Seller using a shill bidder to increase bids
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‎09-25-2021 05:32 AM
I was bidding on an auction item from a seller. Another bidder outbid me. Looked at their bid history and discovered that 97% of all their bids are with this one seller. Also, neither seller or bidder has ever left feedback for the other. Is this a shill bidder working for the seller to increase bids artificially? Ebay states that they monitor these things, but this seems blatantly obvious.
Re: Seller using a shill bidder to increase bids
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‎09-25-2021 05:42 AM
Sounds like a shill bidder. Report them to ebay. Nothing else you can do. Ebay will either take action or not.
Re: Seller using a shill bidder to increase bids
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‎09-25-2021 06:09 AM
@vintage-camerastuff wrote:Sounds like a shill bidder. Report them to ebay. Nothing else you can do. Ebay will either take action or not.
(assume not)
If you have owned a dachshund, no explanation is necessary.
(with apologies to St. Thomas Aquinas)
Re: Seller using a shill bidder to increase bids
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‎09-25-2021 06:18 AM
I woud think you need to detemine if it was just one item they kept bidding on or a lot of them lately
If I only bid on 1 item evey 10 days and I placed 5 bids then 100% of my bid activity is with them
bidding in the last 5 minutes can take care of this..............you either win or lose
I woud think the ealier the bids the more likely there coud be something fishy such as bid shielding
Germantown proud Germantown strong
up the whiskey hickon
moving right along
19144
Re: Seller using a shill bidder to increase bids
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‎09-25-2021 07:29 AM
It is not blatantly obvious unless that single bidder bid on many different type of items all being from the same seller. Looks can be deceiving but if true, ebay does monitor such activity and only they can determine if it is true.
Re: Seller using a shill bidder to increase bids
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‎09-25-2021 10:52 AM
"Another bidder outbid me. Looked at their bid history and discovered that 97% of all their bids are with this one seller... Is this a shill bidder working for the seller to increase bids artificially?".
A bidder's history can be misleading. The history is only for the last 30 days so if they bid on only a couple of sellers items they could have a high percentage with one. It is also not unusual for a buyer to bid almost exclusively on items from a seller they trust. The most important thing to look for on a bidder's history is the number of bid retractions they have.
Could this be a shill bidder? It is possible, but things are not always as they look.
"neither seller or bidder has ever left feedback for the other".
You would not know that. Bidder's identities are scrambled by ebay into an (a***b) format. On a bid history only you see your whole username, the rest are scrambled. So the seller and buyer may have traded feedback and you would not know that.
Re: Seller using a shill bidder to increase bids
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‎09-25-2021 11:18 AM - edited ‎09-25-2021 11:21 AM
Actually, the fact that 97% of that bidder's bids were placed on items being sold by one particular seller, while possibly suggestive, isn't proof that the seller is engaging in illegal activity as you suggest. Since that 97% is based on activity for a relatively short period it is hardly conclusive.
You're bidding on an item being sold at auction. It is unreasonable to think that there would not be other bidders bidding on the same item. It also doesn't follow that because you were outbid by another of these bidders that the seller is engaged in criminal activity. Since you, as a member, do not have access to all the data needed to support such a charge, your only reasonable alternative is to report your suspicions to eBay for investigation. However, it is doubtful that eBay will give you the results of such an investigation owing to privacy issues.
Since 2008, sellers have only been permitted to leave positive feedback for buyers or none at all. Being that feedback on eBay is, and and always has been, voluntary, many sellers have chosen the latter option and many buyers have chosen to do the same.
You failed to mention if, after being outbid, you eventually won the auction. If not, it would indicate to me that there was no shilling taking place as it is not a shill's intention to win the item being sold.
Of course, as a seller yourself, I would expect you to be aware of everything I've mentioned.
Re: Seller using a shill bidder to increase bids
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‎09-25-2021 11:20 PM
>Another bidder outbid me.
Here are a few ideas I use in bidding on eBay auctions. They have worked well for me over for over 20 years.
1) Never bid on an item until the last few seconds. This takes some planning and you must be awake and watching when the item closes. Never show your hand until the item has less than 15 seconds to go.
2} Because of eBay's proxy bidding system, bidding just a bit above the current high bid is useless. When you do bid, if you really want an item, bid at least twice the current high bid. Thrice would be better.
3) There are websites that will (always for a fee) do the last second bidding for you. I don't use them as I don't like giving my eBay login info to a third party.
HTH.
