eBay

krimsondelamber · ‎01-10-2018

Day before yesterday I came to EBay to buy a few jewelry gifts. I am an experienced EBay shopper, have bought thousands of items here for my jewelry making. But this time I was primarily shopping for finished jewelry. I found a vendor whose items I liked and went to their page and started bidding on items. Everything I bid on gave me a popup that I'd been outbid, so I'd try a similar item and get the same. After trying about 30 items I gave up and shopped elsewhere. Shortly I started getting notices in my mailbox that ALL the bids had been retracted and suddenly I was the winner of all these auctons. 27 bid retractions? So I went to the bid history and it was the same bidder on every one. I followed the link to their history and got some strange data. They have a 61 after their name, but they have bid on more than 31,000 auctions, 30% with this vendor. 10,000 bids with this vendor? Their history says they have 0 bid retractions. I sent an email to customer service requesting to cancel all these items from this seller, but I wanted to ask what my options are and ask if anyone's had a problem like this before.

coolections · ‎01-10-2018

Only Ebay can see what really happened but if all bids where retracted you should be jumping with joy as you got them at the minimum bid. Why would you want to cancel the purchases ?

mudshark61369 · ‎01-10-2018

@krimsondelamber,

The behavior certainly is suspicious, and sounds like a form of shill bidding. When you bid on the items did the listing show any previous bids, or were they still showing the starting price? If there were displaying the starting price chances are the "first bidder" had bid only a penny over the starting price. Auctions that have one bid just over the starting price, may not show any previous bids because of that.

Example; Start price .99cents, bidder 1, bids $1. They have met the starting price, but haven't raised the auction to the next bid increment. When you bid then the auction would show (2) bids.

"I sent an email to customer service requesting to cancel all these items from this seller".

I would call customer service, it might be best to google the number, since eBay's convoluted system will not cover this situation, and you'll have trouble getting the number. If the auctions have ended the seller can open unpaid item disputes, within 48 hours of the auctions end. Have you checked the bid history of some of the auctions to see if the bids show as retracted or seller cancelled?

"I wanted to ask what my options are and ask if anyone's had a problem like this before".

I've never had this happen to me, but I have heard of this type of issue. It happened to someone else who came to the boards, and they had been outbid on a number of items from a Chinese seller, and all of those items had the first bids canceled/retracted as well.

If this was a chinese seller, chances are the finished pieces would not have come close to matching the description. Plate or tone, instead of pure metal and glass for the gem.

"THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS FOOLPROOF, BECAUSE FOOLS ARE SO DARNED INGENIOUS!" (unknown)

ed8108 · ‎01-11-2018

@krimsondelamber wrote:
Day before yesterday I came to EBay to buy a few jewelry gifts. I am an experienced EBay shopper, have bought thousands of items here for my jewelry making. But this time I was primarily shopping for finished jewelry. I found a vendor whose items I liked and went to their page and started bidding on items. Everything I bid on gave me a popup that I'd been outbid, so I'd try a similar item and get the same. After trying about 30 items I gave up and shopped elsewhere. Shortly I started getting notices in my mailbox that ALL the bids had been retracted and suddenly I was the winner of all these auctons. 27 bid retractions? So I went to the bid history and it was the same bidder on every one. I followed the link to their history and got some strange data. They have a 61 after their name, but they have bid on more than 31,000 auctions, 30% with this vendor. 10,000 bids with this vendor? Their history says they have 0 bid retractions. I sent an email to customer service requesting to cancel all these items from this seller, but I wanted to ask what my options are and ask if anyone's had a problem like this before.

telephone ebay Buyer customer service, report this very curious occurrence.

the*dog*ate*my*tablecloth · ‎01-11-2018

Auctions with only one bid will show one bid. The price will still be at opening but the bid count will be 1.

