Shill bidding on Ebay
Earlier this weekend I lost a few auctions on Ebay from one and the same seller, and noticed that most of his auctions had been won by the same buyer. Fair enough, one might think, but then every one of those items were re-listed on the site earlier tonight. Has to be a case of shill bidding, where the seller try to jack up the price by bidding on his own auctions from a different user account. Does Ebay do anything to combat this? Strictly speaking they don’t really have anything to gain from keeping prices from artificially inflating like that, I guess. It just annoyed me.
Sounds like a second account or family members or friends bidding on his behalf. It is easy to do when the likes of the £1 offers are on as that's his max loss. Not much you can do other than enter your maximum bid or contact the seller direct and see if there is a price he would accept.
It’s been a while but I recall seeing warnings on eBay against shill bidding. It was prohibited and accounts are suspended or removed. They’ll have some way for you to report it
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Shill bidding is not allowed by eBay. However, they don't encourage reporting it...Originally Posted by Halitosis
RIf you think that another member is shill bidding, you don't need to report it to us.
eBay has a number of systems in place to detect and monitor bidding patterns and practices.
If we identify any malicious behaviour, we'll take steps to prevent it.
Ignorance breeds Fear. Fear breeds Hatred. Hatred breeds Ignorance. Break the chain.
Yes its real, as are fakes and stolen goods. Oh and scam business sellers getting bad feedback removed is a thing also
every listing I ever see usually is jacked up by a friend or family member. Who does not know someone with a eBay when your item not doing it's so called money
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I've been stung on the last few auctions that I've won on eBay where the bids went above my max bid but the bids above mine mysteriously disappeared and the auction coincidently ended precisely on my maximum bid amount (generally an odd number so it's unlike to be a coincidence). I'm guessing that the shill bidder retracts their bids until they got to a legitimate bid. Although I won the items at a prices that I was happy to pay, it did leave a mildly acidic taste to the victory. I'm much more likely to press the 'Buy it now' or 'Make an offer' buttons than deal with the auction pantomime now.
The higher the sale price, the greater the profit for eBay. Whatever they say, I'd imagine they don't spend much time on their system to detect and monitor shill bidding.
It is also particularly rife on eBay Italy - seems almost accepted standard practice over there.
Last edited by Seiko7A38; 3rd August 2020 at 10:26.
Does last second sniping solve this problem?
Yes and no. You generally find the shill bidders will put their bids in well before you snipe .
In fact I suspect that 90% of bids that aren't snipes on ebay are shill bids anyway.
Prefer to use buy it now or make an offer than mess about with shill bidders or people using snipe apps or whatever.
Both as bad as each other.
Nothing wrong with sniping , its within the spirit of a bidding process setting the price all you are doing is not tipping your hand to allow a shill bidder to bid you up unfairly.
Sniping - if you can’t beat them, then join them. I use snip.pl
There is no sense getting involved in bidding wars or robbed by shilling.
As above, it's easy for shill bidder to retract a bid meaning that the sellers maximum loss can be as little as £1
Using a snide app for a stealth bid nobody knows about until the end of an auction. Like I say, just as bad as each other, no use moaning about one if you use the other.
I hadn’t heard of this form of eBay shilling but can see how it works. I have never got around to setting up snipe bidding but reading this makes a case for it.
Happened to me a few times at bricks and mortar auctions where I have bet fairly big on an item that has gone under the radar and won at my max - it’s hard to complain but bitter taste indeed.
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In this situation I believe the seller at an early stage put in bids that he didn't want to sell below, circumventing the extra cost (I assume?) of having an official reserve price. Avoids the risk of an auction going under the radar and attracting a low price. I've certainly sniped auctions before (although never with the help of an app), it's not really in the spirit of a "proper" auction and games the system against the seller, it's somewhat problematic but not in the same league as defrauding buyers with false bids IMO.
Back in the day when setting a reserve price was free, many used to set the trap as it was known. Say an item has a reserve of £100, you get a few people to place bids with the highest one being £98 and the second highest being £97. The system showed as not quite reached reserve and the trap was set. You only needed one genuine bidder and you had your sale. They would see others bidding and that would give them the confidence to bid.
Sometimes it worked, but if it didn't you just got a 'your item did not sell' message with no fees so you did the whole thing over again.
Also used to happen at a well known auction house with one auctioneer famed for getting the staff to bid. The rule amongst collectors at his auctions was never leave an absent bid.
At the end of the day if the buyer is happy to pay the final price then all is good, but tricks to get the best sale price have always gone on and probably still do.
Shill bidding an auction is fraud. There are a number of stories (you can google it) of people being prosecuted in the U.K. for it under the Fraud Act, many cases relate to eBay.
I'd feel differently about sniping. The selling price is higher with the snipe than without. E.g. the usual way it plays out is:
A watch is being auctioned. Two people are bidding against each other. A few minutes before the end of the auction, the highest bid is £1000. At the last second, I bid £1050 and win. The seller has made £1050 instead of £1000. Surely (s)he is now better off than if I didn't snipe? I was never going to get into a bidding war, so while that might suit the seller, it wasn't a possible outcome.
Either of the bidders had the opportunity to set a "maximum bid" for as high as they wanted. But £1000 was as high as either if them went. If anybody has lost out, it's the other bidders who could have entered a higher price if they wanted, but didn't.
"Bidding off the chandelier" is strangely not illegal providing the auctioneer only takes the bidding to the reserve.
But as you say, tricks have always been used in auctions and always will be.
Cheers,
Neil.
All you are doing there is setting a price limit that you are prepared to pay . You can do exactly the same thing on ebay anyway by setting your highest price and then automatically having your bid increment in response to other bids.
If you are waiting to snipe the bid in the last minutes then I don't see how that is unfair to the seller or other bidders, either there is already a lot of bidding activity on the item or its so unpopular that the seller would be looking at no sale with the auction fee on top.
The whole point of an auction is that the price is dictated by demand and interest either you bid enough to secure the object because you wanted it enough or somebody else wanted it more than you or the item doesn't sell.
I will generally test the water on an auction with an initial bid and see if there are any counter-bids . This will indicate to me how much interest and competition there is for the item. That will influence the price I consider I need to pay in order to secure the item. Then I'll leave it till the closing seconds and go all in with the highest price I'm prepared to pay. (sniping)
I don't see how this is in any way unfair to anyone and its the best way to avoid shill bidding inflating the price.
Sniping doesn’t mean winning. If my snipe is lower than theOr maximum bid then their bid will be incremented above mine by the next step. I have lost many auctions because people were willing to pay more.
I cringe when I see 20 bids on an item on day one. You win the auction in the last few seconds, if you win at all.
Theres no stealth bid. Sniping is just waiting to bid at the last second. Websites just help coordinate it so that you don't have to sit at your computer at the time the auction ends and they do it accurately. If you are beaten by a snipe bid, there's nothing snide about it, you just haven't bid enough. You can beat any sniper by bidding more than they were willing to pay. Why is it more honourable to declare to everyone days before the auction ends your maximum bid, so that they can come in and bid 1p more to take it.
At the end of the day, you've just got to bid what you are willing to pay. If it goes for more then you accept you weren't willing to pay the price it went for.
Agreed.
Completely agree with this, both just as morally wrong as each other
How is sniping as morally wrong as shill bidding?
It is illegal to push up a price artificially by bidding against yourself or by getting family or friends to do so. The process is known as shill bidding and breaks new European Union fair trading rules.
With sniping there is nothing wrong with timing a bid within an auction window. Perfectly within the law and the rules of an auction. It's a level playing field as everybody has access to the tools to do it and you'd be stupid to bid early. Where is your morality line drawn? In the last day, the last hour, the last minute or the last second?
Marrying your cousin is also within the law
Both are cheating to get what you want, two sides of the same coin
Last edited by Hooshabak; 4th August 2020 at 18:14.
What a load of tosh. There is nothing wrong with sniping and its totally different from shill bidding.
You enter your highest bid as late as possible....where exactly does this send your morale compass spinning?
All is fair in auctions. Your top bid is your top bid whatever way you issue the bid. Highest bid wins. What's not to like.
Nothing wrong at all doing it manually But using electronic methods are wrong and sends my morale compass spinning what ever that is
Put in your highest bid at ANY point in the auction. If you win, great, if hardly anyone else bids and you get it far cheaper, superb, if you are outbid, fine.
Shill bidding is morally and legally wrong, obviously. But how anyone can say bidding at the last moment (sniping) is the same defies comprehension, as does their logic.
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In addition, sniping prevents shill bidding to find out your maximum bid and then placing a bid just below that.
I’ve never used a snipe app but often bid in the last few seconds and see nothing wrong with that.
Just to add that the last auction I won, I bid the opening bid (£5) near the start and won as the only bidder.
Last edited by Dave+63; 4th August 2020 at 18:39.
Good point.
I've never used an app either, but have hovered occasionally and put my maximum bid on in the dying seconds, which of course is no different to what an app does. Usually though, I just put my maximum on early doors and sit back and wait.
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I think that there were two reasons that I looked into sniping. The first was that there was something that I really wanted and the auction was finishing at 3 in the morning. I had put a bid in, but sat up to see if I would need to add any more to get the item in the last couple of hours. A sniper, probably warm and toasty under his duvet, snoring his head off won the auction by £1, the next increment. Another time a seller must have had a box of Leatherman Crunch(s), and he was putting them up for a starting price of £35, which was a bargain, even back then. As soon as he put them up I would bid the starting price, then get a message at the end of the auction to say that I had been outbid by a fiver. In the end I bought a few credits on snip.pl at 10p per succesful snipe, and used it to get the next Leatherman Crunch. I still have it.
You wouldn't pay for your mortgage/phone/gas/water/electricity manually would you? No, it's an automatic process that is done by computer for you.
Auction sellers want to sell at the maximum and buyers want to buy at the minimum. If the seller thinks that he is letting it go too cheaply then he needs to set a reserve.
