ebay shill bidding?

1sttimer_2

Reef1234 wrote: »

Try to avoid bidding twice on an item in advance, if you are already the highest bidder. You're effectively inviting the owner to shill bid the item up.

I only upped the price because someone topped me, I put in a reasonable offer, then upped to my maximum once topped. I wouldn't have gone any further. Plus my bid was not in straight pounds, but with odd pence so not easy to guess the amount of bid till very close to it.

1sttimer_2

Just had a thought - if Ebay have blocked the seller, will they be able to view their messages? Bought item on the 3rd, seller contacted me on 4th because my address was supposedly not on record. My complaint was sent to Customer Services on the 4th and now he's presumably been blocked, so even though I've replied to him, could he read that reply? I may not get anything now - what a farce this is turning out to be!

1sttimer_2

Seller has contacted me - so should get items by end of week! Here's hoping and waiting..........

Will be checking out bidding/ratings BEFORE bidding in future - lesson learned.

onetwothree123

In the past, I have purchased items before from a company and was shocked by their level of shill accounts several have been opened to bid up their items by bulk , doesnt take a genius to look at a few feedback profiles and check bidding patterns, it is laughable and no one at ebay gives a toss!

http://feedback.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewFeedback2&userid=hoidaesmail&ftab=AllFeedback&rt=nc&myworld=true

RFW

1sttimer wrote: »

Well Ebay have noted my complaint and acted on it. The seller is no longer selling! Whether they are able to re-open a new account under another name and details, I'm not sure. Action has been taken against the other person too. But I'm not allowed to know what that action is - which is fair enough I guess.

So they do act on it. Unfortunately shill bidding is rife in auctions, on and offline, you can minimise it but will never stop it, illegal or not.

Most bricks and mortar auctions do it and I don't think I've ever heard of one being prosecuted for it, it is relatively easy to defend (I won't explain here!).

1sttimer_2

onetwothree123 wrote: »

In the past, I have purchased items before from a company and was shocked by their level of shill accounts several have been opened to bid up their items by bulk , doesnt take a genius to look at a few feedback profiles and check bidding patterns, it is laughable and no one at ebay gives a toss!

http://feedback.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewFeedback2&userid=hoidaesmail&ftab=AllFeedback&rt=nc&myworld=true

Mine wasn't as obvious or as abused as yours, but then when you looked at what the she bought which then appeared to be relisted with who she bought it off, then my gut was telling me that it was wrong.

On my purchase, the item was bought previously by the same person and relisted which is when I won it, and on the bidding history was a lot of bids by the same person - who I guessed was the previous buyer, and was consequently pushing the price up to my maximum!

There are a few items on her buying list that was relisted by the seller. I gave all this info to Customer Services, doing their detective work so that they couldn't come back to me and say it didn't appear to be shill bidding!

http://feedback.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewFeedback2&userid=laurat20111&ftab=AllFeedback&seeallfeedback=See%20All%20Feedback&myworld=true