7606dennis · ‎01-11-2018

While you are certainly entitled to report any suspicions of criminal activity, namely shilling, to eBay, I do not see where you have grounds to request that your bids be canceled and the results of the 27 auctions be declared null and void. If the results of eBay's investigations determine that there was criminal activity involved than perhaps the the seller will be suspended, but it is doubtful that eBay would inform you of any action they take against the seller. Baring action from eBay it is likely that you will be required to pay for your purchases or run the risk of receiving 27 unpaid item strikes.

Of course, you may try contacting the seller and request cancellation of these transactions. However, the seller is not obliged to comply. If they become aware of this thread and your accusation of criminal activity on their part, I would probably be surprised if they did agree to any cancellation.

"It is an intelligent man that is aware of his own ignorance."

coolections · ‎01-11-2018

It kind of makes you wonder "why" ? the OP bid on 27 auctions in the first place. Maybe the intent was to not really win all those auctions ? Like I said earlier the OP should have been thrilled that all the bids where canceled and paid immediately.

buyselljack2016 · ‎01-11-2018

OP was apparently unaware that they could become the the winning bidder when they were not at the time the high bidder. Or they forgot. or did not read the message that is displayed telling them that.

krimsondelamber · ‎01-11-2018

I bid on additional items because when I made my bid, I was immediately told that I had been outbid, on every single item. So I would give up on that item and bid on something else with the same result. I was hoping to buy only a few items from this seller. I don't think it's reasonable for me to be held liable for items I was told I was outbid on. If this is the case EBay is a pretty useless resource, as once you've been outbid you cannot go on and bid on another similar item till the first auction concludes, so you don't get stuck with two of them when you only want one. If you have to wait days between bids, what's the point of shopping here?

krimsondelamber · ‎01-11-2018

No, I did not get them at minimum bid. The minimum bid was, for example, .01. I bid $10. Their fake bidder bid $11, causing my proxy to escalate to the maximum $10, then canceled their bid, leaving me stuck with my maximum bid on every item. I came looking to spend about $50 on five gifts, now I'm in the bag for close to $300, and many of the items are essentially duplicates.

coolections · ‎01-11-2018

I am not saying the seller may have scammed and it is OK to report them, BUT you get a warning from Ebay that you may still win the item so they tell you to not bid on other items unless you intend to pay for ALL the items.

coolections · ‎01-11-2018

@krimsondelamber wrote:
No, I did not get them at minimum bid. The minimum bid was, for example, .01. I bid $10. Their fake bidder bid $11, causing my proxy to escalate to the maximum $10, then canceled their bid, leaving me stuck with my maximum bid on every item. I came looking to spend about $50 on five gifts, now I'm in the bag for close to $300, and many of the items are essentially duplicates.

That is not how it works. If the bids where cancelled that would have put the auction back to 0.01 not your $10 bid.

krimsondelamber · ‎01-11-2018

I'm aware that it's possible for a bid to occasionally be retracted. I have absorbed that in the past. What I can't absorb is a cheat seller manipulating the system to outbid me, max out all my bids and then stick me with the tab after ghosting away the high bidder. As near as I can tell this "bidder" has bid 32,000 times on 3 sites, and despite having canceled 27 bids on Monday, is listed with zero cancellations. Lesson learned. I've depended on EBay for years to source art supplies, but if every time I'm outbid I have to wait till each auction closes before I can safely bid on a different item, there's no point at all in trying to buy things here.

krimsondelamber · ‎01-11-2018

Wow, that's a good point. If they canceled or retracted a bidder, they should have canceled all his bids, not just the last one. So for example one of the aucions goes like this:

Starting price $.01 3 Jan 2018 at 11:04:01AM PST

a***a(private) $1.00 4 Jan 2018 at 10:23:20AM PST

0***a(225) $1.00 6 Jan 2018 at 11:21:42AM PST

0***a(225) $2.00 6 Jan 2018 at 11:21:45AM PST

m***h(61) $5.80 8 Jan 2018 at 10:42:06AM PST

me $6.01 8 Jan 2018 at 7:18:57AM PST

m***h(61) Cancelled: $11.90

Bid: 7 Jan 2018 at 3:34:18PM PST

Cancelled: 8 Jan 2018 at 10:41:52AM PST

They only canceled m**h's last bid, leaving the bid that ran me up to my max in the calculation. But they should have taken out all m**h's bids. This seller uses bid increments of $.25, so I should be charged $2.25, which is what my bid would have been without m**h's bid, rather than the $6.01 they are charging me. Is this correct? That would make a big difference.

