Ebay shill bidding or not?

I recently bid on something in the last 60 seconds of an Ebay auction. I then took a look at the other 19 bidders after the auction ended. What do you think of the other 19 bids, shill or not?

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dl...MEWA:IT&viewitem=&item=170087887770&rd=1&rd=1

Shill Bidding is bidding that artificially increases an item’s price or apparent desirability, or bidding by individuals with a level of access to the seller’s item information not available to the general Community. Shill Bidding is prohibited on eBay.

Because family members, roommates and employees of sellers have a level of access to item information which is not available to the general Community, they are not permitted to bid on items offered by the seller – even if their sole intent is to purchase the item. Family members, roommates or employees may purchase items from a seller without violating this policy simply by using purchase options – such as Buy It Now – which do not involve bidding.

 

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I would say that Bidder 5 is suspect, with 38% of the bids with that seller (out of a fairly large number of bids), and the bid that's a few cents short of $300. In his favor, he has a lot of bids to other sellers, and has been a member for over 5 years. So given eBay's new system, it's inconclusive. If Bidder 5 is a shill, it's a friend/family member's account that also does legit transactions.

Bidders 7 and 8 seem legit, so atleast you didn't overpay if Bidder 5 was shilling.

 

It didn't look fishy to me. These sets are HIGH. I don't think you did bad. That is if you won the auction, you didn't say.

Bidding it appeared there were four final bidders including you. The time sequences appear rational. One bidder apparently put a 250 high bid, but you not going to get this set for close to 250.

Did you get this set????

 

I'm not objecting to the price I got it for. The sets are listed in the Red Book for $385.00 each. It just seemed like a lot of people with only a handful of bids and all the same names with one number added. How can that possibly be? They clearly know each other or it is the same person.

 

Moen
Where that packing is cracked really hits me right in the gut---I would wonder if the coins are really SILVER??or if they are clad in the silver coin packing?.....

Speedy

 

ebay changed some policies to protect the buyer or seller or something like that,
notice your ebay id looks like 'Bidder 9' on the bid history page,
at the top of the bid history page, read the part: "As the internet evolves, eBay continues to..."
it explains the "all the same names with one number added".

 

You're right! I've never seen this before. Interesting. I don't much care about the cracks in the case because I willl slab them anyway. As long as there is no problem with the coins themselves. I really don't like the no return policy though. If they are switched, It would seem that I would have no recourse.

 

Looks okay to me. But I don't buy from ebay. Partly because if I did, it would be illegal.

Phoenix

 

Hey guys I do not do e-bay how do you tell if there is shill bids ?

Bruce.

 

I dunno about this auction.. but a guy who has 38% bidding of his 485 items with this one seller probably REALLY loves him! I just dont like his 299.97 bid... In my opinion, anyone who bid xxx.99 totals are bidding to lose because most people naturally tend to bid whole numbers - and at the most xxx.02 or so just to beat those whole number bidders...

 

Illegal??? Why because of your age???

 

It used to be easier, when you could see the identities of of the bidders. Things to check included how often that bidder bid on that seller's auctions, how often they won, whether they had left each other feedback, as well as if they were located near each other (same city/state). Back when you could get their email address, that also could give you some clues, like if they were both on some small ISP, or you could try searching for that email, and see if you could get the names involved and see if they had the same last name.

Nowadays it's harder with eBay's bidder protection system, though Bidder 5 in this case may of the more "casual", less blatant type of shilling, where a seller asks a friend with their own eBay account to throw in a bid or two on some of of their auctions (this is opposed to the more blatant shilling accounts that have ficticious info and are only used only to bid up their own auctions). The $299.97 bid is somewhat suspect, as the point of most shillers is to only push the price up, and not win, hence a bid that is a few cents less than a nice round number that a legit bidder is more likely to bid.

 

I've bought from this seller a couple of times and have had great experiences. That may explain the 38% that the one guy has with him.

 

I have also bought from him. No problems. Much better than most of the rest and seemed completely honest to me.

 

Someone caught on! Yes, I'm not yet 18. Wondering if anyone would catch that. Take care.

Phoenix

 

I've purchased from him also. Mostly proof and mint sets. All have been nice. I would buy from this seller anytime.

 

I am one of those who will do somewhat oddball bids, but there is a madness to my methods.

somtimes i will bid on things, just id on them, and my bids are no where close to the real value.
Case in point: Large circulated morgan dolalr lots, My bid is rarely above melt unless i want something in particular.

BUT, in 90% of my bids, my "cents" portion of my bid is slected so if I win at my high bid, the final sales price with shipign and insurance is $xxx.00

I do the same with tips when I pay with credit card at a restaurant

 

There is always this thought that they put a lesser grade in place of what was in there. Cherry picking for slabs.

 

There is no rhyme or reason why the containers should be cracked on the edges unless they've been opened. Once opened, there is no guarantee these coins haven't been swapped out or put together from lower quality sets.

The reason I'm asking is because I impulsively bid on this auction in the last 2 minutes figuring one of the other 8 bidders would probably outbid me. I then read that there is no returns on this item after winning it. I have already contacted the seller to see if he would upgrade to a better set for a buy it now price. I hope he is as reasonable as some of you have indicated.

I wonder what happens if you just don't pay for an item? Never tried that before.

 

I don't think this pattern necessarily indicates shilling.

I can see how "Bidder 4" got carried away a bit and kept trying to creep up to what would have been a reasonable value (based on your comments, Moen) a little at a time, and then got frustrated and stopping bidding with "Bidder 5" still prevailing. "Bidder 5" only going to 299.97 is a litle strange but it happens.