Shill Bidding on eBay

I bought more than 200 eBay items in the last several years with no
problem until now.

This eBay seller had a reserve. When I asked him about the item
conditions, he told me the reserve was at, i.e. $300. I put in my
maximum bid at $311, considering the item value.

When the bidding closed, there were 2 other bidders, one at $120 and
the other one at $299. The second bidder has (0) bid history! He and
the seller signed up with eBay about 2 months apart, more than 2 years
ago. The seller did not have any eBay activities in the last 14
months.

Since this seems like a typical shill bidding, I reported the issue to
eBay 3 days ago and received an automatic reply from eBay saying they
consider shill bidding a "serious" violation and they will investigate
the report within 24 hours.

I sent eBay another email yesterday to check on the report status and
once again received the same automatic reply from eBay.

Two questions arise:

1. How do you folks handle eBay shill bidding problem ? If I do not
pay, the seller can leave me a negative feedback. My current feedback
is 100%.

2. What is your experience with eBay when you need their help ? Is
there anything else I can do ?

Thanx,

Calvin

pay the seller......asshole!

wrote in message
oups.com...

I bought more than 200 eBay items in the last several years with no
problem until now.

This eBay seller had a reserve. When I asked him about the item
conditions, he told me the reserve was at, i.e. $300. I put in my
maximum bid at $311, considering the item value.

When the bidding closed, there were 2 other bidders, one at $120 and
the other one at $299. The second bidder has (0) bid history! He and
the seller signed up with eBay about 2 months apart, more than 2 years
ago. The seller did not have any eBay activities in the last 14
months.

Since this seems like a typical shill bidding, I reported the issue to
eBay 3 days ago and received an automatic reply from eBay saying they
consider shill bidding a "serious" violation and they will investigate
the report within 24 hours.

I sent eBay another email yesterday to check on the report status and
once again received the same automatic reply from eBay.

Two questions arise:

1. How do you folks handle eBay shill bidding problem ? If I do not
pay, the seller can leave me a negative feedback. My current feedback
is 100%.

2. What is your experience with eBay when you need their help ? Is
there anything else I can do ?

Thanx,

Calvin

Calvin wrote in message
oups.com...

This eBay seller had a reserve. When I asked him about the item
conditions, he told me the reserve was at, i.e. $300. I put in my
maximum bid at $311, considering the item value.

When the bidding closed, there were 2 other bidders, one at $120 and
the other one at $299. The second bidder has (0) bid history! He and
the seller signed up with eBay about 2 months apart, more than 2 years
ago. The seller did not have any eBay activities in the last 14
months.

Since this seems like a typical shill bidding, I reported the issue to
eBay 3 days ago and received an automatic reply from eBay saying they
consider shill bidding a "serious" violation and they will investigate
the report within 24 hours. . . .
1. How do you folks handle eBay shill bidding problem ? If I do not
pay, the seller can leave me a negative feedback. My current feedback
is 100%.

This inquiry seems to confuse two issues.
#1 = This item. Calvin bid what he thought was a
fair price, and knew was 4 per cent over the reserve
price. He now considers declining to make the purchase.
#2 = Shill bidding.

However deplorable, if either of the other bids here was
from a shill, it could not have bought the item for sale,
because less than the reserve price. Calvin remains
the only bidder over the reserve price.

This means, if Calvin now is reluctant to compete the
purchase, he would need a reason acceptable to eBay.
Is he seeking the reason from RCB users?

--
Don Phillipson
Carlsbad Springs
(Ottawa, Canada)

This inquiry seems to confuse two issues.
#1 = This item. Calvin bid what he thought was a
fair price, and knew was 4 per cent over the reserve
price. He now considers declining to make the purchase.
#2 = Shill bidding.

However deplorable, if either of the other bids here was
from a shill, it could not have bought the item for sale,
because less than the reserve price. Calvin remains
the only bidder over the reserve price.

This means, if Calvin now is reluctant to compete the
purchase, he would need a reason acceptable to eBay.
Is he seeking the reason from RCB users?

--
Don Phillipson
Carlsbad Springs
(Ottawa, Canada)- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

There was no confusion in the inquiry. Even though my maximum bid was
4% over the reserve price, if the shill bidding was not there, my bid
would come in at $121, $1 over the genuine bidding and well under the
reserve price. NO ONE won that item.

I've expected all biddings should be done with honesty. Would you
expect the same in the virtual world ?

wrote:

There was no confusion in the inquiry. Even though my maximum bid
was 4% over the reserve price, if the shill bidding was not there,
my bid would come in at $121, $1 over the genuine bidding and well
under the reserve price. NO ONE won that item.

