E Bay - 2nd chance offers

warwicktiger

I might be getting cynical in my old age but the last three times I have bid for something relatively expensive on E Bay the same thing has happened. I was the highest bidder until one other stepped in, taking the bidding from £981 to £1491, my last bid being £1471, then I receive a second chance offer to buy it for £1471.

"Hello, the person that placed the highest bid for the xxxx appears to be messing me about.I can not contact them and they have feedback that indicates that they are time wasters who place bids but don't buy the item.if you still want the xxxx please phone me on 078--

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regards xxxxxx"

I do wonder sometimes if people get their friends to bid up against my serious bid so If I win or take advantage of the second chance offer I am paying over the true auction price.

amcluesent

Yep, shill bidding is rife. Use an auction sniper when buying high-value items

hermum

You can often suss out the shill bidders, on the listing press the amount of bids, then the highest bidder/s & it will show you how many sellers items that person has bid on.
If they only bid on your sellers stuff then it's no doubt a shill bidder.
Often the seller drops themselves in it on their feedback as well, they'll leave lots of FB for 1 buyer & then the same item gets relisted.

Wig

Of course they shill bid on their own listings, I'd hazard a guess that a huge number of sellers do this.

Ebay has made this much easier for sellers to do with anonymous bidding.

You can't fight it so just ignore it.

warwicktiger

amcluesent wrote: »

Yep, shill bidding is rife. Use an auction sniper when buying high-value items

Thanks, what an "auction sniper" please? Where do I get one from?

Wig

amcluesent wrote: »

Yep, shill bidding is rife. Use an auction sniper when buying high-value items

How would this help?

hermum

I always use http://www.goofbay.com/ to come in at 9 seconds before the end of the auction. It's a free one, but there are lots.
Generally the shillers outbid you in increments to push the price up, so if they don't know that anyone else is bidding they won't have a clue what to bid.
I wouldn't shill bid on my items, I expect this guy, http://tamebay.com/2010/07/shill-bidder-sentanced-5k-fine-250-community-service.html wishes he hadn't.
It's illegal, unfortunately ebay doesn't do much about it.

amcluesent

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/3806081

Snipers will place a bid for the amount you are prepared to pay in the last few seconds of the auction. Shill bidders have very, very little time to respond.

Using a sniper also means to don't get carried away on an auction, upping your bid then getting buyer regret!

Wig

Snipers will not solve the problem, snipers don't solve anything.

From a buyers POV you put into Ebay what your highest bid will be at the beginning.

From a sellers POV you can either put in your shill bid at the start like your buyers do. Or you can snipe your shill bid in at the end.

Either way, the item will not sell for less than the seller wanted for it and the snipe tool serves no purpose. Other than to beat buyers who don't put in at the start the maximum bid they are prepared to pay, but why would they not do that?

Obviously_the_best

@Wig

I'm sorry but you're totally wrong, 99.9 times out of 100 a seller will wait for a buyer to put a bid in, then on another account bid quite high to max out the buyers bid, then send a second chance offer, so if you snipe it at say 4 seconds before the auction ends the seller doesn't have a chance to shill

Wig

Unless they shill by sniping.

If what you said was true (of shillers) I'm sure they would have cottoned on by now and started to snipe.

From a shilling-seller's POV it makes no sense to allow a high value item go through without a back up plan to make sure it does not sell below par, and the simplest method of doing that is to snipe aswell........ or shill early, it really doesn't matter but psychologically speaking it's probably better to snipe it in.