Shill bids on ebay

Crowqueen

This is the problem with people who suspect shill-bidding at any turn.

They don't understand normal bidding patterns and end up crying wolf.

Which makes the genuine shillers, such as the very obvious example above, get buried in all the false positives.

jetplane

Yes I often bid in the last minute when I have a fixed price in mind, this also stops me being tempted to get into a frenzied last minute bid contest :rotfl: I have stopped putting items on my watch list such is the paranoia, which I'm sure has increased since I came on this section looking for advice .

To be honest any of the real dodgy dealing is way over my head.

Valli

Is this likely to have been a shill?

I bid on a fairly low value item very close to the end of auction; another bidder came in and outbid me; I bid again; was outbid again, left it, auction ended...

but very soon after the auction ended I got a second chance offer - at, of course, the higher of my two bids. I ignored thinking it may have been a shill bid, other bidders had bid before me but this was a new bidder.

It was the short time between auction end and the second chance offer being made to me that rang alarms. Is it likely to have been a shill bid?

poet123

I often, put a snipe on at 3 seconds if I know I am not going to be near the PC at auction end.

Valli

poet123 wrote: »

I often, put a snipe on at 3 seconds if I know I am not going to be near the PC at auction end.

but IF this was a snipe bid the seller knew within a couple of hours that the item wasn't going to be paid for - so the 'buyer' must have got to his/her PC reasonably quickly...

porto_bello

Valli wrote: »

Is this likely to have been a shill?

I bid on a fairly low value item very close to the end of auction; another bidder came in and outbid me; I bid again; was outbid again, left it, auction ended...

but very soon after the auction ended I got a second chance offer - at, of course, the higher of my two bids. I ignored thinking it may have been a shill bid, other bidders had bid before me but this was a new bidder.

It was the short time between auction end and the second chance offer being made to me that rang alarms. Is it likely to have been a shill bid?

If the auction was for a brand new sealed item, which is available commercially, it's likely that the seller had more than one in stock and therefore a genuine offer, rather than the result of a failed shill bidding attempt.

However, if the item is not something commerically available, is used, and is a one-off and a second chance offer suddenly appears just after the auction, the situation does suggest something's wrong and shill bidding is a distinct possibility.

And in addition to the above scenario, if the same bidder who you lost out to has a considerable trail of bidding almost exclusively for the same seller's items, that would be fairly strong evidence of shill bidding.