Shill Bidding

[djmarine661]

How does a person with 10 feedback bid on everything one seller has and win everything but a few items.  Bids until item gets to 19.00 or above and stops.  Ever single item this person has for sale every auction before April 2019 well only went back that far, and no feedback either side from one another.  Wins 100-200 worth a day.

I am talking every auction this person they have 14,105 sales and 690 feedback.  person bidding if you look at anything & everything for sale it is person.   EBAY  says they monitor this so no reason to report shilling.  If this is the case this account is very very obvious.  A friend bid on 25 things with 30 something feedback and they said they couldnt bid on anything else until these 25 ended.  But this person with 10 feedback can bid on 100's of things.   How is that possible.  I really hope some does look into this it wont take long to see the obvious.  This isnt fair to the legitimate bidders. 

[bonjourami]

Bid late, bid once, and bid your max.

[bonjourami]

Got a listing number for one of these closed auctions?

[hagelaue-0]

323896098671, 323893689126

[bonjourami]

I was hoping for some black and white proof of shilling..I dont see it, but obviously you do. Tho it is not surprising that Chinese sellers shill, as Ebay coddles and protects them,and they are not held to the same standard as U.S. sellers. I guess the moral is..dont buy from China.

[hagelaue-0]

I am posting on a USA board because that's where I'm from. If you know shill bidding exist then I'm confused. Blanket means just that. If I'm going after a certain item from multiple sellers I bid on every single auction that has  that item for a set bid. During the auction(s) I will increase certain bids based on quality and desire. This is the style of purchasing that has been discussed in this thread and accused of shill bidding.  I understand that you require absolute proof, found guilty, and store closed up. I don't wait, wonder, or question what "I" see as absolute proof.   

[hagelaue-0]

If you could see the bidders you would see the shill. I wish you could. I LOVE buying from China. Great, great, items and prices. Some of my best purchases have been from China. You just need to watch them like a hawk.

[bonjourami]

yes..maybe...i dont know if you sell with another id, if so, you are familiar with bid retractions,there are thousands on Ebay every day. With 1.2 billion listings worldwide, its to be expected I guess.

[7606dennis]

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@davicurti18 wrote:

I'm a Counseling Psychologist and court certified Psychological Forensic Examiner having worked for years with the local DA's office...e-Bay lets scam sellers to continue to operate with impunity. We all get a kick out of reporting to them, get a good laugh with support in discussions, but the band plays on. This has to stop!!! Dave. 

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I'm a licensed auctioneer and auction business owner and am quite familiar with the auction laws of the states in which I'm licensed.  Personally, I've seen many threads here claiming to be able to determine that shilling is taking place but later find out that what the person is posting about isn't shilling at all.  Mostly they are complaining about sniping.  But as I believe I've mentioned, eBay does not provide ordinary members access to the data that would be necessary to prove shilling for obvious privacy concerns.

Does shilling occasionally take place her on eBay?  Probably.  But as you obviously know from your experience with the legal system, proof needs to be based on evidence to have any use in court.  Without access to the data needed to establish guilt beyond a reasonable doubt is pretty much useless. 

Of course, if one has suspicions, by all means, report those suspicions to eBay.  However, I'm doubtful that one can simply say for certain that shilling is being committed by a specific seller based on mere observations without access to data not available to the observer.

[suzanne3t]

I am just baffled by what happened in my most recent auction, which is over now. Several bidders with only one feedback (100%, from a high-volume overseas seller) BID AGAINST THEMSELVES. The one who won won't pay or even respond to me or to eBay (this is an open case, to try to get payment for a $99 item.) My auction had what looks like THREE shillers. One made a half-dozen bids against themself then stopped, then another took over. Then another.

I can understand how a fraudulent seller could use shill bidding to fake out legitimate bidders, to the advantage of the seller. But I am not a shady seller. I am a genuine person who in good faith trusted eBay to catch shillers—at least that's what they claim they can do with their "sophisticated systems in place."

Why do shillers drive up prices when they have no intention of paying? Also, a de-registered bidder was allowed to shill up my auction. How is that even possible? I'm really mad at eBay and have insisted in several phone calls that they dig more deeply into this particular auction. Hope it helps other legitimate sellers, too.

[myangelandmyprincess]

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@suzanne3t wrote:

I am just baffled by what happened in my most recent auction, which is over now. Several bidders with only one feedback (100%, from a high-volume overseas seller) BID AGAINST THEMSELVES. The one who won won't pay or even respond to me or to eBay (this is an open case, to try to get payment for a $99 item.) My auction had what looks like THREE shillers. One made a half-dozen bids against themself then stopped, then another took over. Then another.

I can understand how a fraudulent seller could use shill bidding to fake out legitimate bidders, to the advantage of the seller. But I am not a shady seller. I am a genuine person who in good faith trusted eBay to catch shillers—at least that's what they claim they can do with their "sophisticated systems in place."

Why do shillers drive up prices when they have no intention of paying? Also, a de-registered bidder was allowed to shill up my auction. How is that even possible? I'm really mad at eBay and have insisted in several phone calls that they dig more deeply into this particular auction. Hope it helps other legitimate sellers, too.

