I got Shilled on Ebay

[slindars]

So I think I got caught a Ebay seller in the act of Shilling! There was a drill press for sale in the town I live in that I went on-site to inspect. While there the seller mentioned he put on bid in for $25. I quietly took note of this. Now today, with seconds to go the same user account that made the inital bid of 25 places a much higher bid. I ended up winning the item due to a high proxy bid, but it looks like he did not want to let that drill press go for the $37.00 my bid would have won it for. Instead he drove the price up to $73. I've sent him an email asking for his insight onto this and will report it to ebay. I'd like to see if he reply's and comes clean on his own. Any thoughts?

[Dave Hinz]

(snip)

He probably won't, and in any case, you owe it to the rest of eBay's community to report him to SafeHarbor. At a very minimum, if you are sure of what you say, comment on same in the feedback for this auction.

SafeHarbor will, if presented what you've said here, most likely look at this and his other auctions to see if there is a pattern, and will proceed accordingly.

Dave Hinz

[Tom]

Scott wrote:>

The seller put in a bid?? Caveat emptor. What size drill press? Tom Work at your leisure!

[Doug Miller]

My first thought is astonishment that eBay's software would permit one to bid on one's own auctions.

-- Regards, Doug Miller (alphageek-at-milmac-dot-com)

Get a copy of my NEW AND IMPROVED TrollFilter for NewsProxy/Nfilter by sending email to autoresponder at filterinfo-at-milmac-dot-com You must use your REAL email address to get a response.

[igor]

[Dave Hinz]

It doesn't. But, if he has more than one account (also a SafeHarbor violation), then it's trivial to do. That's one thing they'll look at, to see if the losing bidder (or winning bidder) for that same person's auctions is frequently the suspected shill account. That could be a legit pattern (two collectors of similar objects), or it could be fraud. In this case, the latter seems to be the case.

Dave Hinz

[John Thomas]

[e-mail] (Doug Miller) wrote in news:AoPkd.21232$ [e-mail]:

Think: two *different* accounts.

Regards, JT

[Tom Veatch]

Dummy user account?

Tom Veatch Wichita, KS USA

[Tim Douglass]

A seller bidding on their own auction is, in the U.S. at least, a crime and you can do time for it. Sellers who do that are thieves and should be pointed out as such.

Tim Douglass

[brian roth]

Send an e-mail the the (bogus) second place bidder saying they can have it for the $72....

[Fred the Red Shirt]

It may be contrary to eBay policy but as a practical matter one can have more than one eBay account.

However, eBay has a 'reserve bid' system. The seller may set a reserve price which will be minimum acceptable winning bid.

I daresay that a bidder who shill bids on his own merchandize probably does not understand that feature. A seller who bids on and wins his own auction owes eBay more than one whose auction fails to meet the reserve bid, right?

[Old Nick]

On Thu, 11 Nov 2004 19:50:56 GMT, [e-mail] (Doug Miller) vaguely proposed a theory ......and in reply I say!:

remove ns from my header address to reply via email

Apart from the dummy account idea, how naive can you get? I am surprised about Ebay only when it does something _right_ and _honest_, or makes any attempt to clean up that sludgepit.

rant over.

***************************************************** Dogs are better than people.

People are better than dogs for only one purpose. And then it's only half of ofthe people. And _then_ most of them are only ordinary anyway. And then they have a headache.........

[Larry Bud]

You sure it was the same ID? Send a link to the aution...

[SuperSpaz]

Sounds to me like typical sniping (not against the rules), not the seller shilling(definite no-no).

The first bidder bids $25, you come along a and place a higher bid, the first bidder decides to use a sniping site to place a bid seconds before the auction ends. You win because your bid via Ebay was simply higher than the bid he placed via the sniping site.

You can report it, but unless there's a connection between the two accounts, you are likely SOL. From what you have said, I can see why you are peeved, you had to pay $73 vs. the $37 it was at until the last second bid was placed. I also can't see how you can conclude that the seller shilled you unless you have some other information.

[ATP]

The seller told you he bid on his own auction? That doesn't make sense.

[mac davis]

He won't come clean... he already has your money, why should he say "yeah, I sure screwed you"?

Report it.. it won't do you or anyone else much good (the max penalty is banning that name from ebay) but it is putting ebay and other "ebayers" on notice....

I guess I still suffer from my misspent youth.. I'd have to go kick his ass.. *eg*

[John Keeney]

Was the person showing you the drill press handling the sell/display for someone else per chance? Say, a business he worked for? I don't doult it happens, but most people are a little brighter than admit it to strangers.

[No Spam]

didn't see any pattern between the seller and alledged shiller, but who knows.

FWIW, $73 still seems like a decent price. I understand that shilling is illegal, immoral, wrong, etc...but keep things in perspective.

[Robert Bonomi]

Got a _cite_ for that statute?

[igor]

Actually, it is a matter of state law/regulation. (Some states regulate auctions in some detail by code, others by general law and then by regulation, I vaguely recall.) I can't say it is this in every state, but in most IME. Don't have time now to look one up, but you can try findlaw.com or many state websites -- e.g.,

-- for actual code language. -- Igor