Such obvious shilling!

plumface

porto_bello wrote: »

But after you submitted the details, did eBay actually do anything though?

I'm going to hazard a guess that the seller you reported is/are still actively selling.

I got an email from ebay stating that shill bidding was happening.They said they would contact the seller in question but would not tell me what sanctions they were going to take.
The seller is still selling,i have no idea about the shill bidder!

Crowqueen

People are far too quick to accuse people.

I've seen shillers taken out (it was wonderful when one came to the forums to complain and we were able to tell her precisely why she'd been banned, going by recent feedback and the similarity of the photographs on the MyWorld pages) but it needs watertight linkages, and many times those linkages aren't as tight as people like to claim. There was a 'shenanigans' thread recently where the spreadsheet showed none of the patterns usually linked to shilling, for instance. There have been a number of angry threads on the Buyer Central forum where vigilantes have accused people and the seller has turned up with reasonable rebuttals to their actions.

There's a long thread on the Seller Central of someone making all the 'right' noises (eBay don't do anything bla bla bla what do you expect they make money from it...etc) and still being called a supporter of shilling.

Forgive me if I take these things with a pinch of salt.

When I say this I am not condoning shilling, nor eBay's seeming inaction (and sometimes it may only be a warning, which won't cross anyone's radar, or sanctions which only the seller will know about and which won't apparently affect their ability to sell). However, people are so quick to cry wolf that I'm wondering how many accusations are genuine.

OP's looks legitimate enough, though.

I wonder if, although this person has no feedback themselves, they have left any feedback for the seller. Look for bidders with 0 FB that contain the letters "j" and "k", not necessarily in that order. That could also be a way to substantiate something and provide some decent evidence of misconduct.

Angie74

Well since I reported her, she's not made any bids from the J****k account, but it appears she's now opened a new account to bid from which also has 100% activity with that seller and 0% fb I don't think that's just a coincidence Might be if they'd only bid on one item, but they've bid on a few of their items, which is what makes it suspicious as she's doing exactly the same as she did on the other account. I don't know if Ebay stopped her bidding from the other account, or whether she stopped because I told her I'd reported her, but she didn't deny it, just got all obnoxious and started watching all my items, saying she was watching them to see how the lower classes feed their whippets. Then said how she's a spoilt little rich girl living off daddy. Yeah so rich she can't afford to pay the seller fees!

boam

Angie74 wrote: »

Well since I reported her, she's not made any bids from the J****k account, but it appears she's now opened a new account to bid from which also has 100% activity with that seller and 0% fb I don't think that's just a coincidence Might be if they'd only bid on one item, but they've bid on a few of their items, which is what makes it suspicious as she's doing exactly the same as she did on the other account. I don't know if Ebay stopped her bidding from the other account, or whether she stopped because I told her I'd reported her, but she didn't deny it, just got all obnoxious and started watching all my items, saying she was watching them to see how the lower classes feed their whippets. Then said how she's a spoilt little rich girl living off daddy. Yeah so rich she can't afford to pay the seller fees!

What makes u think it is a her? looking at the contact details it is a him

Angie74

boam wrote: »

What makes u think it is a her? looking at the contact details it is a him

Because she told me. She also told me she uses her fathers account

Angie74

Also the new account already has 1 bid retraction on it!!! I see she's trying to cover her tracks on that one by bidding on other things on other peoples accounts, but this to me only makes it more obvious what she's doing, because she's only put one bid on 2 peoples accounts, and she's put 30 bids on 9 of her own items. One of the bid retractions is no doubt on the other persons account. Call me suspicious but I think the evidence speaks for itself, you don't have to be Einstein to work it out!

Angie74

There also seems to be another 0 fb account bidding on her things now as well. So that's 3 accounts, all bidding on designer items that lets face it, aren't exactly going to sell for a bargain price with her bumping them up. If I was her, and I wasn't doing any of it myself, I would be highly suspicious of all these new accounts with no feedback bidding on my stuff. She's just so blatant with it.

porto_bello

On a website with an official purpose of saving the consumer money, I find the 'look the other way' approach to shill bidding rather controversial. It is, after all, not open to debate but indisputably illegal.

Thanks to those contributors who take the trouble to warn MSE users of the dangers and what tell tale signs there are to look out for.

Having seen examples of long-term shill bidding (shown via feedback between the seller and shill bidding accounts - going back months or even years), it's clear that most buyers won't recognise it because they don't realise how easy it is or that eBay will avoid noticing shill bidding if it possibly can.

Another reason why shill bidding isn't picked up more often is because it's being played down.

greenstreetprince

porto_bello wrote: »

Another reason why shill bidding isn't picked up more often is because it's being played down.

and the fact that bidders identities are now not revealed to anyone but the seller doesnt help anyone in detecting any such activity

porto_bello

greenstreetprince wrote: »

and the fact that bidders identities are now not revealed to anyone but the seller doesnt help anyone in detecting any such activity

That's true. Mind you, when bidders notice that they have a competitor who is nudging up the prices on all the sellers listings, they might still guess the obvious... hence the need for private listings with anonymous bidders!

It still brings a smile to my face when I read sellers still trying to justify private auctions as "being in the interests of bidders".

I wonder how convinced bidders would be, if bricks and mortar auctioneers took bids from empty chairs and then told the genuine bidders present that the chairs weren't actually empty!

And by the way, the bids coming from the empty chairs were real and it was just in the interest of all bidders present that their identity was disguised! :rotfl: