Do sellers juice their bids on eBay?

I agree. Shill bidding on eBay was a problem in years past but not very much anymore.

 

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I remember shilling bidding was running rampant during the infancy of ebay, early 2000's. The only thing I can recall from that time was that it took a while before eBay implemented a safeguard against the practice.

 

**** it happend to me yesturday. 34 buys 100% bid activity, doesn't take a rocket scientist.

 

I will bet it was not shill bidding. Idiots out there do not understand how to bid. I have had it happen to me more than once and I guarantee I did not shill bid not have any friends/relatives do it for me.

 

I agree, that there are multitudes of folks who lurk on the EBAY site and " Bid " just for the " ACTION " . :thumb:

 

You are correct. This is how ebay polices this. But, the dishonest seller/bidders are smarter than that. All it takes is to have a home PC for listing the item, and a smart phone for the shill bidding.
I do agree with you though that this practice isn't as big a problem as some here seem to think it is.

 

bingo....he is right. It does happen but not to the extent that everyone thinks. I sell a lot on Ebay....usually anywhere from 40 to 60 auctions per week and while nobody has to believe me...I do not shill bid my auctions and I don't have family members either. If you do things right, good images, fair shipping and return policies you build up a good reputation and your coins can sell for fair to strong prices. Yes I lose money on some coins but I make money on plenty of others and for me it's not worth the risk to make a few extra bucks playing games. If I can't buy coins and resell them for a profit then I have no business being a dealer as I either don't have an eye for what my customers like or I don't have a clue what the market will bare so I over paid.

I can't tell you how many time a winning bidders has had zero feedback and I get a nasty note from an underbidder accusing me of shill bidding??? edited I can't stop anyone from bidding, ebay has made sure of that and I cringe myself when they win simply becuase of perceptions and the chances being higher that they won't pay. I have also had plenty of folks bid up a coin and then cancel there bids which again makes folks think something funny is going on, but other than blocking those folks from bidding in the future there is nothing a seller can do and ebay allows bid cancellations which they should not. I have cancelled auctions and had to relist them do to bidder shananagins and it always negatively reflects on the seller when I had nothing to do with it.

So in a nutshell...take the advice given and decide what your willing to pay for an item and folks will either shill or they won't but realisticly you won't know if it's going on or not in 98% of cases, it's just folks assuming the worst since you can get some good deals on Ebay and if you have to pay fair market value then something had to be shady right? lol

 

He's on a roll folks...right again...I have buyers who will buy 5 and 10 coins per week from me and they may bid on an additional 10 that they don't win. So those stats may look like they mean something when in the end they may mean the opposite like it's a good dealer and a bidder only buys from them like Doug pointed out. Folks are too smart for there own good these days and we live in a cynical world where everything is unfair and dishonest....but things aren't always as they appear to be. Good Luck on your Ebay hunts and if you find a better place to buy based on pure volume and varieties of coins available then please let us know.

 

As many have said on this thread, who cares about crazy bids. If someone bids way above value, stop bidding. It is quite simple really. I've made a lot of good sales on ebay. I've only been burned once and it was only for $1. I've been burned worse at coin shows and live auctions. Live and learn.

 

I do not polish apples, or believe in censorship. I am sure that 95% of the sellers on ebay are on the up and up, but to say that it doesn't happen is absurd. And to say "your right" or "your wrong" whatever... It is against the ebay policy/rules and breaking the policy/rules when hundreds and possibly thousands of dollars are involved is bad business, and a huge mistake. If I ever see suspicious activity it will be reported, and ebay can determine the outcome. By the way Krypto, I'm pretty sure everyone knows that you are an honest/trusted dealer. **** your on the favorite sellers list for half of this site.

 

Not long ago I won several auctions at Goldberg. In every case but two there was only one other bid besides mine, as I had set my max bid high enough to win comfortably. It opened at a reasonable amount with me at high bid, then one floor bidder bid, then back to me and that was it. The majority of the wins were like that, just one extra bid to increase my price and frustrate me.

I have no way of knowing if it was a genuine bid from someone just hoping that the opening bid was my maximum or something else, though.

Of the others, one had another genuinely dedicated internet bidder who bid it up a good 4 times, and the other had 5 mixed floor and internet bidders.

 

I've got an item up on Ebay now where I know the leading bidder intends to win the coin regardless of cost. (He seems to win every single time he bids on an item and the price doesn't seem to matter to him... He's spent $8K - $10K this month on coins/jewelry which is something that I could only dream of doing!)

Anyway, that being said, I hate sellers that participate in the shill bidding scam and I refuse to be a part of it even if I thought I could get away with it in this instance. From personal experience, I think Ebay ignores shill bidding complaints and like the OP, it irritates me. IMO it goes against the whole concept that Ebay is supposed to be founded on - letting the market set the price.

So...here I sit...just hoping that another legit bidder comes along and runs the guy up a tad bit more. I may not make as much profit by being honest, but at least I don't go to bed feeling guilty.

 

Pitssburgh, that is why you will be successful in the long run. Shill bid trash, take the quick buck in the short-term gain. In just about anything where thousands of dollars are exchanged it has been mentioned that reputation is everything. How many games of mine-sweeper will these people play before they hit a bomb? From my understanding ebay comes down hard on sellers who do not abide by the policy/guidelines.

 

I wish I had as much faith in Ebay, but I reported someone in the past and they didn't do anything even though it was obviously shill bidding. I'd leave Ebay in a heartbeat if a genuine competitor would come along.

 

Well, I do have one questionable seller who, after trying to sell an item four times in a row, appears to keep winning it. There is always the possibility he has mutiples, but he doesn't list it that way. I just wish, if this is the case, he would use a different picture without the tell tale flaw's in it. He starts it with one bid, I bid and then he over bids. He has done this each time. He and I seem to be the only bidders because when I stop, he bids one more time and it remains the final bid. It gets listed again within moments after it's won, by the same seller, and it appears in my alert page as a relisted item. How would you handle this? I have bought from him before, but this item is a little more unusual. Perhaps he doesn't want to take a hit on it. It's not alot of money and he has always met my expectations on past items, but this one item seems be a pain in the ..... for me.

 

I might just refuse to bid until the very last second of the auction..don't give him time to outbid you.

 

The shortest distance between 2 points is a straight line. Email him/her and say, "Look, I know what's going on here. Do you really want to sell this thing or not?"
It would be interesting to see if you received a response and, if so, what it was.

 

Good point. He might straighten up if he knows that you're on to him.

...Or just send us all the guy's screenname. Ebay might take it seriously if enough people (with unique ID's) report him.

 

I was thinking of using the "ask the seller a question" feature, and inquire if he has multiples of the item and would he sell one to me. I would explain that I was a close loosing bidder on some of his previous auctions. Otherwise I could ask him for a current picture of the item I would receive, and make sure it doesn't have the same flaws on it, before I bid. If it did, then I could challenge him a little more for an explanation.