auto bid shilling program
Item had zero bids. As soon as I bid I was out bid by 17 bids within seconds by same buyer.
Looks like seller is shilling own items. The person who out bid me only bids on this sellers items.
This is **bleep**. No way this would happen unless it was a robo bid program
All bids at exact 3 second intervals'
h***5Feedback Score (91) | $132.50 | 6 May 2025 at 8:48:59pm PDT |
ratimpssFeedback Score (2385) | $130.00 | 6 May 2025 at 8:47:54pm PDT |
h***5Feedback Score (91) | $126.00 | 6 May 2025 at 8:48:52pm PDT |
h***5Feedback Score (91) | $118.00 | 6 May 2025 at 8:48:49pm PDT |
h***5Feedback Score (91) | $110.00 | 6 May 2025 at 8:48:45pm PDT |
h***5Feedback Score (91) | $98.00 | 6 May 2025 at 8:48:42pm PDT |
h***5Feedback Score (91) | $92.00 | 6 May 2025 at 8:48:39pm PDT |
h***5Feedback Score (91) | $86.00 | 6 May 2025 at 8:48:36pm PDT |
h***5Feedback Score (91) | $80.00 | 6 May 2025 at 8:48:33pm PDT |
h***5Feedback Score (91) | $77.00 | 6 May 2025 at 8:48:30pm PDT |
h***5Feedback Score (91) | $71.00 | 6 May 2025 at 8:48:27pm PDT |
h***5Feedback Score (91) | $65.00 | 6 May 2025 at 8:48:24pm PDT |
h***5Feedback Score (91) | $59.00 | 6 May 2025 at 8:48:21pm PDT |
h***5Feedback Score (91) | $53.00 | 6 May 2025 at 8:48:18pm PDT |
h***5Feedback Score (91) | $47.00 | 6 May 2025 at 8:48:15pm PDT |
h***5Feedback Score (91) | $41.00 | 6 May 2025 at 8:48:12pm PDT |
h***5Feedback Score (91) | $35.00 | 6 May 2025 at 8:48:08pm PDT |
Starting price | $29.99 | 6 May 2025 at 6:30:01pm PDT |
12 comments
nobody*s_perfect
·1 year agoThe bidder's history shows that he has placed bids on 3 items, only one of which was from this seller. This doesn't look like shill bidding to me and yes it's possible to manually place bids at 3-second intervals. Anyway it's a moot point now, since both of you have been outbid by a new bidder.
pls-consignments
·1 year ago"I subscribed to a sniping program mainly because his auctions end at 4 am. Yea. So, I just set the max amount I am willing to pay ... and go to bed."
This is exactly why I no longer bid on auctions. Too many proxy bidding apps out there. eBay took the thrill out of a level playing field.
luckythewinner
·1 year agoThe person who places the highest bid wins. What's not "level" about that?
chariot_badges
·1 year agoI buy almost exclusively from one seller. He owns a junkyard, and I get a lot of real good stuff, very reasonably.
I subscribed to a sniping program mainly because his auctions end at 4 am. Yea. So, I just set the max amount I am willing to pay ... and go to bed. A very large % of the I time wake up to a win.
While we have come to know each other pretty well and have a friendly business relationship, we do everything above board and on eBay.
chevymontecarlo88
·1 year agoSometimes buyers do this to discourage other bidders/buyers. Especially on items that start low where the bidder (in question) can place several bids that make it look like more buyers are interested in the auction.
luckythewinner
·1 year agoAutomated bidding programs are not against eBay rules.
That aside ...
IMHO this is 100% a human bidder nibbling against you. He is on a desktop and opened the bid popup and entered a bid, and each time he bid he saw he was not winning so he bid again until he was the high bidder.
There are two types of people who use nibble bids. Some are novices who do not understand how proxy bidding works. The others are seasoned bidders who want future bidders to see a high bid count like this ...
... and be discouraged by what they perceive as a lot of interest and a lot of bidding.
soh.maryl
·1 year agoHave you considered the fact that Mr. 91 Feedback may have entered a "proxy" bid far above the opening price? When that happens, eBay automatically uses as much of that amount to be over that of any other bidder. Unless/until that other bidder (which looks like it's you) enters an amount higher than that proxy bid, Mr. 91 Feedback will continue to top your bid. Unless, of course, you want to be adventurous and enter a proxy bid yourself like, for instance, $500. And, even then, you're going into this blindly, maybe his proxy is $1,000 or more.
Not sure what makes you suspicious. There are many buyers on eBay who are only interested in one category or one seller.
@soh.maryl
That bidder is nibble bidding, look at the times of each bid. Only 2 bidders the OP and Mr. 91
soh.maryl
·1 year agoThanks for that correction. Did not notice that the bids were so close together.
So still no evidence of shilling.
Agreed, a shill would have retracted by now.
a_c_green
·1 year agoSpeaking of which, that bidder has zero retractions on his 30-day record, what's visible if we click on his disguised ID on the Bid History page for that auction. If the OP goes to that bidder's feedback page (desktop view) and goes to his Feedback as a Buyer tab, his 12-month total of bid retractions, if any, can be seen on the right side of the page about halfway down.
Another possible reason for his nibble bidding (as opposed to just making one big bid of his own) is that he doesn't understand the bid interface, and may believe that his only bid options are the three small-increment buttons that he sees when he goes to place a bid. (For example, if the current price showing is $25, eBay might offer bid increments of $28, $31 or $34.)
I have long wondered whether newbie bidders don't realize that they can type in their own higher bid directly, and not dither around with only banging on the preset buttons to go up a little bit at a time. They may not understand that the actual price they would pay for winning would be the second-place bidder's highest offer plus a maximum of one bid increment beyond that.
The timing bid pattern here, with multiple bids going up a bit at a time and three seconds apart, conforms with someone clicking a bid increment and waiting to see the result, then repeating as needed. They could instead have just slammed in one bid of their choosing and, if it was high enough to exceed the current leader's hidden maximum, taken the lead in one swell foop.
As a seller, I really wish that they would clean up the bidding interface and make it easier to understand. Specifically, at least make one or two of the bid increments significantly higher, to encourage more aggressive bidding, and also make it clearer that the bidder can plug in his own dollar amount instead, especially for sniping an auction in the final seconds. It's futile for him to just sit there with 8 seconds left, banging repeatedly on a $3 increment that's not going to help him win it in time.
Shill bidders don’t try to win. They will usually bid to expose your highest bid then retract their bids.
What you see is a nibble bidder. Who doesn’t know how to place a bid for the highest they are willing to pay.
Just because that buyer only bids on that sellers items only tells me they like what that seller is selling.
But that bidder has bids on another sellers items as well.
I buy from the same seller all the time, does that make me a shill? No it doesn’t.