Also, if the link to this m**h's page is intact, have a look at it and tell me there's no fraud here.

godzilla_goose · ‎01-11-2018

@krimsondelamber wrote:
Day before yesterday I came to EBay to buy a few jewelry gifts. I am an experienced EBay shopper, have bought thousands of items here for my jewelry making. But this time I was primarily shopping for finished jewelry. I found a vendor whose items I liked and went to their page and started bidding on items. Everything I bid on gave me a popup that I'd been outbid, so I'd try a similar item and get the same. After trying about 30 items I gave up and shopped elsewhere. Shortly I started getting notices in my mailbox that ALL the bids had been retracted and suddenly I was the winner of all these auctons. 27 bid retractions? So I went to the bid history and it was the same bidder on every one. I followed the link to their history and got some strange data. They have a 61 after their name, but they have bid on more than 31,000 auctions, 30% with this vendor. 10,000 bids with this vendor? Their history says they have 0 bid retractions. I sent an email to customer service requesting to cancel all these items from this seller, but I wanted to ask what my options are and ask if anyone's had a problem like this before.

@krimsondelamber

krimsondelamber,

I have carefully read and re-read your opening post very slowly and I am ACUTELY aware of what you are trying to describe/explain in your post.

Without even seeing any of the auctions in which you placed bids and experienced the seller cancellations of those bids by the bidder with 61 after their name, I can say that your bids were SHILLED. I would also say that the bidder that you allude to has a masked user ID of m***h (61).

Instead of looking at the mostly USELESS bidding data of m***h (61), my advice to you is to scrutinize the bid history page of EACH auction in which you received a bid retraction/cancellation notice to advise you that you are now the high bidder/winner of that auction.

I want you to focus on the TIME STAMPS of the bid cancellation executed by the SHILLING seller and to look for any bids that were placed within 8 to 30 seconds of that bid cancellation just BELOW your winning bid.

From my research, the user ID m***h (61) is used by SHILLING sellers to set "artificial reserves" on their auctions for FAKE silver jewelry. These SHILLING sellers use multiple SHILL BIDDING IDs to mess with the legitimate bidders' bids. Sometimes the SHILLING seller will cancel m***h (61)'s "high bid" that was used to expose your proxy bid and then m***h (61) OR another SHILL BIDDING ID will place a SHILL BID just below OR EQUAL to your proxy bid to screw you in the auction. If you see m***h (61) "win" an auction when there is NO record of bid cancellations, then that seller will re-list that item.

ANY evidence of SHILL BIDDING viewable by you will be shown in the Bid History page of the auction itself. Don't focus on the USELESS bidding statistics (of a bidder) as those statistics don't PROVE SHILLING (and NEVER have).

If you want me to have a really close look at a particular auction (or auctions) that you suspect that was/were shilled, then feel to contact me and send me a private message. I will fully explain my findings (via private message reply within 24 hours) to you to PROVE to you that you were SHILLED.

I wouldn't waste my time contacting the seller to confront them. They KNOW they're shilling.

If I found myself in such a situation, I will NEVER pay for those SHILLED auctions. I would contact eBay and do everything I could to have the seller sacked. Since February 2017 when a few posters expressed their concerns (on this discussion board) about suspicious bid retraction activity by jewelry sellers (based in India), I have become aware of 22 SHILLING SELLER IDs. At the time of writing, 11 were sacked by Christmas Day, 2017. I don't know how many SHILL BIDDING IDs have been sacked and I don't really care. It's the SHILLING SELLING IDs that need to be sacked. Permanently.

Godzilla_Goose