Suspicious bidder?

[rocketscollectibles]

I was about to bid on an auction started at 0.99, i saw that the item was still on the 0.99 bid even if it had 3 bids, i clicked and it was the same bidder bidding over himself 3x time over different days

 

I checked his stats and saw those additional suspicious numbers

477 bids, with 77% on this seller, and still have a score of 1

Is this potentially the seller bidding on his own auctions with another profil? Without retractions its less obvious, but is this content to report to eBay?

[byto253]

I often see double bids, sometimes triple like this, most of them from the person the ended up as the buyer.  I think it is just someone deciding to up the amount.  I also think it is a tactic to disuade other bidders as it give signal that they are very commited to buying it.   Kind of like a live action where you hold up your bidder number so you auto top any other bid. 

[femmefan1946]

He's either very savvy, as byto253 suggests, or completely clueless and trying to make his maximum bid show.

Which it can't until there is an underbidder.

If you bid --say-- $2.03, it will jump up to the next increment, if he is bright enough to have a bid that is higher than the original 99c.

[rocketscollectibles]

You guys don't see the 477 bids at 77% on this seller while still having a score of 1, suspicious? This kinda looks like auctions boosting

[femmefan1946]

Ah! You suspect him of shilling?

He has made 477 bids with a single seller making up 77% of his bids but has never won?

A seller arranges with a friend to bid on his items and then when the friend is the High Bidder, to retract, exposing the high bid of the underbidder, who then wins at his maximum bid.

The bidder is the shill.

Shilling is not only banned on eBay, but is actually illegal.

And of course, since he never wins he would neither give nor recieve feedback, which in any case is voluntary.

And he has not been the winning bidder (based on feedback only) in the other 33% of his bids?

You have to wonder why he keeps trying.

[rocketscollectibles]

Update on this, the bidder won the auction. Won (1) score in 477 bids, whats the probabilities and how coincidental it is that he win the only one auction im noticing him...

Im gonna keep an eye on this listing and this seller to see if he relist his item. If he does this is like 99.9% shilling

If he does, how do we report that?

[mcrlmn]

"477 bids with a single seller making up 77% of his bids"

"Won (1) score in 477 bids"

Screenshots please.

[marnotom!]

A shiller who wins their own auction is a pretty lousy shiller.

[rocketscollectibles]

It's in the first post. The second image uploaded

A shiller who wins their own auction is a pretty lousy shiller

Maybe it could makes sense if the buyer side cancel the transaction when they don't have the right amount, to relist, then there is no bid retractions for other bidders to see. Just guessing

[reallynicestamps]

The reason it would be a bad shiller, is that the seller /shiller does not want to win.

He wants the underbidder to win, at his highest bid.

If the shill wins, he will not pay, and the seller has to go to the trouble of filing an Unpaid dispute and having the shill account get a Strike OR paying FVF on the transaction.

And of course, with a failed transaction, the seller not only makes no money but also has to relist and try again. Time is money. (Here in BC 15c a minute.)

[rocketscollectibles]

Just checked to track the situation and the bidder is now a score of (2). It looks like the auction i seen he won was really won and received a feedback for it

Now he is at 539 bids with 80% on the seller, this is still weird. What was the probability that i randomly fall on the (1) of (2) auctions won by this bidder, in 539 bids

[femmefan1946]

OTOH- once upon a time, we had a bidder on full sheets of low value stamps who won every single auction we held for them.

Often he was the only bidder, because not many at that time wanted bulky sheets that were hard to display or even keep nicely.*

But if you looked at his FB page, he had over 50 FB from us, and none from anyone else.

Eventually he came to Ottawa, and we were able to turn him into a direct buyer at an adventageous price. Nice guy, he just liked Big Sheets.

So sometimes, but not often  a buyer just finds a seller he likes. And a cigar is just a cigar.

*A year or two later Unitrade came out with Sheet Albums with stiff covers and clear polythene pockets and the market for sheets improved.