A big thanks to EBay - what??

VH

I don't usually have a good word to say about EBay but in this case I would like to say thanks to their customer service department.

I was about to bid on an auction at the weekend, when I noticed something a bit odd about the bidding which was going on. There was a newish EBayer who kept outbidding everyone - when I checked out the seller's feedback it seemed that this same user had won a couple of previous auctions from this seller beforehand.

Not unusual in itself you might say. But I checked out the bidder to see what auctions they had previously bid on. Lo and behold, they had only ever bid on auctions from this same seller, almost every one in fact, and they had never bid on another seller's auctions. Alarm bells began to ring and I immediately thought 'Shill Bidder'!! I know some buyers have favourite sellers, but the auctions bid on were for items which were so varied that they could not be doing anything else except shill bidding.

I reported my suspicions to EBay and supplied the auction numbers which I thought were dodgy. I asked customer services to check out the actual source of the bids by checking the IP addresses. Got a response yesterday, EBay said that they had checked this as asked, and they had confirmed that the seller had in fact been shill bidding and that their main and alternative accounts had been suspended!!

One less dodgy seller on Ebay. So thanks to Ebay for a quick response. ;D

robowen

Ebay claim to be on top of this problem, and have software to detect this. :-/

I don't think so. :-/

I think they only ever intervene when someone is reported.

I've reported a few people myself over the years I've been a user. ::)

But thinking about it........its only the sellers way of getting back at the bid snipers.

Ebay frown at shill bidders, but say nothing to bid snipers.

An auction is supposed to be that....an auction.

Imagine Sotherbys carrying out their auctions, with bidders only bidding with 5secs to go, it would be ridiculous. ::)

People who use bid sniping programs should be banned too !!

David_Brent

Ebay 'claim' to have software to detect this, bull sh** ! they use YOU to detect it and report it.

coupon_king_2

What I always do when bidding on an item is fix a MAX amount im prepared to pay and never go over it , then if you win it at lower price its a bonus

If however you do get outbid he will end up winning his own auction if you suspect his is doing this !

jockettuk

shill bidders, but say nothing to bid snipers.


sorry but can someone tell me what these are .. dont do ebay much so dont know all the different wordings

robowen

shill bidders, but say nothing to bid snipers.


sorry but can someone tell me what these are .. dont do ebay much so dont know all the different wordings

Shill bidders are the sellers themselves.
They have two accounts, 1 for listing the item, and 1 for bidding against you with.
He will generally start the bidding off really low to get people bidding. then bid with you for the item until he has reached what he thinks is the best price he can for it. If he wins the item himself, he will just relist the item and file a n.p.b.alert against his other account. nothing comes of it, as he can just claim both parties agreed not to complete the transaction and reclain his fees.

Bid snipers are people who have computor programs to bid for them. enter a bid you think will be your max, and the program comes in with 5 secs to go to bid for you.
Because you are not bidding against anyone till the end, the bid remains low and the item sells for a low price. However the price is not affected much when there are others in the auction bidding away, but you do stand more of a chance to win, as it bids between 5-8secs to go, not giving anyone a chance to bid again.

gromituk

Ebay frown at shill bidders, but say nothing to bid snipers.

An auction is supposed to be that....an auction.

Imagine Sotherbys carrying out their auctions, with bidders only bidding with 5secs to go, it would be ridiculous. ::)

People who use bid sniping programs should be banned too  !!

That's a false analogy. Neither do Sotheby's stop auctions at a specific time; nor do they operate an automatic bidding process. Ebay auctions are a different animal entirely.

All that auction sniping does is prevent people from getting carried away bidding more than they intended to, because with automatic bidding, you can put in the maximum you want to pay at any time, walk away, and only pay the maximum if there is genuine competition for the item you are bidding on. If you are disciplined, that is what you do. If you are annoyed at being sniped, you should have put a higher maximum amount in in the first place.

GabbaGabbaHey

Imagine Sotherbys carrying out their auctions, with bidders only bidding with 5secs to go, it would be ridiculous.

I think you don't understand the difference between a "Going, Going, Gone auction" (which is how Sotheby's operate) and a "proxy auction" (which is how eBay operate).

Also, sniping has nothing to do with winning a proxy auction. It's the highest bidder who wins, not the latest bidder.

reen_3

okay, i think that maybe some of you don't really understand how ebay works. otherwise, i cannot, for the life of me, see what you dislike about auction sniping. back in the days before the computer programmes that bid for you, one had to sit by the computer at the exact time that the auction ended and manually bid at the last possible moment. it was part of the basic bidding strategy, but it put some people at a disadvantage. namely those of us who have jobs... using auction stealer and the rest is no different. no one in his/her right mind would place a bid earlier in the auction. all it does is jack up the price. if you watch popular auctions with many bids, you will notice that the vast majority of the bidding comes from newbies with little ebay experience and low feedback scores. what does that tell you about the wisdom of their strategy?

ebay is all about strategy, whether you're bidding or selling. if you don't want to play the game, stick to the 'buy it now' option' and stop ruining it for the rest of us.

reen

byb3

They should bring out a system similar to that of Comets Clearance auction website, where they set the auction back to 10 minutes whenever there is a bid in the last 10 minutes.

Won't find as many bargains this way though, which is the downside.

Adam

soolin

They should bring out a system similar to that of Comets Clearance auction website, where they set the auction back to 10 minutes whenever there is a bid in the last 10 minutes.

Won't find as many bargains this way though, which is the downside.

Adam

I can't see that being popular for either buyers or sellers. As a seller I choose a time convenient for me to end my auctions. If for instance I end them at 8pm on a Tuesday it is because i know I have a little time then to send my winning emails out and if necessary wrap items paid for by paypal ready for the post office the next morning. I don't want my auctions running to a time not convenient for me.

As a buyer, I often watch an item and then with just minutes to go throw in a bid (I don't use sniping software I prefer to snipe manually). If bidding at the last moment meant I extended an auction then I probably wouldn't bother as much. I don't want to sit glued to my PC for ages. If I really want something and can't be there at the end to bid I am happy to put in my proxy bid and leave it.

Soo