I have just watched the weirdest auction

wageslave

I have been trawling ebay for pictures for my nice newly decorated hall and I came across someone who describes themselves as an artist although I would put money on the fact their "art" is computer generated. Their stuff seemed to be going for higher prices than I would pay for it, but hey everyones taste is different.

I had a look at their feedback and something about it struck me as just wrong. It is a newish account and all feedback seems to be pretty much from members with v little feedback themselves. So I checked their feedback and guess what. All their feedback seems to come from this bloke or from accounts he has held in the past.

So I watched one of his auctions. Well the TV is v poor at the moment.

His auctions start at 99p but something really weird happens in the last fifteen minutes of the auction. The bids start to jump up in large amounts and bidding seems to be between two or three accounts, all with no feedback.

If I didn't know better I would swear this guy was buying his own stuff from dummy accounts.

Has anyone a rational explanation as to what exactly I have been watching?

hermum

A link would be good, chancers are it's shill bidding,
http://pages.ebay.co.uk/help/policies/seller-shill-bidding.html

wageslave

I have just watched a second auction from the same ebayer and the bidding followed the same irrational pattern from accounts with zero feedback

The ebayer also seems to have sold under various other names or so it seems . He opens an account, uses it for a while and then moves on to another one. That seems particularly bizarre to me since a long standing account with good feedback encourages buyers. Well it encourages me.

LINK REMOVED (I have just read the sticky on posting ID's )

Someone more experienced on ebay might be able to make sense of what the heck he is up to because, frankly, I am baffled.

Not that it matters really but it all just strikes me as off.......

EDIT A more cynical person than me, having watched two of this ebayers auctions, would conclude it is shill bidding. It also sets a value on the artwork. Anyone thinking to buy would check what his other work had gone for and come to, the entirely reasonable, conclusion that that was what it was worth.

But why keep changing accounts? That doesn't seem to make any sense at all.

Off course I could be entirely wrong about all of this. I am no expert on either art or ebay

hermum

None of the bidders appear to be bidding on his items exclusively, unless he has another id, they do only seem to bid on 3 different sellers items.
It could be shill bidding, or it could be people who particularly like what he's selling. Someone else may be able to see something that I can't but it does look legit to me.
Although strange that they are all new members with very low feedback.

pitkin2020

He has a lot of buyers who have their feedback set to private which personally I don't like to see.

I also noticed the neutral the seller has if you click view item for that auction it just takes you to an ebay page listing over 4k pieces of art rather than the auction for which the neutral was left (or is it just my pc)?

wageslave

first auction


( 0 ) £50.00 03-Aug-11 18:14:33 BST
( private ) £50.00 07-Aug-11 22:57:19 BST
e***l( 0 ) £43.00 03-Aug-11 18:14:33 BST
( 0 ) £42.00 07-Aug-11 22:03:46 BST
e***l( 0 ) £41.00 03-Aug-11 18:14:33 BST
( 0 ) £40.00 06-Aug-11 17:14:19 BST
e***l( 0 ) £18.00 03-Aug-11 18:14:33 BST
( 0 ) £17.00 03-Aug-11 18:48:31 BST
e***l( 0 ) £16.00 03-Aug-11 18:14:33 BST
e***n( 0 ) £15.00 03-Aug-11 00:31:09 BST
e***n( 0 ) £0.99 03-Aug-11 00:31:09 BST
Starting Price £0.99 02-Aug-11 23:13:29 BST

hermum

If you scroll down that page there's the triple circular pictures, bloke 1 is selling that set & using that listing as it's highlighted on the 2nd users listing, so I've looked at that specific listing but from a different seller.
I think that he could be drop shipping.

pitkin2020

http://offer.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewBids&_trksid=p4340.l2565&item=270792897637 hmmmm, not sure on that seller TBH. Too many auctions either end with zero FB buyers or 1 FB buyers winning and usually are the only ones bidding. Looks like he could be trying to set a price so when others look at completed listings they are seeing it sell for far more than it should be. Very odd at the very least.

Report it to ebay, its upto them to investigate it and they can see far more than we can from this end.

wageslave

What is drop shipping?

And why does he keep abandoning ID's just as he is building up decent feedback?

EDIT Read the Wiki on drop shipping

Enterprise_1701C

They say that art is only worth what people are willing to pay - sounds like a good way to create a maket to me, people will have a quick look back to see how much his pieces have gone for and think that anything under that or close to it is a good price.

Not condoning it mind!

soolin

A bit off topic but for orginal art work, vintage or modern try a bricks and mortar auction house, sheap as chips, they can barely give art away.

I had a mad moment last year and bought up loads of framed pictures, a mix of modern abstract , some named items and some old oils and watercolours and decided I would make my fortune on ebay. Then realised I couldn't get framed and glazed pictures couriered easily and sold the lot at a car boot but still for a profit.