How do you know the seller isn't bidding on his own item to hike the price up?

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How do you know the seller isn't bidding on his own item to hike the price up?

You don't.

 

Most sellers are honest.

 

If you suspect a seller of this you report them

and ebay will investigate and if they are doing

it they will be removed from ebay.

 

Not worth the risk.

 

Read the following link.

 

http://pages.ebay.ca/help/policies/seller-shill-bidding.html

Message 2 of 13
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How do you know the seller isn't bidding on his own item to hike the price up?

report them if you suspect. it... its called "shell bidding".   I stay away from sellers with bidders that show up as "unidentified"

Message 3 of 13
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How do you know the seller isn't bidding on his own item to hike the price up?


@adinabby wrote:

report them if you suspect. it... its called "shell bidding".   I stay away from sellers with bidders that show up as "unidentified"


Shill bidding, not shell bidding!

Message 4 of 13
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How do you know the seller isn't bidding on his own item to hike the price up?

A lot of new members are confused by 'proxy bidding' and think it is 'shill bidding'.

The thing with shillers is that they do NOT want to win. They want you to win, at the highest price you offered.

 

Watch specifically for bidders who "nibble' up prices, then retract their bids.

But if the other bidder just keeps winning, it's probably not shilling, the seller has a loyal and persistent bidder and she is bidding higher than you.

In the first instance, Report the listing to eBay as a possible shill. You will not be told the outcome of the investigation.

In the second instance, you are losing because you are not bidding high enough. Bid once, bid late, bid your maximum.

Message 5 of 13
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How do you know the seller isn't bidding on his own item to hike the price up?

I have a large number of examples where a seller is using three   accounts to increase the bid prices and to purchase items that are going to be sold for a low price. In the case of the three accounts purchasing the items the seller relists the same item days later and the one of the three accounts again either purchase the item if the price is low or the accounts in crease the final purchase price.

 

This has been reported to ebay along with excess of 30 items (there is a great more examples than this) over a month later  and 4 calls ebay has done not one thing.

 

As we all know the greater the selling price the more money Ebay makes and paypal makes. Makes no sense for ebay to enforce its policies  revenue would decrease. I fact a rep for ebay told me there was no problem if a buyer used a another name to increase the price to the  maximum bid of the final buyer. Example if you set your max bid to $100  and you were the only bid at $4.99. The shill bidder for the seller drove the price up to your max             its okay  because you got the item and you set the price at a max of $100. You should have gotten the item for $4.99 but  its your fault for having a max. Hence its okay you got the item the seller got a awesome price and ebays cut on $100 is a lot better than on $4.99. So there is no problem. To me the buyer over paid at $100 when he or she could have had the item for $4.99... but according to ebay this is not so.

I will like the three account bidding history

Message 6 of 13
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How do you know the seller isn't bidding on his own item to hike the price up?

and to purchase items that are going to be sold for a low price.

A shill bidder does not want to buy the items. He wants you to buy the items. It would be cheaper for the seller to set his opening bid at the price he wants than to pay the fees that he incurs for selling to himself.

You do know that sellers pay fees right? We pay them on listing (there are some promotions which allow free listing). We pay fees on the selling price (about 9% and higher in some categories).  And we pay shipping charges on the money collected from the buyer for shipping.

Sellers pay roughly 20% of the payment for an item to eBay and Paypal in fees. And that is how eBay makes its money.

I fact a rep for ebay told me there was no problem if a buyer used a another name to increase the price to the  maximum bid of the final buyer.

That rep should be reported to eBay for giving false information.

 

Read the following link.
 
http://pages.ebay.ca/help/policies/seller-shill-bidding.html

Message 7 of 13
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How do you know the seller isn't bidding on his own item to hike the price up?

As you might not know there is a policy where by the buyer and seller in this case agree not to complete the transaction. Where by the seller does not pay any fees and the buyer does not get hit with a retraction.  The short  this means if the seller is using three names to drive up prices or stop the sale  of his items for less than the price he wants. He simply just wins the listing, cancels the transaction and relists. The cost is zero to him and he does not have to offer the item as a second chance. He is not hit with a retraction. Note the shill bidders 3 of them have 30 some transaction in a 30 day history and 100% of their bids are with the same seller. Every item they win is relisted same photos same listing etc. The other shill bidder has 70 with almost the same % with this seller and again                winning bids are reposted.

 

Ebay is aware of this and has been give 10s and 10s of examples with dates  item numbers details. etc but has done nothing

 

 

 

Message 8 of 13
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How do you know the seller isn't bidding on his own item to hike the price up?

Yes, It's called a Mutual Cancellation. I used it last month when a buyer thought she was buying Canadian postage although the listing was for US postage. (And it didn't have any stock of the needed value in Canadian stamps.) It's useful and rare.

 

Although FVFs are comp'd with MCs, the original listing fees are still paid.

 

If eBay is ignoring "10s and 10s" of Reports, which keep in mind it costs them money to process, then in my opinion your complaints have been looked at and rejected.

The seller is being stupid if he cannot work out how to sell his items, get the price he wants and do all this will very little labour. In Ontario the minimum wage is 17 cents a minute. How many minutes has he wasted failing to sell when one simple change, listing at the lowest price he is willing to take, would attract a buyer willing to pay the market price with less labour?

