Watchdog and Ebay

dinglebert

Around a year ago (it may have been longer) I emailed watchdog a long tirade around shill bidding and at that point ebays apparent unwillingness to do anything about it. About 9 months ago they phoned me and had a chat about it but at that point were not about to do another story on ebay as they had completed a "big" one the season before. I thought nothing more of it. yesterday I get another phonecall from watchdog following up on the email. I pointed them in the direction of this forum to read about users experiences of shill bidding and the pointers to the websites where shill bidding can be identified. Any shill bidding threads may prove useful to watchdog at the moment

frivolous_fay

It's good that they're taking an interest. I can tell you how the program will go, though:

Nicky Campbell: Why are ebay allowing shill bidding to continue?
Ebay: We take shill bidding very seriously
NC: So why when users report obvious shill bidding, is nothing done?
Ebay: We have our own tools for detecting it, ha ha ha, we're cleverer than our users and we know what's really going on, and they don't. Besides, we don't like to tell people what action we've taken. It's a secret. Nyah nyah.
NC: People say you don't care about stopping shilling because it makes you more money in fees.
Ebay: That's totally incorrect. We do care, we really really care. In fact we love shilling and we only pretend that we don't.

The last bit might not make it to air....

LULUBELLE_2

Brilliant, Fay :T - but probably not too far from the truth! Someone needs to point Watchdog towards this thread as well:

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=290231&page=2

frivolous_fay

And here:

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=288298

Is that a different seller?

valiant

frivolous_fay wrote:

It's good that they're taking an interest. I can tell you how the program will go, though................

No.......it won't even get that far. Watchdog produce a program that they feel can be understood by the lowest common denominator, intelligence-wise. They'll sit as usual with one pert buttock balanced on the edge of an assortment of redundant desks, a sheaf of blank A4 at the ready in one hand and won't get even close to fully explaining what shill bidding actually is.

Firstly they'll send a few camera crews out (at significant cost) to interview 'Mary' from Borham Wood (because where she's from is dead important) and she'll have bid on Ebay for a Chrissie prezzie for her terminally-ill child and the price was too high and now she's not happy because there's 'something funny' going on. Still balanced on a single buttock, a presenter will explain that 'shill' = 'something funny'.

Having not defined the problem they'll get a statement from Ebay addressing the undefined problem and expressing their policy of investigating all such problems. The other presenter will then move into shot (constantly moving around the studio gives a 'dynamic' impression), exchange a few crass, pre-scripted asides with his/her colleague and then triumphantly conclude with a promise to 'keep an ongoing eye' on Ebay. The average viewer will have no idea what the problem was and those of us who do will be left feeling frustrated...as usual.

LULUBELLE_2

frivolous_fay wrote:

And here:

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=288298

Is that a different seller?

Yes - different from 'Picasso Boy'

my_gorgeous_ellie-belle

OK, please dont look down on me for this or call me thick...What exactly is shill bidding?

frivolous_fay

It's where sellers use multiple accounts (or their friends' accounts) to bid on their items, artificially inflating the price.

Not permitted on ebay, and considered unethical.

Eg.

- I bid £10 on an item that still has 5 days to run. (Assume I'm a newbie who doesn't know it's best to bid at the last minute) The start price is only 99p so the price doesn't go higher.
- Seller sees I've bid, and uses another account to bid against me. He bids £9. This raises the price to £9.50
- No-one else bids
- As I bid more, I have won the auction, but the item has cost me £9.50 instead of what it should have cost (99p)

my_gorgeous_ellie-belle

Oh, i thought so...thanx.

patchwork_cat

You are all very cynical - I thought I was the only cynic in the village!

kevinyork

I loath Shill bidding but I would prefer it if Watchdog concentrated on the more serious fraudulent/scammer stuff first. In a way this is easier to prove...you only have to look at our Picasso wholesaler to see that.....how many fraudulent listings have eBay removed from that seller yet he is still registered! Now that would make a great example to use.

They could also look at the pathetic responses you get, if at all, to reports made about listing violations, the length of time taken to look at them and the lack of action taken even when its blatently clear the seller is trying to rip someone off. Oh and where has the promised 'report this listing' button gone!

Watchdog I could give you umpteen things to tackle eBay on.....

Fay....soo funny. :rotfl:Isnt it great that eBay do Care so much.....well they talk a good game but they dont exactly show it!