eBay

bats*in*the*belfry*again · ‎02-16-2019

Really I buy a lot on ebay and shill bidding is tricky and easy for sellers to do when in moderation But some of these sellers are OUT OF HAND they are so obviously shill bidding it is so so in your face..

Clues of shill bidding .. a bid on every single item and they are automatic bids

bids at same time like they will go down the line and bid on 200 items no matter what it is to set their price

Turn around and relist it if they did not get the price they wanted! This is easy to see when it is a one of a kind stone!

Please if you see this REPORT IT... I can not name these sellers but they are in India and these sellers with Fraudulent listing activities are giving the good sellers in India a bad rep and they waste your time ..

And for the ones that will write they are not shill bidding because they would not want to get in trouble!

lol please No

pburn · ‎02-17-2019

@bats*in*the*belfry*again wrote:

Bid activity (%) with this seller: 12%

Are you suggesting this "shill bidder" works with more than one seller? Because 12% activity with one seller isn't much.

P.S. It might help if you avoid bidding on inexpensive "jewelry" from sellers in India.

P.P.S. It's not usually considered appropriate to mark your own post as a solution.

creekcoyote · ‎02-17-2019

@bats*in*the*belfry*again wrote:
Lucky You!
But this is not a debate if there are shill bidders or not.. Just plane and simple there is.
I have been out bid hundreds of times that's fine I also win bids and I love a good snipe but this is not the case I am dealing with shill bidders on a daily bases.. and Ebay needs to crack down a little harder on it.

Well, if you cannot get help from E-bay, I guess the smart thing to do would be to dis-continue bidding on items from India. Since this seems to be the area that you are having trouble with.

COYOTES RULE!!!

bats*in*the*belfry*again · ‎02-18-2019

I still had faith ebay would do something they have millions of listings to deal with I thought maybe a post would help bring it to their attention but so far all I got is a warning about post from them? Something about

(((( No naming and shaming )))))) that was after I posted 42 feedback over 8000 bids in 30 days

even though that is public record ?

Oh Well it just may be time to take a complete ebay brake again

"Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.”

bats*in*the*belfry*again · ‎02-18-2019

P.S. It might help if you avoid bidding on inexpensive "jewelry" from sellers in India.

That is Ridiculous We should not have to deal with this as buyers on ebay period!

P.P.S. It's not usually considered appropriate to mark your own post as a solution

LAUGHING OUT LOUD Having a bad day smarty pants

On a serious note I am not the bad guy here I am an ebay shopper not wanting me or unknowing shoppers to get scammed while doing thier shopping on ebay if that gets your goat sorry charlie

OH and P.S. Are you suggesting this "shill bidder" works with more than one seller? Because 12% activity with one seller isn't much.

Yes They are connected to 3 stores that I know of so far that are all shilling

“The signs are just not subtle enough to pass onto oversight in lieu of self preservation.”
― Daleen Van Tonder

fossil_diver · ‎02-18-2019

Ebay bots look for links betwern the selling account and the shill account. If there are no links then it is impossible to prove shill bidding regardless of how suspicious it looks.

little.font.lord.leroy · ‎02-18-2019

@bats*in*the*belfry*again wrote:
Please if you see this REPORT IT...

Report it to whom? If you are reporting to eBay, you are only informing the fox that the door to the coop is open. They already know that.

If you are reporting to your local district attorney, they probably consider all shill bidding as insignificant. Until there is a national outcry from buyers nothing will happen. And a national outcry ain't gunna happen.

The best defense as a buyer is when you know a seller is shilling their bids to block them from your searches using the advanced search > Sellers v check: Only show items from: v Specific sellers (enter seller's user IDs), choose "exclude" from the drop down and list the sellers names separated by a comma.

You have to remember that shill bidding makes eBay millions of dollars a year, what incentive do they have to thwart it?

While you may feel cheated by a shill seller, understand that there are buyers who are not. They spend their money on these sellers, meaning that they have less money to bid against you in a legitimate auction.

little.font.lord.leroy · ‎02-18-2019

little.font.lord.leroy · ‎02-18-2019

@mudshark61369 wrote:

While I am pretty sure the Indian sellers are using a form of shilling, by placing automatic bids, something they have copied from the chinese.