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This is not shilling is when a. Seller bids or has someone bid to raise the price.  Bidders cannot bid against themselves.  You auction appears to have nibble bidders who kept raising the price until the outbid the top bid of the previous bidder.  

[nobody*s_perfect]

I looked at the bid history for your $99 item and I think you just don't understand how bidding works. It looks like a normal bidding history, with no evidence of shill bidding. In fact, it looks like a nice old-fashioned bidding war like we don't see very often on eBay any more.

It is not possible for a member to bid against themselves.  If a member is already the highest bidder, then bidding again will not increase the high bid showing, the excess will be held by eBay until it is needed to bid against other new bids.

The member who was suspended could not have been able to bid on your auction after he was suspended.  If he had been suspended while the auction was active, then his bid would have been removed.  So apparently he was suspended after the auction ended.

[7606dennis]

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@suzanne3t wrote:

I am just baffled by what happened in my most recent auction, which is over now. Several bidders with only one feedback (100%, from a high-volume overseas seller) BID AGAINST THEMSELVES. The one who won won't pay or even respond to me or to eBay (this is an open case, to try to get payment for a $99 item.) My auction had what looks like THREE shillers. One made a half-dozen bids against themself then stopped, then another took over. Then another.

I can understand how a fraudulent seller could use shill bidding to fake out legitimate bidders, to the advantage of the seller. But I am not a shady seller. I am a genuine person who in good faith trusted eBay to catch shillers—at least that's what they claim they can do with their "sophisticated systems in place."

Why do shillers drive up prices when they have no intention of paying? Also, a de-registered bidder was allowed to shill up my auction. How is that even possible? I'm really mad at eBay and have insisted in several phone calls that they dig more deeply into this particular auction. Hope it helps other legitimate sellers, too.

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If the winning bidder refuses to pay, you need to file a UID.  If the don't pay within 96 hours of opening it, close it giving them a strike and put them on your BBL.  If they pay, ship and thank them for their business.

Bidder's cannot bid against themselves in eBay auctions.  However, since you are the seller you know that these bidders are not shilling unless you are involved.  They may be competitors attempting to sabotage your auction, but that isn't the same as shilling.  However, in cases where a bidder places and then retracts a bid on one of my items, I immediately cancel any and all bids that that bidder has placed on any of my items and place them on my BBL.  This should bring the bid price showing to what it would have been if the retracted and canceled bids had never been placed.

Alas!  I admit that this can be costly for the seller if there isn't enough time left for the bidding to recover, but I consider it the ethical thing to do.  Of course, if the auction interference takes place late and the bidding does look like it will have time to recover, you could cancel all bids as close to the end as possible and hope that a last minute sniper doesn't slip in and place a bid.  This is risky, I know, but may be your only other real option from an ethical point of view. 

[xonicc]

I have countless times seen Chinese sellers open an auction with no minimum price.  3-4 days before auction end, "someone" places a ridiculously high maximum bid, which will be activating old and new bidders maximum bids.  Typically in the last minutes of the auction, this ridiculously high bid is being cancelled (can only be done by the seller at this late time) and then "someone" miraculously manages to place a bid, just fractions below the previously second highest bidders maximum bid, to make sure that max profit is gained.  Sometimes, when the sellers have forgotten to retract the fake bid,  I have been offered a second chance to buy the item, but still at an inflated price due to the fake bid.  I always stay away from buying second chance items, unless the price is very attractive, which rarely happens, hoping that this at least will give the shill bidding seller a problem about payment to ebay.  Last but not least, I have often been second highest bidder on auctions won with a high automatic bid, only to see the exact same unique item being listed by the seller again a few days later.

I have on several occasions collected evidence about this and filed reports to ebay, but each time ebay has been unwilling to look further into it, as they didn´t (want to) see any proof of shill bidding.  Maybe understandable, as both the shill bidding sellers and ebay are making a nice profit out of this.  But is this really the way to run a respectable and trustworthy business?

[nightwolf001]

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@xonicc wrote:

I have on several occasions collected evidence about this and filed reports to ebay, but each time ebay has been unwilling to look further into it, as they didn´t (want to) see any proof of shill bidding.  Maybe understandable, as both the shill bidding sellers and ebay are making a nice profit out of this.  But is this really the way to run a respectable and trustworthy business?

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eBay makes a profit either way, so they won't do anything about it.  Like many large companies, it would seem their mentality is that they are now too big to fail.  The customers and sellers that leave will be replaced by countless more.  Perhaps one day, when something better comes along, they will go the way of Blockbuster.  Then, and only then, when they are begging for business, that they will begin to make reforms.

[reallynicestamps]

@xonicc 

I have on several occasions collected evidence about this and filed reports to ebay, but each time ebay has been unwilling to look further into it,

EBay appears to be reluctant to close down a seller based on a report from a single member.

• The reporter may be a vigilante.
• The reporter may be a competitor.
• The reporter may be wrong.

If several members are Reporting the same questionable listings or the same member, then there would be more reason for eBay to step in.

But a single Report?  No.