Shill bidding on Ebay - so what?

rare_stuff

ajaxgeezer wrote: »

...aren't auctioneers who take bids "off the wall" doing exactly this, and this is widespread in real auctions?

Maybe so, but I've yet to attend an auction where this happens, and as it's illegal I very much doubt it does happen in real auctions. If it it did it would be noticable and the auctioneer and auction hoouse would be liable to prosecution as well as gaining a very unsavoury reputation. People would not attend auction houses that condoned shill bidding and most of the people I have met that attend auctions regularly and professionally would not stand idly by if they suspected the auctioneer was bouncing bids off the wall.

Don't forget shill bidding and bouncing bids off the wall are both Fraud

Moglex

Also, if they were making bids up, eventualy they'd get caught out and then who would they claim it had been 'sold' to?

ajaxgeezer

rare_stuff wrote: »

Maybe so, but I've yet to attend an auction where this happens, and as it's illegal I very much doubt it does happen in real auctions. If it it did it would be noticable and the auctioneer and auction hoouse would be liable to prosecution as well as gaining a very unsavoury reputation. People would not attend auction houses that condoned shill bidding and most of the people I have met that attend auctions regularly and professionally would not stand idly by if they suspected the auctioneer was bouncing bids off the wall.

Don't forget shill bidding and bouncing bids off the wall are both Fraud

.... there was a feature on would-be property developers a couple of years ago, some crass Team A vs Team B "Make As Much As You Can In Six Months Developing". A team of two girls got done to the tune of about 13k in off the wall bids in a property auction and was put down by all concerned as newbies' naivety. The auctioneer's name was on garish display all over the place and the show has been repeated many times since on the various UKTV channels. If it was that hush-hush, I can't see everyone being so open about it on TV?

ajaxgeezer

Moglex wrote: »

Also, if they were making bids up, eventualy they'd get caught out and then who would they claim it had been 'sold' to?

... I have no idea, you'd need to ask an auctioneer or someone of lower moral fibre than myself

rare_stuff

ajaxgeezer wrote: »

.... there was a feature on would-be property developers a couple of years ago, some crass Team A vs Team B "Make As Much As You Can In Six Months Developing". A team of two girls got done to the tune of about 13k in off the wall bids in a property auction and was put down by all concerned as newbies' naivety. The auctioneer's name was on garish display all over the place and the show has been repeated many times since on the various UKTV channels. If it was that hush-hush, I can't see everyone being so open about it on TV?

What?

I've no idea what you're saying here!

I still think it's very much a myth that auctioneers will bounce your bids off the wall, as the vendor will be quite upset if the item sells to the wall, but no payment is made! In all the auctions I go to when a bidder wins they have to hold up their registration number which is then read aloud by the auctioneer. In the average month I travel to alomst a dozen different auction houses, and have yet to see anything that would look like shilling.
The only way shilling could work in a real auction is for a participant to actualy bid to bump the price up, though there is the real risk that they could end up winning the auction.

Slightly off-topic:
Not quite shilling, more like vengence - I discovered someones max bid on a dozen or so similair lots was over £100, and everyone else was dropping out at £60-£70. As I had a bit of a grudge against this bidder I bid each lot upto £100, costing him about £300-400 extra. I suspect he twigged on to what I'd done later and bid against me on 1 lot I wanted, though it may have backfired on him as I let him win it at just over double what I'd normally pay for a similair lot!

forumfan_2

rare_stuff wrote: »

What?

I've no idea what you're saying here!

I still think it's very much a myth that auctioneers will bounce your bids off the wall, as the vendor will be quite upset if the item sells to the wall, but no payment is made!

The programme was How To Become A Property Developer and it was on Channel 5 a few years ago.

greenstreetprince

shilling robs the buyers of a chance to grab a genuine bargain, people stopped picking up genuine bargains, soon enough ebay would lose its popularity, hence the reason why ebay are against it.

From a sellers point of view, its ideal to fill your pockets with as much cash as is possible, but from a buyers point of view, even if you are paying an amount you believe is fair, the fact remains that an earlier shill bid has robbed you of your chance to gain it at an even better/lower price

Moglex

greenstreetprince wrote: »

shilling robs the buyers of a chance to grab a genuine bargain, people stopped picking up genuine bargains, soon enough ebay would lose its popularity, hence the reason why ebay are against it.

From a sellers point of view, its ideal to fill your pockets with as much cash as is possible, but from a buyers point of view, even if you are paying an amount you believe is fair, the fact remains that an earlier shill bid has robbed you of your chance to gain it at an even better/lower price

How does shilling rob buyers of a chance of a bargain?

If a seller wants £20 for something, exactly how does his putting it on at £0.99 and shilling it to £19.50 differ from him putting it on at £20?

I'd really like to understand this.

greenstreetprince

it robs them of a bargain if seller starts it at 99p and they shill it up, if they start at £20, fair enough, that's their prerogative.

Moglex

greenstreetprince wrote: »

it robs them of a bargain if seller starts it at 99p and they shill it up, if they start at £20, fair enough, that's their prerogative.

Sorry, you haven't explained how, if the seller never intended to sell it for less than £20 they can possibly have been robbed of a bargain.

If the seller always intended to bid it up to £20 there was no way anyone was ever going to be able to buy it for 0.99p, so where was the bargain of which they have been robbed?