Shilling is shilling is shilling, weather you list an item at a low starting and then put a high bid on it (like a reserve) it is still shilling. Shilling: the seller or a cohort places a bid in an auction in order to raise the price.

@mudshark61369 wrote:
It is only really provable if the bid histories constantly show the automatic bid was retracted so another person becomes the winner. Too many re-lists of an item because "the buyer requested cancellation" does get on ebay's radar.

The only way to "prove" is to know the IP address and names of the individuals involved. EBay isn't going to track that down even if they have the information. Too many relists of a unique item after it supposedly sold is a very good indicator of shilling.

@mudshark61369 wrote:
To me this sounds like they are using the same photos and description, and not delivering what is actually shown in the photo. Something else that many Asian sellers do.

I agree, I have seen that a lot.

@mudshark61369 wrote:

Since most of us know, the jewelry and unique stones coming out of Asia often do not match the quality advertised. Not buying from deceptive Asian sellers is the best way to avoid shills or receiving junk. After all no legitimate seller would risk selling real precious stones and/or metal jewelry for a .99cent start price, even as a way to get higher search placement.

It doesn't matter how many of us know it, it is wise information to pass on. My policy is never to buy from China or India (or outside the US for that matter). But I have to admit that I did break that rule recently for a piece of crazy costume jewelry that was cheap as sin, no it didn't turn out to be as advertised but still worth the money I paid, basically. I still would have bought it at that price if the photos reflected what I got. I feel like the Chinese just shoot themselves in the foot with this tom-foolery.

And I hate to rely on someone else to determine the legitimacy of others on a purity basis, sorry to admit. I will confirm that I have purchased real precious jewelry from a seller who starts sales at 99¢, oops, maybe I shouldn't be telling potential competing buyers that some 99¢ sales are legit. never mind.

little.font.lord.leroy · ‎02-18-2019

@kim_y_buran wrote:
Threads on shill bidding come up all the time, but in my experience it is exceedingly rare. I mean I bid on thousands of items every year and I can recall only one instance of it I ever came across. Most of the complaints are just buyers upset with not getting the item at the price they wanted.

While some folks might be complaining about being bid up, I is impossible to say how many complaints are legit.

I would call shill bidding on eBay, rampant, in my experience. In fact, I am almost always surprised when I find a seller who isn't probablly, or quite possibly, or clearly shilling his auction.

little.font.lord.leroy · ‎02-18-2019

@creekcoyote wrote:
@etacarina11 wrote:
@kim_y_buran wrote:
Threads on shill bidding come up all the time, but in my experience it is exceedingly rare. I mean I bid on thousands of items every year and I can recall only one instance of it I ever came across. Most of the complaints are just buyers upset with not getting the item at the price they wanted.
normally would agree but in this instance think the OP is correct.
The OP may very well be correct, but shill bidding shouldn't even be an issue if you know exactly what you are willing to pay for an item and stick religiously to that price.

Honestly. I have to write that twice because. Honestly.

Shill bidding is illegal in every state of the union (for good reason) because it is a form of fraud. You put up an item for auction to the highest bidder (actually the person willing to bid a dollar over the next highest bidder). You don't start an auction low hoping to get more, then drive the price up to what you want will a shill bid, that's called fraud. And you don't put an item up for auction hoping to bid against the highest bidder to drive the price up to what you think they may be willing to pay, that's also called fraud. FRAUD. What part of "auction" don't you understand?

Shill bidding wouldn't become an issue if the seller was willing to put a price or reserve price on the item at what they are willing to let it go for.

You shouldn't even be listing an item for sale if you plan to fraudulently bid against the buyers in order to falsely inflate the price.

Who, in their ethical mind, can even begin to justify shill bidding?

little.font.lord.leroy · ‎02-18-2019

@fossil_diver wrote:
Ebay bots look for links betwern the selling account and the shill account. If there are no links then it is impossible to prove shill bidding regardless of how suspicious it looks.

The bots do as very little as they can so that when (not if) the authorities finally decide to do something about the rampant fraud, eBay has an excuse. There are many data sources eBay could use if they were serious about combating shill bidding, none of them expensive or difficult to administer.

