Shill bidding...

RFW

FatVonD wrote: »

Thanks. So (not sure if I'm allowed to post this link so please remove if not) would you say this item was being shill bidded on?

http://offer.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewBids&_trksid=p2047675.l2565&rt=nc&item=251485433292

I'd say there's one possible account in there that could be the sellers but it isn't that easy to tell. The other thing is that there are enough other bidders that if that account is the sellers it hasn't made a difference to the price at the time I write.

RHemmings

FatVonD wrote: »

Thanks. So (not sure if I'm allowed to post this link so please remove if not) would you say this item was being shill bidded on?

http://offer.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewBids&_trksid=p2047675.l2565&rt=nc&item=251485433292

I had a look through that auction. I can't see anything that I'd consider evidence of shilling. There is one bidder who has bid repeatedly, but this is in whole pound increments, and they haven't bid on a wide variety of the seller's items. Maybe if I looked at the seller's history, there would be some evidence, but if I saw that auction without the context of this thread, I wouldn't suspect shilling at all.

RHemmings

RFW wrote: »

I thought I'd explained well enough, but obviously not....
An example of similar to what I was selling would be a signed oil painting. Each was unique yet, more or less identical to the previous one. It was merely an illustration that sometimes shill bidding can be seen when it isn't there.
I don't know if any of the cases mentioned were or not, it sounds like most were.
As I said earlier some of the new changes may halt some of it, but it's not something that will ever go away in live or online auctions. Having looked at some of the software involved in other auction sites (especially ones with extended auction ends) they really do make it easy.

I'm personally very aware that you often get oil paintings sold that are more or less copies of each other (or a single original). Hence, I wouldn't assume that multiple oil paintings being sold were the exact same item unless the description said that the painting was unique. Even then, I wouldn't be surprised if visually pretty much identical copies of these paintings were being sold.

There are example auctions where it is obviously the exact same item being sold, such as techspec's car, or a guitar with identifiable scratches. I'm not aware of any case where such an item has been sold repeatedly to the same buyer but there was a good reason for it.

RFW

RHemmings wrote: »

'm not aware of any case where such an item has been sold repeatedly to the same buyer but there was a good reason for it.

No, me neither.