Shill bidders

angelcake

Please advise the best way to complete the shill bids!! (just so I know how to look out for the b*ggers!) ::)

PM me if you know a specialised site?! Thanks ???

Amba_Gambla

what's a shill bidder ???

steeev

AFAIK its when a person gets a mate (or uses another ebay account) to place fake bids on their own auctions, to try and help bump up the final sale price. This is against Ebays rules btw.

soolin

I find it amusing when a seller decides to shill bid (which as Steev quite rightly points out is against ebay rules) and gets it horribly wrong.

I was bidding on an auction once where it was quite obvious that one of the bidders against me was a shill bidder. Not wanting to get caught up in silly games by a relatively newbie seller I stopped bidding well below what the auction should have fetched and was really pleased to see that the shill bidder ended up the winner at a very high price resulting in the crooked seller having to pay out a large FVF or else go through the NPB on his own shill bidding account!

The seller actually contacted me and offered me the item as he had been let down, but I declined. He then e mailed again with a sob story about his mates having bid the price up to try and be helpful and now he was desperate as he had listings to pay and hadn't even sold the item.

I made a complaint to ebay as looking at the bidding history this wasn't the first time he had tried this trick. He was NARUd within a few days.

Soo

angelcake

Yeh I have seen a few! but I have also seen a few that could be real bidders that just like that persons things!! how can you tell the difference? And when does people look for these shillers?!?

soolin

The one I got caught up in was very obvious. The seller id and the bidder id were very similair and the bidding pattern stuck out a mile.

The only thing the bidder had bid on were previous items from the same seller including several duplicate items one of which he had already won before bidding on the auction I saw. There were also lots of bid retractions between them where the bidder had realised towards the end of an auction that he was likely to win again, so retracted the bid to let someone else win.

However, I don't tend to report shill bidding as I agree it can be difficult to be sure when it is done by someone who knows what they are doing. In this case the seller rather incriminated himself by admitting what was done in a e mail so I felt comfortable about sending that mail to ebay.

Shill bidding does seem to be one of the things that ebay take notice of if reported, with accounts being NARUd very quickly if ebay agree that shill bidding has occured.

Soo

knighter

My advice regarding Shill bidding is to decide the maximum you are prepared to pay for the item. Bid only once on the item and enter your maximum amount as your bid.

This method stops you getting involved in bidding wars and if you win the item you are guaranteed to be happy with the price.

Personally I don't have a huge problem with Shill bidding, if people bid properly on ebay (instead of bidding like it's a real live auction) it shouldn't be a problem.

The only time I bid at the last minute is when the item has no bids and I don't want to attract attention to the item by placing an earlier bid. It is my opinion (with absolutly no scientific explanation to back it up) that people appear more likely to bid on an item that has already attracted bids.

matt987106

The only time I bid at the last minute is when the item has no bids and I don't want to attract attention to the item by placing an earlier bid. It is my opinion (with absolutly no scientific explanation to back it up) that people appear more likely to bid on an item that has already attracted bids.

its true, if people see a item with no bids, they dont seem to bid, if they see a item with a number of bids, its like "oooo that much me good"
the shill bidding thing make me laugh, i on a private site that allways does it, person A puts up a item, then 3 or more people bid it up to the min the seller wants (normally 1p below the reserve) , i know of a fair few groups who do it , sad but true