retracted bids (or cancelled), says shill. Meaning the seller did it. What to do? Either pay, or don't and take a strike (my preference). Then don't do it again, as in bidding a true max more than 5 seconds before auction close.
simba6
·2 years agoIt's not uncommon for the same buyers to bid the same seller. They found a seller that sells items they are interested in. Bids should be placed as close to the end of the listing. The eBay count down times is not very good. You might want to look into a bid snipe service to place your bids.
t-bird1007
OP2 years agoA rate of certain users bidding 75% up to 99% in the last 30 days on the same seller and anywhere from a dozen different bids up to 1200 in a month with multiple retractions in a year tells me it’s a shill. I didn’t realize that was happening on eBay, I thought the controls were tighter. I know to stick to bidding last seconds now.
eburtonlab
·2 years agoBeing overly worried about shill bidders is usually an indication that you are bidding much too soon, and leaving your bid exposed for too long.
Bid your maximum amount once, as late in the auction as you can comfortably do so. There is very little that a shill bidder can do to affect the outcome of the auction at that point. As a bonus, you can also avoid getting into costly bidding "wars" with nibble bidders and other sorts of emotional reactive bidders that will drive up the price if you give them the chance, but that typically won't bid their own maximum without someone else to actively bid against.
Snipers rarely have to think about shill bidders.
bennotbill
·2 years agoSuspect bidding I've seen a few times is where initially one bidder places a ridiculous bid that reveals your max and then retracts it. Then often much later a different bidder pops up and with seconds to go just happens to bid exactly the amount needed for your maximum bid to win.
t-bird1007
OP2 years agoThanks, That’s definitely possible looking at bid history of item I’m interested in. I’ll have to look closer at that, I don’t understand eBay all that well, so this is a work in progress.
t-bird1007
OP2 years agoAppreciate the feedback. I didn’t have that additional info until the second post as my suspicions were raised. The seller is US based and after further inspection, appears there are many accounts with similar history bidding on their items. Many have retractions over the last 12 months. Seems the system is ripe for this sort of abuse and now I know what to look for in the auction environment.
I appreciate the help you guys have been.
stevescho
·2 years agoA shill account will request to cancel his bid and have it accepted after exceeding yours, forcing you to pay the maximum. This has been mentioned before.
mudshark61369
·2 years ago@stevescho,
"A shill account will request to cancel his bid and have it accepted after exceeding yours, forcing you to pay the maximum".
They'll likely just retract their last bid if they are shills. It wouldn't matter to them since they wouldn't be blocked by the seller, and it is easy for them to create a new ID and start over.
womaninthewoods
·2 years agoIf I am bidding on an item and someone comes along and outbids me, and then retracts their bid, I also retract my bid. The last time this happened was about two months ago. The ironic thing is, the bidder who retracted their bid then immediately bid up to 1 cent below my max. I cancel my bids if something like this happens to me. In addition, I often cancel my bid if the person in the lead drove the price up and then retracted their bid leaving me in the lead. Too many red flags for me.
mudshark61369
·2 years ago@t-bird1007,
"Thanks, still seems fishy. When I go through other auctions from the same seller, bidders are showing up with 30 day bid history of 1200 bids of which, 99% are with this seller. That doesn’t strike you as odd?".
That info should have been included in your original post. Yes it seems fishy, but if your seller is located in or registered in China, has a chinese looking username, and/or lists all auctions with a .99¢ starting price, it is very possible they are using shills. The thing is ebay only has 1 way of "proving" a bidder is a shill, and if they cannot "prove" it, then they can't take any action against the seller, based on suspicion alone.
Before bidding on a seller's auctions, check their feedback profile page, look for their country of registry, and click on the numbers of negative and neutrals they've received to read only those comments. Stay away from very low start price auctions listed by high volume sellers.
mudshark61369
·2 years ago@t-bird1007,
"how do I tell if I’m bidding against a shill... When looking at competing bidders history, they either show all recent bid history on the same seller or a majority on the same seller".
Bid histories only go back 30 days so if you haven't bid on an auction in over a month, then place a few bids on a sellers listig(s) your history would show 100% bids with the seller. That leads to a lot of confusion about who is a "shill" bidder, and who is not. When we had access to more bidder information, and would get questions about shills being used, about 95% of those could be proven not to be shill bidding, but a misunderstanding of how people bid. One thing to look at on a bidder's history is bid retractions, and even that is not always proof of a shill being used.
Inexperienced bidders may place many bids on an item when bidding against an early Automatic bid, one increment at a time. Often they lose because an experienced bidder does come along and bid their Max price, in the last seconds, which doesn't leave them tome to bid again.
Some inexperienced bidders who have bid against an early automatic bid, will keep bidding until they uncover the Auto bid's price, and may retract their bid(s) if the price was more than they were willing to pay.
Many bidder/buyers find sellers who lists many things they want. so they bid on their items.
I know I have bought over 700 items from one seller's auctions alone, over the years, and anyone looking at my bid history back then might think I was a shill, except that just about all of those auctions only had one bid placed on them in the last hour.
https://www.ebay.com/fdbk/feedback_profile/mudshark61369
t-bird1007
OP2 years agoThanks, still seems fishy. When I go through other auctions from the same seller, bidders are showing up with 30 day bid history of 1200 bids of which, 99% are with this seller. That doesn’t strike you as odd?