Reporting Shill Bidders?

chillipepper_3

How too????

I have been watching a certain item being sold by igho1966 started off 99p then just before the end goes up by a lot by bidder curl1968.
Thing is on closer inspection curl1968 has bid on all of igh01966 sales whereas it has been an auction sale often at the end, even one item has been sold twice to him a month apart, which is odd as the item are shoes and are unlikely to have been purchased twice exactly the same by igho and then sold to the same buyer a month apart.
I know you have to be careful when deciding on shill bidding but this is so blatant, and very very annoying.

item no in question : 5357327867

soolin

chillipepper wrote:

How too????

I have been watching a certain item being sold by igho1966 started off 99p then just before the end goes up by a lot by bidder curl1968.
Thing is on closer inspection curl1968 has bid on all of igh01966 sales whereas it has been an auction sale often at the end, even one item has been sold twice to him a month apart, which is odd as the item are shoes and are unlikely to have been purchased twice exactly the same by igho and then sold to the same buyer a month apart.
I know you have to be careful when deciding on shill bidding but this is so blatant, and very very annoying.

item no in question : 5357327867

It does look a little suspicious in that curl1968 has bid on a great number of igho1966 items, from TVs to shoes. He hasn't won anything yet though, the two pairs of shoes you mention are both still active auctions.

I think the similarity in the user names (name and date) is a bit of a clue as well.

Certainly worth reporting I would think.

Soo

bs7

try reporting it and see what happens

my experience is that ebay really don't care - i've reported the most blatent dodgy bidding and they simply replied that they were looking into it or there wasn't enough evidence to suggest it wasn't legitimate bidding.

angelcake

Hi, I think that perhaps you are being a bit hastey here! check out curl1968 bidding list! He looks like he likes to keep to the same sellers! He has bid on several items by the same sellers! I don't think this one should be reported!

I haven't looked in great detail. But probs would let it drop! unless you want to proposition the bidder/seller and put this to them - if they are doing wrong - being clocked will scare the poo out of them enough to stop!

angelcake

just a quite note!! I usually check through my sellers listings that I have had good service off as you know they are trustworthy! I bought at least 4 items off a seller! - hate to think what people woulda thought about my feedback then!!!

VH

angelcake wrote:

Hi, I think that perhaps you are being a bit hastey here! check out curl1968 bidding list! He looks like he likes to keep to the same sellers! He has bid on several items by the same sellers! I don't think this one should be reported!

I agree with Angel.

I have reported shill bidders twice now and both times the accounts involved were suspended.

The typical shill bidding pattern is:

Buyer generally has zero or very low feedback.
Buyer only generally bids on the same seller's auctions. They may bid on a couple of others to throw EBay off the scent.
The items being bidded on from the seller have a wide variation.

In this case I think there is little to worry about. The buyer's bidding patterns indicate that they like to use certain sellers. I do this myself when buying certain items, I have dealt with the sellers before and know they are reliable.

If you look at the items being bought, the buyer seems to buy only shoes from one buyer, only makeup from one buyer. This is consistent with someone using trusted sellers.

chillipepper_3

Well I have managed to report it, I am pretty certain that something is wrong here, as suggested, the ebay ids are very similar and times. The seller has sold the buyer the same item twice, once 26th jan 05 and previously a month ago.
It is very unlikely that the seller would have purchased two of the said items.
And again the buyers id appears on virtually every sellers item.
I expect the recent items to be re-listed in the future and will keep an eye on this.

Also if the buyer was keen on buying all the sellers items don't you think some contact would be made between them to arrange a buy it now arrangement and why does the bogus buyer wait till the end of the auctions?

I smell a scam here!

RANT OVER

VH

I wouldn't say that buying 2 pairs of the same shoes is unusual, maybe they wanted 2 pairs, one for work and one for special occasions.

In any case, whenever a bid is made on EBay, the IP address is tracked. This allows them to identify whether the bids originated from the same computer. If you are right then both accounts should be suspended.

The way around this of course (for anyone who wants to try it!) is to make the bids from different computers. This makes it much more difficult to prove that shill bidding is going on!

chillipepper_3

VH wrote:

I wouldn't say that buying 2 pairs of the same shoes is unusual, maybe they wanted 2 pairs, one for work and one for special occasions.

In any case, whenever a bid is made on EBay, the IP address is tracked. This allows them to identify whether the bids originated from the same computer. If you are right then both accounts should be suspended.

The way around this of course (for anyone who wants to try it!) is to make the bids from different computers. This makes it much more difficult to prove that shill bidding is going on!

C'mon, shouldn't you edit the above, maybe a pretty simple thing to do but there's no point in advertising it, thats just going to add to the problem!

You sound quite convinced this may not be shill bidding, have you looked at the shoes in question under "curl1968" feedback? They are a one season special, were expensive and not the kind of shoes you would wear or would be acceptable for most jobs. they retailed at £90 in Shelly's two years ago winter season only. I think that he bought two pairs and sells them a month apart to the same seller on different auctions, last minute bidding too very hard to swallow.

Oh one other thing, if you look at the sellers feedback you will find not a single feedback left by the shill bidding ID "curl1968", yet look at "curl1968" feedback and you will find three seperate feedback ratings left by the seller id "igho1966". Rather odd don't you think. (Is this where the shiller has slipped up, forgetting to return his feedback???)
Now if I was the seller I'de be pretty miffed at the lack of feedback and the constant neck to purchase and do the same again and again. And secondly I would have just emailed the buyer if genuine and offered to do business direct rather than waste time and money

The similarities in id, the fact they bid late and only when price is low, they have only purchased items that were going to go very cheap, they have never left feedback for the seller on any occassion yet the seller has left the buyer feedbackon atleast 3 times, the bidder has never sold a single item on ebay, it looks pretty certain that the same item has been listed twice and shill bidded twice.

It seems nigh upon crystal clear to me!

soolin

It's not the shoes that make me suspicious of shill bidding it is all the other stuff.

curl1968 has bid on, but not won, lots of items from igho1966 including a 40 inch Toshiba Rear Projection TV + Stand, several mobile phones and high price clothing.

SOo

VH

Could well be right, I didn't look at the other stuff bidded on, just the Won auctions.

Does sound a bit iffy, possibly not the same person, but maybe a friend or relative????