Basically, eBay sends a "warning" email when they find suspected shill activity. While this looks like a "warning, we are fixing to kick you off the site because of suspicious shilling activity -this is your last warning", it is in reality, "warning, you were so lazy or incompetent that our bots or a buyer was able to suspect that you are shilling your bids -come on dude, you can cover your tracks better than that! -this is your last warning"

Our only recourse as a buyer is to write your state attorney general each and every time you believe you were defrauded by shills on eBay.

yuzuha · ‎02-18-2019

@bats*in*the*belfry*again wrote:
How about this one 42 feedback over 8000 bids in 30 days!!!
4***7 ( 42 )
Feedback: 100% Positive
30-Day Summary
Total bids: 8589
Items bid on: 6877
Bid activity (%) with this seller: 12% Help
Bid retractions: 0
Bid retractions (6 months): 0

Doesn't look like a shill bidder to me. For one, they don't have any bid retractions. Shill bidders don't actually want to win, they just want to push the price up, so they will typically retract any bid that puts them into the winning position. This bidder hasn't done that.

It looks like someone who is trying to amass a lot of cheap jewelry, probably to resell either in a B&M store or elsewhere online.

yuzuha · ‎02-18-2019

I should add, I've done exactly the same thing on Yahoo!Japan auctions: there are a lot of sellers who will list item lots for a low starting price. I will bid on them all because I know I can resell them here and make money, but only if I can get them for less than a certain price. I may bid on 20 auctions from a single seller at once and end up winning none of them because the price goes above what I'm willing to pay. Sometimes I'm pleasantly surprised and win a few. That probably makes me look like a shill bidder, but in reality I'm just trying to get things for the lowest price possible.

creekcoyote · ‎02-18-2019

@little.font.lord.leroy wrote:
@creekcoyote wrote:
@etacarina11 wrote:
@kim_y_buran wrote:
Threads on shill bidding come up all the time, but in my experience it is exceedingly rare. I mean I bid on thousands of items every year and I can recall only one instance of it I ever came across. Most of the complaints are just buyers upset with not getting the item at the price they wanted.
normally would agree but in this instance think the OP is correct.
The OP may very well be correct, but shill bidding shouldn't even be an issue if you know exactly what you are willing to pay for an item and stick religiously to that price.
Honestly. I have to write that twice because. Honestly.

Shill bidding is illegal in every state of the union (for good reason) because it is a form of fraud. You put up an item for auction to the highest bidder (actually the person willing to bid a dollar over the next highest bidder). You don't start an auction low hoping to get more, then drive the price up to what you want will a shill bid, that's called fraud. And you don't put an item up for auction hoping to bid against the highest bidder to drive the price up to what you think they may be willing to pay, that's also called fraud. FRAUD. What part of "auction" don't you understand?

Shill bidding wouldn't become an issue if the seller was willing to put a price or reserve price on the item at what they are willing to let it go for.

You shouldn't even be listing an item for sale if you plan to fraudulently bid against the buyers in order to falsely inflate the price.

Who, in their ethical mind, can even begin to justify shill bidding?

I don't justify shill bidding. I just don't worry about it when I bid the way I do. I know what I am willing to pay and won't go over that amount. Shill bidding or not.

We cannot stop shill bidding. All we can do is be responsible for what we are buying at a price that suits our pocketbook.

And basically both the shill bidder and the legitimate bidder can be guilty of inflating the price. But, the value of the item is precisely what a bidder is willing to pay for it at that point in time. If the legitimate bidder continues to bid they must think the item is worth what they are bidding.

I seriously doubt that anyone else is holding the bidder's finger to the bid button except the bidder. They can quit anytime and foil the shill bidder.

Anytime anyone thinks that they in competition with a shill bidder, the best thing to do is just quit bidding on that particular item.

The object of shill bidding is to sell the item at a higher price. The seller makes no money if no one bids higher than their shill bid.

COYOTES RULE!!!

j2774 · ‎02-18-2019

I complained about this so many times in the past it is not even funny. Ebay is not going to do anything about it. Complaints go in one ear and out the other. I noticed a lot of it coming from sellers in China.

Even if eBay wanted to wipe out all of this fraud, how do you think they could do it? Ebay cannot possibly know, for example, who are your friends, relatives, and partners in crime around the world. You could be here in the U.S. and have people in Canada, the UK, and Australia all shill bidding for you. How would you expect eBay to find out and stop it? The bottom line is buying on sites like eBay means you are running the risk of fraudulent sellers. There is no way around it.