 

The lists you give are not particularly useful. Listing numbers would allow posters an opportunity to look at the actual bidding patterns.

Message 9 of 13
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How do you know the seller isn't bidding on his own item to hike the price up?

Alas you forget that the fee for listing is free, he like me gets a large number of free listings and we only pay if the item is sold. If the item as in what he is doing is cancelled by himself to himself there is no cost I repeat there is no cost. There is no final value and he is free to repost item over and over. In one  pattern the example is his shill bidder even repurchased the item   the seller then relisted it a third time and one of his other shill bidder names purchased it and he then relisted it again before  he used the third shill bidder to jack up the price to the final purchaser.

It is my understanding that THE WAS A WARNING ISSUED IN THE PAST BUT THIS PRACTISE    CONTINUED. It looked like a few days of his listings were cancelled  only to have him come back relist those items days later and start the practise again. Actual for ebay and paypal its better...... they make more money if the items are shill bidded. So why do anything....    

Message 10 of 13
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How do you know the seller isn't bidding on his own item to hike the price up?

With shill bidding, one has to look for a longtime record of sales.  Sometimes it is difficult to prove if the ID keep changing, or if the bidding is from different IP addresses.

 

Situation ... a store had a computer in a store.... Items  in the store were listed on eBay.

 

Potential  buyers bid using the store's computer.

 

Same IP address...  was identified as shill bidding.

 

 

 

Also 

 

Major furniture seller in the UK was doing very well..  It was eventually shown that his former wife was bidding up the price....  different IP address..  different names.....  but collusion was shown to have occurred... shill bidding.

 

Seller and former wife suspended from selling or buying....

 

 

Shill bidding is difficult to prove...  as a long term pattern must be established.

 

and if more than two ID are being used... different people, different IP addresses.....  

 

eBay also has to look at the fact if the seller is a BIG FISH, like that UK seller,  or if the seller is a GUPPY with a minor presence on eBay.

 

eBay has to allocate resources.  and ... finally today's reality on eBay is that many seller are being removed from eBay.... 

 

Sometimes  it may take a year or more to do an adequate investigation... and after several warnings, and only then will something happen.

 

One also suspects that several different people must report a seller... One seller reporting a problem can be interpreted as this shill bidding seller as being targeted. 

Message 11 of 13
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How do you know the seller isn't bidding on his own item to hike the price up?

. If the item as in what he is doing is cancelled by himself to himself there is no cost I repeat there is no cost. There is no final value
......
Actual for ebay and paypal its better...... they make more money if the items are shill bidded. So why do anything....   

Ooookay,
He lists for free.
He self-bids (shills) the item higher than a real buyer will pay and buys the item himself.
He then does a Mutual Cancellation and the FVF are cancelled.
So , how did eBay make more money again?

Go slowly, I am obviously very stupid.

Message 12 of 13
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How do you know the seller isn't bidding on his own item to hike the price up?

If you think you are who are we to say your not. At least you made it to the first step self admitting.

 

Okay read this slowly.

 

Seller uses three shill bidders. Seller lists 35 to 45 items at a time on 5 day listings. Seller uses the shill bidder to increase prices. If the price gets higher than what the shill bidder bids in the last hour of the auction the item is sold. If the bids do no get higher that the bid placed by the shill bidder. The shill bidder wins the auction ,  the sale is cancelled between the seller and the seller shill bidder, and the item is relisted and seller then uses another shill bidder ( odd case the same shill bidder does bid again on the same item and does win again) this cycle is repeat until seller get the price he wants.

 

For about 2 weeks the seller stop using the three shill bidders, instead what the seller started to do was in the last minutes of the auction, cancel the bids and remove the items as listed not available. Then the seller relisted the items again  2 weeks later, this time the seller  started to use the shill bidder again.

 

The seller lists his items at a starting price of $4.99.  In a lot of case there would be only 1 or 2 bidders so the price would be under $6.00.

The shill bidder would jump in and say the highest the non shill bidder enter was $7.50 the shill bidder would win the auction for $8.00.

 

In some cases the action would heat up and then a last minute buyer comes in and the bid count goes from 3 to 21, the price get over the shill bidders bid the item sells.

 

Do the math if the items sells for $7.50 what is eBay's and paypal's cut?  that to when the item sells for over $50.00.

The seller uses the shill bidders  to control the auction, the items for sale start at $4.99 the sell price is usually $100 to $250 range, there is generally a few items that are over $500 range. I did post a number of examples with out item #s and names to show how the shill bidding worked, I also post the bid history of the three shill bidders for 30 day periods again without names. Ebay deleted  the examples and emailed me that I can not do that because its again their policy.

The use of shill bidders to drive up the price seems to be really good general method on the cheaper items $40 - $75 increase and the higher items $100 plus in fact on one  example it was over $300.

 

How long does it take to enter a bid? That's a huge gain. Even if you factor in the time needed to cancel a bid then hit the relist tab its a tidy profit. Times this by the number of  completed sales this guy does a month. times 12 months a year...

 

Nice chunk of cash for the seller and equally nice chunk for \ebay and its partners.

Message 13 of 13
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