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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;PhilipCohen, post: 747624, member: 21003&quot;]<p style="text-align: left"><span style="color: black"><font face="Verdana">Hi rlm&#039;s_cents,</font></span></p><p><br /></p><p style="text-align: left"><span style="color: black"><font face="Verdana">There are no BINs in the spreadsheet; what would be the point? And, I realize that I will never be able to convince you that shill bidding on eBay by professional sellers is rampant; frankly, I have to suspect that your responses indicate that you have another agenda. </font></span></p><p><br /></p><p style="text-align: left"><span style="color: black"><font face="Verdana">I never said that all the sellers listed in the spreadsheet were shills; they are a random selection of sellers who use auctions with low start prices relative to the value of the goods being sold: I <i>have</i> tried to present a balanced picture. Some of the listed sellers clearly have no appearance of shill bidding; many do have such an appearance.</font></span></p><p><br /></p><p><span style="color: black"><font face="Verdana"><br /></font></span></p><blockquote><span style="color: black"><font face="Verdana"><p>“As for proof, his methodology may work fine <b>IF</b> his sheets showed any significant bidding by somebody on a specific sellers items. Instead, his worksheet shows total blanks in that area. It does not even hint at anything being a shill bid. It shows nothing and proves even less except someone spent a lot of time entering useless data.”</font></span></p><p><span style="color: black"><font face="Verdana"></p></blockquote><p></font></span></p><p><span style="color: black"><font face="Verdana">We must be looking at different sheets. Frankly, this statement is exactly what I would expect from eBay’s Department of Spin. Try hitting the &quot;Sort Bidders x Sellers&quot; button and then have another look at those individual sellers where bidders have made so very many monotonously regular bids on the particular seller’s auctions.</font></span></p><p>&nbsp;</p><p style="text-align: left"><span style="color: black"><font face="Verdana">Did someone say that my conclusions had no basis? Try these two links which are media responses to my first Case Study:</font></span></p><p><br /></p><p style="text-align: left"><span style="color: black"><font face="Verdana"><a href="http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/07/10/ebay_and_shill_bidding/" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/07/10/ebay_and_shill_bidding/" rel="nofollow"><span style="color: purple">http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/07/10/ebay_and_shill_bidding/</span></a></font></span></p><p><br /></p><p style="text-align: left"><span style="color: black"><font face="Verdana"><a href="http://www.smh.com.au/technology/biz-tech/phoney-bidding-rampant-on-ebay-20090714-djsr.html" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="http://www.smh.com.au/technology/biz-tech/phoney-bidding-rampant-on-ebay-20090714-djsr.html" rel="nofollow"><span style="color: purple">http://www.smh.com.au/technology/biz-tech/phoney-bidding-rampant-on-ebay-20090714-djsr.html</span></a></font></span></p><p><br /></p><p><span style="color: black"><font face="Verdana">Unfortunately, it is never going to be possible to prove “beyond any doubt” that someone is a shill bidder; even matching IP addresses are not conclusive evidence; and eBay’s Bid History Details pages will only expose the possibility that a particularly <i>naïve</i> shill is at work; eBay’s “summary” will not expose the sophisticated professional shill who will make sure that sufficient “no-win” bids are made with his shilling IDs on others’ auctions to keep his “% bids with” statistic low enough to not raise any suspicion. </font></span></p><p>&nbsp;</p><p style="text-align: left"><span style="color: black"><font face="Verdana">Even the most sophisticated algorithm, taking into consideration every aspect of the pattern of a bidder’s bidding, can only be to, varying degrees, <i>suggestive</i> of shill bidding. But still, we buyers are entitled to that information. </font></span></p><p><br /></p><p style="text-align: left"><span style="color: black"><font face="Verdana">Also, I know that computer scientists from the Department of IT at the University of Queensland (that’s in Australia) have developed such a “shill score” algorithm and, on two occasions in the past, have offered to work with eBay on such a shill score mechanism; eBay did not even pay them the courtesy of responding to their communications. …</font></span></p><p><br /></p><p style="text-align: left"><span style="color: black"><font face="Verdana">I realize that my many ramblings on this matter may be painful for some; but, in various posts, I have covered just about every aspect that I can think of regarding shill bidding on eBay. As one who used to enjoy dabbling on eBay as a buyer, I would have much preferred to have been able to come to the conclusion that eBay actually cared about shill bidding and was doing something effective about it. Regrettably, my conclusion is that they do not care and that they are doing nothing effective to proactively control it and, as a consequence, shill bidding is indeed rampant on low-start auctions by professional sellers.</font></span></p><p>[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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