Fed up of shill bidders!

angelcake

wonder if this would be your point of view if it were happening to you???

masonic

Well, to put it simply, shill bidders stop sensible bidders from winning items by driving the price above what they'd pay. I think most people would get annoyed by that.

soolin

chucky wrote:

Before I say anything I'd like to say that I do not believe in Shill Bidding and neither do I Shill Bid. I'm saying this before I get my head bitten off... :-)

I don't see much wrong with Shill bidding, surely it is up to the buyer how much they want to pay for the item? If you know how much you want to bid up to then only bid up to that amount. For this reason it doesn't really bother me...

Why would you be bothered if the shill bidder had bid up an item?
Surely, if the shill bid is too high then the item does not sell and the seller is stuck with the item; having paid a listing fee and also the Final Value Fee.

As long as you are sensible with your bids and know how much you want to pay for the item, you shouldn't really have any problems... Remember the value of any item on Ebay is how much the buyer pays for it...

I would like to repeat that this is only my point of view and in know way do I shill bid!

The problem with shill bidding and ebay is the way the proxy bids work. I tend not to snipe items but will just put a proxy bid on a day or so before auction end, a shill bidder then has the chance to push my proxy, little by little to get a better price out of me. I accept that if something has a 99p start and I put in a proxy for £10 then I would be willing to pay £10, but my £10 proxy is based on a fair market, ie bidding against other genuine bidders, not against the seller.

Soo

soolin

chucky wrote:

I agree.

The question then is how much does the shill bidder bid up to?

An experienced shill bidder will know the sort of market he is dealing with and will often bid 'round amounts' knowing that most real bidders use odd amounts. So for an item that usually sells for £10-£11 he would probably stop at £9.50 or £10 assuming the legit bidder has a proxy in for £10.05.

A bad/thick shill bidder will rely more on withdrawn bids, chancing £10 and if he is still the winning bidder with 12 hours to go withdrawing that bid and going one increment lower.

Soo

Tojo_Ralph

I'll add....... Shill bidding should be REALLY difficult to spot, for a shill bidder with half a brain (or more) will bid on lots of other sellers items, i.e the 99p start stuff which is going to make a shedload more or the low value items with reserves where you know the reserve is way out there, thereby making it appear they are legit.

Tojo_Ralph

chucky wrote:

I don't see much wrong with Shill bidding, surely it is up to the buyer how much they want to pay for the item? If you know how much you want to bid up to then only bid up to that amount. For this reason it doesn't really bother me.

Lets imagine you were buying a house at auction and were willing to pay say £200,000. You place a proxy bid with the auctioneer and leave.

That afternoon you get a call to advise you that you "won" the house at £198,000

Two days later however, it transpires that the next highest bidder to you dropped out at just £180,000 ...... but knowing the seller, the auctioneer took imaginary proxy bids and bids from the room, thus ramping up the "selling" price to £198,000.

Now..... This means that the house should have been yours for just £182,000

Q. Would you be quite happy to accept the above, or would you feel you had been ripped off to the tune of £16,000?

masonic

chucky wrote:

fortunately the buyer has a choice - whether to buy the item or not to buy it.

it's simple logic - if you see the price of the item is too high then just don't buy... the buyers are the ones who dictate the price not the shill bidder... this is what happens in any open market.

this isn't the topic under discussion but fake, fraud and stolen items in auctions are probably a more important issue on Ebay than shill bidding.

I agree with your last point.

As for the shill bidding:- why should you should you stand for being priced out of the market to start with? The idea behind shill bidding is to make items sell for more than they would otherwise.

In the absence of shill bidding, the buyer might be willing to buy the item, but when stoopid ebayers are coaxed into placing higher bids by a shiller, sensible buyers have no choice but to look elsewhere. Imagine your frustration if you were faced with this situation and you really wanted the item in question.

cupraturbo

chucky wrote:

fortunately the buyer has a choice - whether to buy the item or not to buy it.

it's simple logic - if you see the price of the item is too high then just don't buy... the buyers are the ones who dictate the price not the shill bidder... this is what happens in any open market.

this isn't the topic under discussion but fake, fraud and stolen items in auctions are probably a more important issue on Ebay than shill bidding.

Please dont forget it is also against ebay rules, therefore should not be allowed or tolerated at all. I just wish ebay cared as much about their own rules as some of us on MSE!

angelcake

Tojo_Ralph wrote:

I'll add....... Shill bidding should be REALLY difficult to spot, for a shill bidder with half a brain (or more) will bid on lots of other sellers items, i.e the 99p start stuff which is going to make a shedload more or the low value items with reserves where you know the reserve is way out there, thereby making it appear they are legit.

exactly!!!!

I think because it is harder to spot "clever shillers" then you don't feel like you are bein ripped off so much! so the stupid ones should just get reported for being stupid!!!

cupraturbo

chucky wrote:

I tend to agree with this but why would you have a bid price of £198,000 if you didn't think the property was worth it or you wanted to pay less? Surely then your maximum bid would be less.

We bid on items due to a combination of the value we attribute to it and how much we want to pay for it - If an item is above a combination of these amounts we have the right not to buy.

But dont you think it is wrong to be conned into paying the extra by people cheating the system!