Belt Auction

EBAY. Every been a victim of shill bidding?

hi have you ever been a victim of shill bidding. Where someone connected to the person whos auction it is puts in false bids to up the price of the auction. What are you views on this and should ebay do more to stop this and punish those who participate???

Public Comments

1. That should be punished if found out, but it seems to me that would be very difficult to prove and costly to boot.
2. yes often so noww i check if that person has bidded on any other of their items then retract my bid time ebay clamped down on a lot of things
3. theres always the option of just bidding what you want, and letting someone else win the bid....if you do discover someone constantly upping the bid on someone elses stuff...turn them in...and both should get kicked off the site...
4. Hi hayley, just read you skiing question, and see this one. I am a favourite of ebay love buying, selling, everything ebay.... I hate shill bidding, have bought something that the seller just inflated the price with their other account, ebay should do alot more. Sellers like this are giving good sellers a bad name!
5. i think that goes on A LOT, almost every auction. Sure, I think that's wrong. It would be difficult to stop it and find out who is legit and who is not. But, the bottom line is... if you really really really want the item you'll pay just about anything. There's a lot of things I've bid on that I was crazy about wanting/needing -- but I have my price that I am willing to go and after that -- well I don't feel I need it anymore. Many times the bidder has contacted me, saying their top bidder (probably their friend, or faux bidder) "dropped" out and he could offer it to me as a certain price. That's a scam.
6. yes ebay isn't was it was lets start up a new one - swap shop
7. yes, sometimes knowingly and i have then reported it. Also when someone with no feedback bids it up wins and then surprise you get a second chance offer.
8. I am always on eBay and I had no idea that this happened. hm mm maybe I am just too naive well I think its unfair. but I figure it would be expensive for eBay to handle this. they hardly want to get involved when you pay and don't receive the item. I had to come back and add this: Funny how I just read about this yesterday from your question and today it happened to me hahaha about 7 bids from someone with 0 feedback and the person only started bidding towards the end of the auction when I and another bidder began to bid. INTER-RESTING!!!!! hmmm
9. It happens all the time on certain items. I did'nt know it was referred to as SHILL though. The only way to avoid it is if you know the going rate of the items you are bidding on.And stop at a certain amout. I know very respected sellers who trade under 30 or so different accounts. When you check there feedback they all buy from the same buyers and have 100% feeback. all bent. Noticed in valuable items with no bids they suddenly go for large sums in the last few seconds.That is the owner bidding on there own stuff so it dosen't go cheap.
10. This happened to me when a bidder thought I was someone else, bid my item up to a fantastic price and then sent me an email telling me that he'd done as I asked! I reported it to eBay and sold the item at a much lower price to the other bidder but still got stuck with the sellers fees for the high price and a warning from eBay for being involved with shill bidding! I went off eBay after that!
11. yes
12. How can i tell if the person bidding has something to do with the seller? anyway i think its terrible and yes i agree that ebay should pull their socks up about alot of things! Theyre getting a really bad write up in the newspaper just now, especially paypal!
13. we had a bike and got mates to bump it up..it was great and it worked!..nothing wrong with it i say!
14. It would be difficult to identify shill bids. Simply bid what you think the product is worth and do not get carried away.
15. I don't think it has but who knows? Isn't it amazing what some "lowlife's" will do for the old mighty "Dollar". The greedy bastards. To bad it is so hard to catch them. If caught they should be hung!
16. BIG BIRD, "we had a bike and got mates to bump it up..it was great and it worked!..nothing wrong with it i say!" well, guess what? every state in the US has laws against SHILL BIDDING! it is a CRIME! it shows what type of ethics you DON'T have! HAYLEY, if you suspect SHILL BIDDING, it needs to be reported. use the REPORT link on the bottom of the auction. it is sometimes very easy to spot a SHILL BIDDING situation. using the ADVANCED SEARCH feature you can look up suspicious IDs by bidder. see if the bidder seems to be bidding on the same sellers auctions a lot but never winning. check the feedback. does the bidder win, but never leaves feedback for the seller? also, using the FIND a MEMBER SEARCH, you can check to see if the seller and the bidder are in the same state. watch for patterns between bidders and sellers you are suspicious of. there is no harm in reporting, even if you are not totally SURE. ebay will sort it out.
17. I use eBay a lot and encountered shill bidding for the first time last year. I was outbid by someone who seemed to purchase a lot of items from the seller, but the seller never left feedback for the buyer ever. I posed the question on the community pages of eBay and got some really helpful answers almost immediately. The link below is one that you can use to help identify shill bidding on an auction http://auctionpix.co.uk/shill_bidding.php Shill bidding is not allowed on eBay so you should definitely report your suspicions to them. I did and within twenty four hours, both the seller and buyer were no longer registered users of eBay.
18. Yip, reported one or two cases to EBAY but never received a reply. It happened with PSP and PS2 games starting at 0,01 pence. Highest bidder was a fake at several occassions and then they just re-list the same stuff.