Do sellers juice their bids on eBay?

I love eBay, but some things really irk me. I know some of you eagle eyes can tell a coin dealer by their pictures alone. So have you ever picked up on certain sellers juicing their bids? What I'm refering to is when a seller has a coin in auction format, and they manipulate the auction to drive the bids up. Even though it is in auction (bid) format, they use a different account to bring the price up? Not only that, sometimes I see sellers bid from another account to get the number of bids up. This way when people do advanced searches their coin is at the top of the list for # of bids. The # of bids doesn't bother me so much as driving up the price. I use buy-now 90% of the time on eBay, but every now and then I'll enter a bidding format to get a certain coin. Just so happend the bust half which I had the winning bid, apparently got juiced.

It is pretty obvious when you click on the winning bidders name, and their bid activity shows 100% with the current seller. One time I understand, but you can really pin-point a problem when it happens multiple times with the same seller. The more bids, with the higher bid activity to the seller... the more suspect. I refuse to believe that buyers simply buy from the same seller every single time. :rollling: Just curious, I couldn't find a previous post on this issue.

~Jason

 

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It is a shame we can no longer see the bidder's id that helped deal with this issue very effectively, but yes sellers do do it and there is very little that can be done about it.

 

Shill bidding is illegal.

Bidding up ones own item is called "shill bidding". If you do a search here for shill, you will probably get much information.

This link describes Ebay's policy on shill bidding

http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/seller-Shill-bidding.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shill

 

shill - a person who poses as a customer in order to decoy others into participating, as at a gambling house, auction, confidence game, etc.

 

That occurs more than one would think. Sure it's despicable but I would like to remind you of one of the first rules of coin ( or any other collectible ) when attempting to buy. Establish you maximum you are willing to spend for the item first before getting into a reckless bidding scenario. If you win it for less than the amount you set, than your twice the winner. If it hits your maximum, than you probably bid appropriately. If the item goes beyond your maximum, whew......there will be other items that will catch your eye and your money too.

 

Thank You for the link collect89. I am reading the eBay policy and it is illegal. They even have a way to report violations.


"Make sure you follow these guidelines. If you don’t, you may be subject to a range of actions, including limits of your buying and selling privileges and suspension of your account. Shill bidding is also illegal in many places and can carry severe penalties."

"Reporting shill bidding
Learn more about reporting listing violations. If you think you see shill bidding taking place on a listing, report it to us. Be sure to provide the member's user ID and the item number. We thoroughly investigate every report we receive. Often what appears to be shill bidding isn't a violation. If there is evidence of shill bidding, we will take action, which may include listing cancellation or referral to law enforcement. However, our privacy policy prevents us from disclosing the details of our investigation to other members, including the person who reported the issue."

 

Just set your max bid you're willing to spend regardless, if it goes over, then move on to the next coin. The bidders hidden identity does make it near impossible to determine if it's a seller doing shill bids.

 

Yep; that's the best way I have found to deal with it also. Regarding the ebay policy, the fact there is a policy does not guarantee it will be enforced. Remember the old trick of getting a home security company decal and putting it on your window so a potential burglar would think you have an alarm system when, in fact, you didn't. I think the same concept might, in reality, apply here.

 

Some sellers will even ask friends and family members to bid on their items. This makes it harder to find out if the item was shilled. The easiest thing to do is to keep a price in mind of what you want to pay.

 

Shill bidding is pretty common there, pretty much any category of item has shill bidders. I dont think ebay cares about it, as long as it isnt blatant. Means more money for them.

Another way to possibly avoid shills is to try to buy from sellers who just seem like someone that happens to be selling on ebay, as opposed to someone who makes their income or a large percent of it selling on ebay. I remember reading an article a while back about how big sellers would make deals to shill for each other.

 

Anybody got two tens for a five?

Actually, Jason, been there, done that, on the victim-side, myself, I'm sure. That's how you "know," though, on their patterns and practices.

 

This is very believable, and does not surprise me one bit... and is one of the reasons I believe in karma.

 

Shill bidding is only funny when they try to snipe themselves, some people are idiots.

 

here is what i think of those shills

 

Their come up-ence is when they win the item with their own bid, and then have to pay eBay the commission on the sale.

 

I'm noticing this a lot more since you mentioned it... so many bidders with 40+% activity with one seller.

 

That's the bottom line! I know some coins are really great looking but you gotta keep in mind that there are more (fish) coins in the sea. If you think somebody is bidding under a false name on their own stuff, check their feedback and if it looks obvious then report them. That said, I hope you're right cause you could really mess with somebody's head and livelyhood if they're innocent.

 

What puts a smile on my face is when a shilling bidder gets beat at his own game. He runs up his auction to the point where he is his own high bidder and no one else jumps in to place a game ending higher bid. Then in turn he is stuck with having to pay the fees on his own product.

 

I doubt seriously anyone shill bids or very minimal at its worst. eBay tracks the computers and isp's you use (both to prevent hacking and prevent shill bidding). If you have ever visited your mother, daughter, sister, of whatever and used their computer/wireless, do not ever let them bid on any of your items. They and/or you will wind up suspended from eBay. Don't believe me, try it - or you can just find Captainkirk thread where it happened to him.