Is this Shill Bidding?

[lady.stark]

I need your opinion on this item and all the other the seller sold recently (especially on July 24): 330765673044

There's a bidder with 0 feedback who always bid unbelievable prices, but never wins anything. And this person only bid on this seller's items.

I think the poor girl who won all those auctions got ripped off by the seller, who was - in my humble opinion - probably shill bidding. For photos and items not even THAT rare or not even autographed!

I reported him, but if I'm the only one, I fear I will only be seen as a jealous competitor... but I'm a fan more than anything and I find it sad that another "fan" stole money from a poor new buyer (she is new even if her feedback says otherwise).

[i*m-still-here]

IMO it looks suspicious but that's pretty much all for now and contacting the winner is an all'round bad idea (IMO).

You've reported it to ebay and they have more information that we do, so see what happens.

For example, the buyer's FB, other ids, etc. would help................ stuff that only ebay can see and who knows........

maybe it's all on the up and up.

[pjcdn2005]

lady stark...it looks like the bidder who won those auctions has been with ebay since 2001 so definitely not a new ebayer. Or..am I looking at the wrong person?

The seller looks very suspicious to me too. There is also a a bidder with 388 feedback that bid on quite a few of the same auctions that lady stark's buyer won. A couple of them are

330758676095 & 330765625335. I couldn't find any wins by the 388 bidder and they seem to just bid on that sellers items when  lady stark's buyer is winning.  They do bid on other sellers items as well but have a high percentage with this one particular seller..and has 6 bid retractions.

[lady.stark]

Well, you are probably right... And maybe I’m just paranoid. 🙂 Thanks for your input everyone!

[lady.stark]

Seriously? Again for the second time? What did I do wrong??

[lady.stark]

I was not paranoid in the OP.

[lady.stark]

Please contact me in private to know more, as I obviously can't disclose anything here, even the smallest detail. 😞

[jamesb6011]

Whenever I see an auction being driven by 0 feedback bidders, especially high bids I stop bidding.It looks too suspicious.Ebay should set spending limits on New members until they reach 20 or 30 positive feedback on purchases reaching up to the higher limits of their bids.

[pjcdn2005]

There's nothing wrong with 0 feedback buyers in my opinion. The more people that register with ebay, the better. I wonder though if some new buyers keep bidding not really realizing hat they are supposed to be committing to purchasing that item if they win.

If a seller frequently does shill their own auctions, chances are that they have several accounts with feedback already set up to do that.

[almond_t]

Personally, I always hate to read negative comments generalizing low feedback buyers.  We were all there, once, too.   My first feedback way back when was for a $3 sale; then confident that  I had the hang of it - my second one was for about $300.    Thankfully, my seller was not biased against a newbie; it would have been his loss, not mine.

[lady.stark]

"There's nothing wrong with 0 feedback buyers in my opinion"

I agree. The problem here was not the 0 feedback buyer. It was the fact that this buyer (with 0 feedback) was shill bidding on the first ID (with more than 900 feedbacks). The new ID is now at 43. I'm pretty sure the seller is still shill bidding, but there's no proof anymore since he has all his items in private listings. But when he had regular listings, the 0 feedback bidder saw his feedback increase simultaneously with the increase of the second ID feedbacks. Coincidence? I think not.

That is why I think private listings should be allowed ONLY with fixed price items. Shill bidding would not be eliminated, but at least, it will be easier to prove.