Last minute Bid cancellations

[billlp]

I've had 16 last minute Bid Cancellations between May 23rd and June 26th on my purchases of Damascus knives on Ebay!  I have asked Ebay to look at this problem of 'bidding me up' and then canceling their bids

at the last minute.  This rip-off has happened to me over a hundred times in the last year.  The sellers use

'private ' buying so you can't see who is canceling the bids.  This, as I understand it, is against Ebay policy.

I'm not bidding against another customer but against a company representative that is making me pay more

than a fair bidding process would have represented.  I have paid hundreds of dollars more than what Í would have in a 'fair' Ebay policy.  Ebay has never answered my concerns, that I passed on through Ebay phone calls.

Ebay appears to be protecting these sellers, not requiring them to comply with stated policy?  WHY

I have been a 100% rated seller and buyer for 20 years

[7606dennis]

I'm not quite understanding what it is that you're complaining about.  As a long time seller yourself, you know that it is only the seller that can cancel a bid.  Are you talking about bidders retracting bids?  

[kathiec]

And just as an fyi, private listings are not against eBay policy. Yes, they are sometimes used to hide shill bidding, but there are also legitimate uses of them. There are also reasons a bidder would cancel their bid other than being a shill. 

Calling eBay to report suspected shilling is usually a waste of time. The best way to report it is through the report this listing link on the suspected listings. 

[donsdetour]

Stop buying from those sellers.

Or learn to snip,

[woodland_gnome]

What it sounds like you are suspecting is called SHILLING (the seller using a different account to drive up your price):

It is illegal.

It is against the rules.

It is impossible to do so with the selling ID, and eBay also blocks bids from other accounts that it has tagged as being associated with the seller account (including some accounts that have been wrongly tagged as such, at least according to those who have posted here after having been so blocked).

eBay also investigates reports of shill bidding (there is a Report item link on each listing, and "Seller is using other accounts to inflate item price" is in the menu it leads to) to some extent and has other software in place to try to find shill bidders and does take action against them, though this is shrouded in secrecy so we have no idea how successful it is.

But it still happens, more often than it should and less often than it is suspected by some (most posters coming here suspicious of a particular auction turn out to be misunderstanding how bidding works, how bid history is displayed, or how other legitimate people might bid). Trying to decide how to bid based on clues that may or may not be accurate is an exercise in futility: if you set your level of suspicion required to act (not bid) high, you'll get false negatives and you open yourself up to being shilled by that seller; if low, you'll get a lot of false positives, and miss out on some good deals, in the middle and you'll get a mixture of false postives and false negatives so it's still unreliable.

The best way to protect yourself against shilling is to wait until the last minute to place your true maximum bid, which you have calculated (ideally hours or days before; I recommend using a "snipe service" to place the bid--there are reliable and secure free ones) without regard to the prior bidding on the item. If you don't let prior shill bids affect YOUR bid amount, and you don't give the shiller time to probe YOUR bid to base HIS bid on the amount of yours, the price you pay if you win will be based on a legitimate underbid or on the seller's true minimum within an increment or so.

[mudshark61369]

@billlp,

In looking through the feedback profile of some of the sellers you have bought from, There are a few whose neutral and negative comments would have had me hitting the back button. They are either actually China based (w/ U.S. registry) or drop ship from there. I seriously doubt their items are using the quality steel they claim to.

Sellers who list more or less common items with very low starting bids, as Private auctions are sellers whose items I will not bid on. 

[billlp]

Bidders that obviously work for the seller, canceling their bids minutes before the listing ends!  I have experienced many dozens of these last second bid retractions from Damascus knife sellers and no one else !

The bidders are not disclosed so you can't follow their actions. 

[mudshark61369]

@billlp,

"I'm not bidding against another customer but against a company representative that is making me pay more than a fair bidding process would have represented".

Why are you getting into bidding wars? You've been a member long enough to know the best way to bid on ebay auctions is to place one bid for the most you are willing to pay for an item, and to place that bid as close to the end of an auction as you can. in the last seconds is best.   If you are outbid you can walk away, and there will not be time for a "shill" to cancel or retract their bid.  If you start bidding early, and bid against an earlier high automatic bid or another incremental bidder, you are allowing them to raise the price.  

"Ebay has never answered my concerns, that I passed on through Ebay phone calls.

Ebay appears to be protecting these sellers, not requiring them to comply with stated policy? WHY"

eBay never divulges information about investigations.  They are not protecting the sellers, but only have limited tools they can use to PROVE a shill is being used.  If they were to remove a seller for using shills, without absolute proof, of a crime being committed they could be sued. 

As I wrote a few days ago, you seem to be buying from sellers whose negatives and neutrals show they are not selling the quality of items they advertise. If they are willing to do that, then they would be willing to do other things that are wrong as well.   If you do not check the feedback profiles of sellers before buying then you are part of the problem.  

[femmefan1946]

Bid once.

Bid your maximum (remember shipping).

Bid late.

If you see a last minute cancellation, you are also allowed to cancel.

All buyers have 100% positive feedback.

The best way to avoid shilled auctions is not to bid in Auctions at all, but only buy the Fixed Price listings which make up 85% of transactions on eBay.