Makes me wonder

[forlornjohn]

I have been bidding on an item for over a week & I keep getting outbid, which I guess is normal. However, when I look at the bids, the Bidders are all like this: j**p or other cobinations of letters but all with ** in the name. The strange part is that they only outbid me & do not bid against each other. Anybody ever seen this before? If you have or can offer a suggestion please contact me.

forlornjohn

[cbsalesnb]

This is Ebay's way of giving bidders privacy. Their IDs are not actually 2 letters and 2 *s. To them, your ID is that way too.

There used to be issues with people receiving spam messages after bidding on items, so this was put in to prevent that. Only the seller can see their full IDs.

[hereiam87]

Hint, click the mystery bidders icon (p***l) it will show their bid history

]:)

[reallynicestamps]

What is worrying you, I think, is that the seller (or his buddy) is bidding against you.

While this is possible, and easier with the masked IDs, one way to be fairly sure it is not happening is that you lose.

The "shiller" does not want to win, he wants you to win at the highest price he can force you to pay.

The usual advice is "Bid once. Bid your maximum. Bid late." If you bid in the last few minutes of an auction, it is difficult for anyone to force you higher.

[wrightthcats]

I am beginning to think that some sellers have paid bidders.  I am looking a brooches and there are a lot of sellers in China that have the same sort of items and I have been watching lately there are no bids until I place one and Bingo it starts.  Now I have been using Ebay for years and always thought there was some of this but these places won't take offers I make them they all want the same 2.00 each and when I do some check I see the same bidder a few times.  Which I have time to investigate more.  Ebay should have a way to investigate this but I don't want to open an complaint with proof, just a feeling I have...

[reallynicestamps]

Again, it's called shilling and is not only eBay illegal, but is illegal in Real Life.

Check bid history of the masked ID. If the bidder is only bidding with one seller, it is very likely that he is shilling. If you lose to a masked bidder, however, he is not, because, as stated, the purpose of shilling is not to win the bid, but to force you to win at a higher bid.

BTW, what kind of carp to you expect to get for a toonie? Shipped from overseas at that?

[queenpalmer]

It has been my experience that buying from China and southeast Asia can result in a lot of misgivings and later you more often than not say to yourself  "Why, oh why did I do that?"  

[bytownjeff]

I'm new to all this. But, the other day a listing I was watching had about 9 bids before it ended. When I check the bid history, it appears that one bidder made 5 consecutive bids in the span of about 90 seconds.  I don't see any other bidder in between his/her bids. Another bidder ended up taking the auction

Can you do that? Why would you?  I have the listing number. But, I'd rather not post it in case this is a normal transaction and I'm just ignorant about the process

thanks,

Jeff

[bytownjeff]

I think I just found my answer.  Just noticed the Show Automatic Bids function. :-x

[femmefan1946]

jeff- It's fine to post listing numbers. We are not allowed to name sellers or buyers though.

As you found out, rapid fire bidding is usually automatic although some last second snipers set up several screens to make last nanosecond bids.

Lovely day here in the Glebe. Hope you have time to get out for a walk.

[rose-dee]

... although some last second snipers set up several screens to make last nanosecond bids.

It was those last nanosecond bids that finally turned me off bidding on eBay.  I knew there was some sort of technology behind those impossible feats of bidding.  If I'd had more cash and more daring, I would have been tempted to place an enormous reserve bid on an item I expected would be sniped and see how the snipers liked "them apples" - a $30 item for $300.  But I never had the guts to do it.  After a certain number of these, I started looking only for BIN.

"Lovely day here in the Glebe."

Now I haven't heard that word in a dog's age!  I lived in Ottawa for 5 years during the previous century, on Roseberry Avenue in the Glebe.  It was a beautiful time and place, before Ottawa became a really big city.  Back then the canal was frozen from November to March and I used to skate to work downtown most of the winter.  I hear that's no longer possible, but the Glebe must still be lovely.   

[femmefan1946]

The Canal is still open as long as the weather will allow. This year it opened just after New Year and stayed cleared until early March. Then we had a thaw. And today, after I got home from my walk, it snowed. So if you want a Killaloe Sunrise BeaverTail, you have to go to the Byward Market.

Sniping can be a useful tool, especially if the bidder is in a small category. DH bids in a very specialized philatelic category, against mostly Australasian buyers. He uses eSnipe for two reasons.

One is that many of the auctions close either while he is at work (13 hour time difference) or asleep.

The other is that his buying pattern became known and he had other collectors watching what he had found to bid on, and then bid against him. Sometimes they won, sometimes they lost, no shilling involved, but it is annoying to be showing your competitors how to find stuff you have researched.

The sniping bidder is not bidding particularly high, if he is doing it right. He puts in one bid, at his maximum, and lets it ride. The only difference between the sniper and other early bidders is that competitors don't get a chance to push his bid higher by nibbling and then dropping out. This is also a protection against shilling, btw.