Shill bidding on Ebay

[sickie]

I think you tend to find that when people do shill bidding & then relist mostly they then get less offers as I think the one's who are watching it with genuine interest in buying it know what's happening.

Their was a Chronoris Movember went last night for £715.00 yet last week after it ended it went for £840.00.

I bid £740.00 last week and just watched it this week just to see what happens.

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[Mr Pointy]

Can't say that I understand this. What other people are willing to pay is utterly irrelevant when deciding how much to bid - the whole point about a proxy bidding system like eBay's (regardless of whether or not you snipe) is that you bid the maximum that you would be willing to pay for the item. If you are the highest bidder (whether at your maximum or not), then you get the item[*]. If not, then somebody else was willing to pay more than you were for the item.

I don't think you understand the issue.

There's an item we are both interested in: You enter a maximum bid of £100. I enter a maximum bid of £50. You are currently the highest bidder & will win it at £51. There are no other bidders interested.

The seller now enters shill bids:
£61 - you're still winning at £62
£71 - you're still winning at £72
£81 - you're still winning at £82
£91 - you're still winning at £92
£101 - He's now the highest bidder £101 & he's found your limit

Now he deletes his £101 bid & re-bids £99. You will be highest bidder at £100 & win the item. He's forced you to pay £49 more for the item than if the auction had been run fairly. He never intended to buy the item so the fair value was £51, just over what the next lowest bidder valued the item at.

If you think that's acceptable then you're a mug.

[PhilipK]

I don't think you understand the issue.

I suspect that you are the one who did not understand my post!

I am perfectly aware of the issue of shill bidding on eBay, and also that (apart from some very specific circumstances, such as BIN stomping) there is no point in bidding before the final seconds of any auction. I am also fully aware of the issues of bid shielding (which is actually what you described in your example, which makes me wonder whether you understand what shill bidding involves).

My post was in regard to using your perception of other bidders' activities to determine your bid on any given auction. In a (modified) Vickrey auction, the only criterion for setting that bid should be the price that you are willing to pay. While it obviously makes sense to research the likely price of the item (e.g. by looking at the ending price of previously sold examples), the activity of other bidders should not be a factor in determining that price.

[SydR]

I can’t recall which auction site it was, possibly QXL, that had a system in place to deal with snipe bids and, probably, help the buyer.

Any bids received in the final minute or so would automatically extend the auction time remaining. Say you placed the highest bid with 3 seconds to go then the system would add a minute to the remaining time.

Easy to see how this could be gamed by the seller to up prices in the closing frenzy.

[Halitosis]

I like to think of it as it always coming down to sealed best and final offers

Nailed it. Ebay is best not thought of as an auction as it has a defined time limit. Everyone should bid the highest that they would be prepared to pay, whether that be at the start or in the dying seconds of the 'auction'. I usually bid late as I imagine there are other bidders who might go beyond their initial limit due to too much excitement or alcohol.

Also there's no point getting upset at having lost an auction "by just a pound" (or fiver or whatever). The winning bidder may well have bid hundreds over my maximum bid.

[vRSG60]

Also there's no point getting upset at having lost an auction "by just a pound" (or fiver or whatever). The winning bidder may well have bid hundreds over my maximum bid.

Exactly


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[JimSclavunos]

Wouldn't you know it, every single one of the watches popped up for auction again today... Shameless.

[sickie]

Which item's or seller?
Might be worth bidding and pulling it 24hrs before the end just to p him off.

Wouldn't you know it, every single one of the watches popped up for auction again today... Shameless.

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[redkite]

You can report shill bidding.

Report category
Listing practices

Reason for report
Fraudulent listing activities

Detailed reason
The seller, a member of the seller's family, a co-worker of the seller, or one of the seller's friends placed a bid on their own listing.

[Blueboy1]

Personally I found (with watches anyway) that the ones I was interested in were only available at inflated 'buy it now' or 'make an offer' prices and usually stayed unsold for months.