How blatant does shill bidding have to be for eBay to act?

Been trying to pick up a bit of test gear for a specific job. Probably not going to use it much so want to try and get as cheap as possible.

I came across a listing, seller had a very low and poor feedback rating so did some ‘investigating’, particularly as this item had one bid on it.

It appears that pretty much, of all of the listings this seller had currently and previously listed, this single bidder had won pretty much all of them...

The item in question, which has been listed is ... 253809397018

I reported the seller via report item and also via live chat ... I got the impression the ebay rep I was chatting to couldn’t care less.

What I don’t get is why the seller would, within the last 12 hours or so, stick bids on all his items regardless of whether they had bids or not. His shill account will surely then have to not pay, he would have to cancel the transaction ... wouldn’t that flag up automatically against the shill account? Seems pointless ebay having a shill policy if reports are ignored. :mad:
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Comments

  • forgotmyname
    forgotmyname Posts: 32,506
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    Nope ebay does not care one bit about shill bidding reports. Its only there to give an impression that they do.

    The seller sticks bids in just in case someone snipes at the last second.
    Censorship Reigns Supreme in Troll City...

  • Tom99
    Tom99 Posts: 5,371
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    If you snipe at the max you are prepared to pay then you will never pay more than that amount.
    I assume a shill bid hours before is really like a reserve.
    However a shill snipe bid 4 sec before the end could be designed to catch out snipe bidders who actually bid more that the max they are really prepared to pay
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