I think you're wrong about that. If your bid is lower than the reserve
then, yes, it will come out at just over the next highest bidder. But if
you break the reserve then it will come out at just higher than the reserve.

At least, I think that's the case; there doesn't seem much point in
there being a reserve if someone - like you - can meet it and still not
win the item. You could check this on alt.marketing.ebay.

I've expected all biddings should be done with honesty. Would you
expect the same in the virtual world ?

That's a different matter. You could check the bidding on other items by
this seller, to see if there's a pattern, but shill bidding is hard to
prove and (unless things have changed recently) eBay isn't that hot on
chasing up possible abuses.

I don't suppose you'll buy from that seller again, feeling as you do,
and you might not want to give positive feedback, but you valued the
item at $300+ and it seems only reasonable that, having bid on it and
won it, you now go ahead and pay for it.

John
http://rarebooksinjapan.org

On Jan 31, 10:36 am, "John R. Yamamoto-Wilson"
wrote:

I think you're wrong about that. If your bid is lower than the reserve
then, yes, it will come out at just over the next highest bidder. But if
you break the reserve then it will come out at just higher than the reserve.

That is correct. If you break the reserve, the bid amount jumps to
the reserve amount.

"In Reserve Price Auctions, if your maximum bid is the first to be
greater than the seller's reserve price, the eBay system will
automatically jump the price up to meet the reserve, and bidding will
continue from there."

There is the possibility that the $299 bid would cause the price to go
to the next increment up (i.e. $299+$5 = $304) rather than 300 flat.
I'm not sure whether the reserve would affect that. Can an under-
reserve bid force an over-reserve bid to go to the next bid
increment? I dunno.

Anyway, the zeroth law of auctions is: don't bid more than you're
willing to pay. If you know the reserve is $300, and you think that's
a fair price, and you bid more than that... then you might just have
to live up to your bid.

For what it's worth, I've always had good interaction with Ebay
police. But that's always been for pretty blatant stuff: fraudulent
'second offers' and there was the time I tipped them off to a stolen
book from UCLA's Special Collections.

--Mike

On Jan 31, 12:46 pm, "
wrote:

There was no confusion in the inquiry. Even though my maximum bid was
4% over the reserve price, if the shill bidding was not there, my bid
would come in at $121, $1 over the genuine bidding and well under the
reserve price. NO ONE won that item.

I've expected all biddings should be done with honesty. Would you
expect the same in the virtual world ?


The point is that even if there was shill bidding, if the shill
bidding was under the reserve price it has no effect on the outcome of
the auction.

William M. Klimon
http://www.gateofbliss.com

On Jan 31, 12:46 pm, "
wrote:
This inquiry seems to confuse two issues.
#1 = This item. Calvin bid what he thought was a
fair price, and knew was 4 per cent over the reserve
price. He now considers declining to make the purchase.
#2 = Shill bidding.

However deplorable, if either of the other bids here was
from a shill, it could not have bought the item for sale,
because less than the reserve price. Calvin remains
the only bidder over the reserve price.

This means, if Calvin now is reluctant to compete the
purchase, he would need a reason acceptable to eBay.
Is he seeking the reason from RCB users?

--
Don Phillipson
Carlsbad Springs
(Ottawa, Canada)- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

There was no confusion in the inquiry. Even though my maximum bid was
4% over the reserve price, if the shill bidding was not there, my bid
would come in at $121, $1 over the genuine bidding and well under the
reserve price. NO ONE won that item.

You are completely wrong.
Your bid over the reserve would have set your bid to the reserve
price, even if there had been no other bids.
You've presented absolutely no evidence of shill bidding.
It seems like you are just trying to weasel out of paying for the item
- you knew the reserve was $300 and bid over that amount. You clearly
were willing to pay over the reserve price, now you seem to have
buyer's remorse.
Be a man and pay up.

wrote in message
oups.com...

1. How do you folks handle eBay shill bidding

You might be better off posting this in a shill collecting group. We only
know about book bidding.

On Jan 31, 9:12 am, "foaddoc" wrote:
wrote in message

oups.com...

1. How do you folks handle eBay shill bidding

You might be better off posting this in a shill collecting group. We only
know about book bidding.

I am sorry for the confusion. "Shill bidding" is defined as an
artificial bidding to raise the price in favor of the seller. If the
bidder with (0) history bid at $298, my bid would come in at $299,
under the reserve price and NO ONE won that item, i.e. a rare book!

If you ever bid on eBay, how would you feel when you encounter shill
bidding ?