I purchase most of my coins on Ebay and on a whole Ive had mostly positive experiences but I do feel sometimes the seller has a bid in waiting if their coin is going to sell under value Am I just paranoid or anybody else feel that way
It does occur sometimes imo and you can often tell by checking the bidders history and percentage with that seller. But I'd also caution to remember that millions of people are on Ebay viewing at any one time and most people bid at the very end of auctions or use sniping software to bid at the last second for them. So although sometimes it may seem like something nefarious occurred it may not actually be the case. If you find an egregious example though just report the auction.
Being retired law enforcement I tend to see a conspiracy in most things Sometimes it works in my favor on my many impulse buys
Shill bidding is one of the problems with Ebay. We've all seen it and it continues. You need to check who you are bidding against and check their bid history with the seller. Takes the fun out of it when you are bidding against the seller. Also be wary of the infamous "private listing" auctions that hide the identity of bidders. That's the best cover there is for shill bidding and I don't know why Ebay allows those auctions to go on.
Some people do it some don't, a lot of major auction houses will bid on behalf of the consignors as well so it's not unique to eBay. What those bids cannot do is drive your bid up higher than your max. Set your max and don't worry about it, if you win it was within a price you were willing to pay anyway
Could you please list some of the major auction houses that engage in shill bidding. I'm sure many buyers would avoid them if it's true. And Ebay's rules state that shill bidding is forbidden by sellers. I know one guy who used to sell auto parts and he was kicked off Ebay for his shill bidding.
Read the auction house contracts. They reserve the right to bid on the items on behalf of the consignor. Great Collections is the only one I know that doesn't reserve that right which is probably why the prices are so weak on so many things there.
@serafino read some of @Hugh Stiel thread's and his experiences with a major auction house doing screwy things. And by screwy I mean screwing people over. Although I agree with set your max and don't worry about. Those shill bids driving up the cost at which you win, if you do win is wholly unethical if being done by another entity with that sole purpose in mind while bidding. I will say I've also been party to an auction once on Ebay once where a shill clearly bid up and over until they learned my max bid. They than retracted their bid and placed one at the point right before my max to ensure they'd get maximum selling price. It was pretty obvious to both me and thankfully Ebay as well and they had no problem cancelling my bid all together.
Buyers understand and respect a reserve price set by the seller, but shill bidding is considered crooked by most and that's why Ebay forbids it. Crooked sellers love shill bidding, un-searched rolls and fake coins
I play a "Price is right game" I bid what I will pay and no higher and then I see how good I am of predicting the price. Sometimes I way off and I have to question my price on the next one When I snagged one I fell satisfied Hope that makes sense
This is a little different. If someone is that sloppy or really wants to target it then yea I would cancel unless it was rare and hard to find. But other than someone being that brazen it really doesn't matter to me, I pretty much know at this point that the only true way to avoid shilling is to stick to buy it now.
I don't really blame sellers of so called un searched rolls as apparently people are stupid enough and willing to gamble enough that these still sell like hotcakes on Ebay. If there was no market for them the listings would dry up all together. But I've found when clicking on random listings of them that the sellers often have tons of sales, so somebodies buying.
I won't say shill bidding never occurs, but I think is is quite rare. eBay has several programs to catch them.
