Fake bid gauging

[teb2007]

Good Morning all,

So recently in the past few months I have noticed buyers bidding on my sports cards not paying ,and placing ridiculous bids on the cards making other buyers not willing to place bids of there own.

I also noticed the bidders are creating fake accounts which usually are made the same day or the day before with 0 feedback or they are working with other fake accounts and just throwing bids out there to discourage others from bidding , I have reported this to ebay since November , but have gone an extra mile and noticed that the fake accounts seem all to be working togehter ! This morning I had a card on auction and it jumped from $13 to $202 in seconds and the top bidder just created that account today and the second bidder had a similiar user id with the same kind of name . You can tell its one person price gauging the card! This is a user with 2 separate accounts trying to make it look good for themsleves but they arent to bright ,I looked into it deeper and saw the second highest bidder only had 20 feedbacks his last 2 were negatives and it seems that the second bidder has worked with another ebayer and it looks as if they are trying to gauge the market . Seems like there are 4 particular users that I see in the same feedbacks , One thing I saw on another card on my auction is this user has 2 feedbacks and when I looked into the 2 sales of positive feedback they are no where to be found , that user on the second card just created an account 2 days ago , how does that user get 2 positive feedbacks in just 2 days with no trace of any sale, now I think it is more problematic because the actual user giving that feedback has an account for years selling sports cards etc etc and it looks as if the problem stems from him / her and that user is creating multiple fake accounts to screw the card market up !!  Again it was reported to ebay this morning but it is becoming a real frustration of just pure **bleep** lately . Sport card sellers trying to gauge the card pricing using fake account to make fake bids , pushing others from making honest bids and so on, Is there any advice out there that can be shared? I know I have blocked several user id's already and changed the buyer requirements in my ebay and ebay said they reported all the different user id's and will see if there all connected and if so ebay will suspend all the accounts for fraudulent activity. So ebay suspends accounts and then the users use a different form of ID or payment information and the cycle continues .. Very annoying indeed but any help or ides would be helpful ! Sincerely Very frustrated ebay seller !!!

[richards*rock*collection]

You have been with eBay a long time it seems to me. So, logically, you know there is no way to know if an account is fake, or just a new account, or a guest.

[dq3141]

"Sport card sellers trying to gauge the card pricing using fake account to make fake bids "

I'm not familiar with your definition of "gauge"; can you explain what you mean?

And have you considered switching to Fixed Price listings?

[klhmdg]

This is hard to read without paragraphs but if I get the gist,  it may be best for you to do fixed price listings.

eBay is working on a program that will require "bidders" to attach payment with bid. If they win they are charged for the item. No waiting and no "oh I bid wrong" -

I would like to see eBay do some vetting of buyers like they do sellers, but thats not likely to happen.

[doc-holmes]

Price gouging (not gauging) is when someone marks up the price of an essential item during a state of emergency. Example...$100 pack of toilet paper during covid. What is happening to you is either sport bidding, or a competitor trying to mess with you. 

[katzrul15]

It is hard to tell for certain that shill bidding is occurring - especially with newly created accounts created to mess with your bidding process.  If you are seeing consistent patterns, you can reach out to e-Bay CS and ask Trust and Safety to research. 

They will not tell you the outcome, but they do research, etc.  I'd report it so e-Bay does not think it is tied to you.

[albertabrightalberta]

In trying to understand your difficult-to-read paragraph, I've gathered that this appears to be a case of "bid shielding," but isn't working as the buyer(s) hopes. 

Unlike shill bidding, in which a sellers use friends and other accounts to artificially inflate the price of their items, bid shielding is done by buyers who want to pay a lower price than they think the item will sell for. 

With bid shielding (disallowed and against ebay policy), buyer uses multiple accounts to inflate the price of an item enough that other legitimate buyers will give up and no longer bid and hopefully, no longer watch. As the end time of the listing draws near, the high bidders retract their bids leaving their low bid as the winning bid. 

The way the plan is "supposed" to work is that the buyer wins and pays for the now lower priced item. 

[dq3141]

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@katzrul15 wrote:

It is hard to tell for certain that shill bidding is occurring

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Shill bidding is perpetrated by the seller. That's not what's happening here.

[teb2007]

Already reported it to ebay CS they are researching it as of today , very frustrating indeed !!

[teb2007]

Thats what is happening its been going on for almost 2-3 months with some of my auctions and in most cases they top bidder just doesnt even pay or respond to emails , its as if they vanish !! 

[momboisom8769]

Have you thought about setting up your account so that people with low feedback can't bid?  You can put anyone with under say, 5 feedback's, is blocked or 3 feedback's.  Whatever number you want.  I do that.  Too many idiots out there playing with honest selling peoples lives and income.

Be careful.  Seems like everyone is looking for a way to scam someone, somehow out of anything they can.

[doc-holmes]

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@momboisom8769 wrote:

Have you thought about setting up your account so that people with low feedback can't bid?  You can put anyone with under say, 5 feedback's, is blocked or 3 feedback's.  Whatever number you want.  I do that.  Too many idiots out there playing with honest selling peoples lives and income.

Be careful.  Seems like everyone is looking for a way to scam someone, somehow out of anything they can.

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You can't automatically block by feedback number. You can block, say, a 5 feedback buyer from buying multiple items. Or you can block someone if they have negative feedback, which you almost never see. But you can't just automatically block all 5 or 3 feedback buyers. Could you imagine? Everyone would do it and eBay's business would never grow. What a horrible business plan that would be. 

[downunder-61]

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@momboisom8769 wrote:

Have you thought about setting up your account so that people with low feedback can't bid?  You can put anyone with under say, 5 feedback's, is blocked or 3 feedback's.  Whatever number you want.  I do that.  Too many idiots out there playing with honest selling peoples lives and income.

Be careful.  Seems like everyone is looking for a way to scam someone, somehow out of anything they can.

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As stated above this can not be done. You can manually add a (0) FB buyer to your BBL but you can not blanket block low FB

[dbfolks166mt]

      As others mentioned this is impossible to do and even if it could be done there are some severe down sides. Since sellers cannot leave negative feedback for a buyer all buyers are going to have stellar feedback regardless of how many feedback postings they have. I will ignore the quasi negative feedback some sellers work into a buyers feedback. 

     Second there is a pretty good probability that you would limit your market place and cut out low volume buyers or new buyers who are just entering the marketplace. Low feedback does not necessarily equate to bad buyers. 

     I keep holding my breath waiting for eBay to make auctions immediate payment required at the close of the auction like it is for BIN items but that may never happen. You could switch your auctions over to BIN with immediate payment required. I would imagine there is a known fair market value for the cards you are selling. 

[soh.maryl]

Try it with "gouging" and see if it makes more sense.