You know we are talking about Ebay here ? How else would you make a bid ? By post perhaps ?
You do understand that the auctions run for days ? This isn't a sheep market where you walk out with a ewe under your arm after 2 minutes of ferocious bidding..
Sniping is waiting till the last seconds of an auction to put your max bid in , there is nothing morally dubious about it and it disadvantages no one. If you don't want to bid then just use Buy it now or make an offer .
Weird logic you have .
Ok
Yes they do (if you are lucky)
Report it and quote all the listing numbers.
I once got a seller and 4 of his shill IDs banned from Ebay.
How long for I have no idea but it made me feel better at the time
Hadn't realised this thread had moved so far, I only saw the OP when I responded.
As to buying on ebay there is only one way to do it and it hasn't changed since the site opened
Bid Once
Bid Late
Bid Your Max
If you do that and lose then someone wanted it more than you.
I rarely buy from ebay auctions thesedays. In the past, if I’ve really wanted the item, I've bid late and bid the absolute maximum I’m prepared to pay.
Do you want the item or do you want a bargain?.......... two different things.
Can’t beat a proper auction where you inspect the items then put your hand in the air. Unfortunately internet bidding has spoiled auctions, people bid too much based on assessing the item from pictures.
Sniping is within the rules shill bidding isn't (it's low level fraud).
Highest legitimate bidder wins, there's nothing in the rules about when you have to bid.
Effectively sniping is a closed bid auction. Why would you chose to show other potential buyers your highest bid early if you don't have to? Sniping takes the emotional element out of auctions.
If you bid early on ebay you will get outbid unless you've put too high a bid in the first place.
Can't say that I understand this. What other people are willing to pay is utterly irrelevant when deciding how much to bid - the whole point about a proxy bidding system like eBay's (regardless of whether or not you snipe) is that you bid the maximum that you would be willing to pay for the item. If you are the highest bidder (whether at your maximum or not), then you get the item[*]. If not, then somebody else was willing to pay more than you were for the item.
[*] Let's not complicate things by including bid increments!
All that has changed is that the buyer now fully inspects the item after the auction has ended rather than before bidding. If it's not as described, then they can return it by raising a SNAD claim.
That's not entirely true. The condition of an item can't always be assessed properly from a description (or even photos).
I think he totally missed the point I was making. An item can still meet the description but still be disappointing, that’s the grey area where you’re not happy with the item but strictly speaking it meets the description. There’s no substitute for inspecting an item before bidding.......provided you know what to look for.
Buying online from photos is a skill in itself, being able to spot photos that lack sufficient detail is a major part of that skill! There’s only one way to become good at inspecting watches and that’s by inspecting watches, you can look at photos forever but you still need the experience of handling them, particularly with older/ vintage watches.
Some of the crap I’ve been sent to service/ repair/ work miracles on has obviously been bought from ebay, either that or the buyer has worn a blindfold and thick gloves whilst inspecting the watch!
No, I don't think that I did miss the point. While I agree that it's probably better to inspect the item in person (although I'd normally prefer the calm and comfort of my own home to the rushed atmosphere of a crowded physical auction room with other bidders watching everything you're doing!), an item can only be "disappointing" if there's a tangible reason (excessive wear/scratches or dings/not working correctly/whatever) and eBay will almost always side with the buyer if returned as SNAD.
This is my method for Ebay as well.
The only surprising thing about shill bidding on Ebay, is that anyone is surprised that it happens.
An auction where you attend in person can also be subject to 'bids off the wall'. Stand as far back as you can and look at who the auctioneer is taking bids from.
Last edited by oldoakknives; 5th August 2020 at 09:55.
Started out with nothing. Still have most of it left.
I completely agree with this though it took me a while to understand that this is the way eBay works.
I like to think of it as it always coming down to sealed best and final offers, except the winner only has to pay a little over what the runner up bid. If I lose, I’m usually content that I offered as much as I was prepared to pay and someone else either wanted it more, or overpaid, depending on ones perspective. Either way, it was fair.
Equally, when selling, I always put items on for the least I’d be prepared to sell for as it seems more open and then it’s up to the market to decide what it’s worth to them. If it doesn’t sell, that’s fine, I wouldn’t want it to if it didn’t meet my minimum. It’s frustrating waiting for the end of an auction to find that it was always going to be a waste of my time as the seller had a subjectively prohibitive reserve. I usually don’t get involved in those now, but that’s a personal preference.
Shill bidding is out of order but sadly a reality of any auction, online or otherwise. I accept that I don’t like it but there’s little I can do to avoid it and I just play the game clean
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I like to test the water with an initial bid. Its useful to gauge interest / competition / shilling and influences how hard and how much I'm prepared to finally go in on.
For example I might drop out if I think its riddled with shill bidding and I'm not that keen on the item anyway.
If its got a lot of competition and interest and I want it badly I might go up on my final bid and I might throw a bid around 40 secs before the end to give another opportunity to whack a final higher bid in.
Update: The "new" auctions ended yesterday, most of them at an even lower price than last time. We'll see if they turn up again.
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