So does this look suspicious?

sonofagunk

ebay auction

horserider-ss( 1 ) bids $399 (why would you bid $399 instead of $401)?

horserider-ss has received 10 positive feedbacks, ALL from the same seller OVER A THREE YEAR PERIOD!!!! In the last 30 days (or however far back ebay shows), horserider-ss has bid on 130 auctions. 96 or so have been from THIS SELLER. The other 30 have been split up between A SMALL NUMBER of sellers. Looks like to me that someone has set up a "sniper like service" to make reserves for sellers?

tompkins

Not quite a "sniper-like" service, in that his bid (at least on this auction) was about nine hours before the close. But your other observations do make it look like a possible "reserve-beating" service. Actually, by doing it early, it is a more effective reserve beater in that it gives people a long time to think about going up over the shill bid. As to why 399, why not? I bid odd amounts like that frequently. But all in all, enough to make one suspicious.

Pete

sonofagunk

NOT a reserve auction. Just someone trying NOT to pay fees

jonesy

Buyer Beware on this seller!!

LincolnCentMan

Another consideration is the "underbidder's" feedback. Was that account created specificaly for the purpuse of shilling? Although the evidence is circumstantial, it does indeed look suspicious.

David

DRG

I see 3 types of shill bidding;

1) Shill gets the item to the reserve. The purpose of this is to get the item to the reserve and saves the seller some ebay fees since it costs more to simply start an auction at a given price. I do not see how this hurts the buyer. If the bidding never would have gotten to the reserve the item would not sell. The buyer simply is able to start at the "reserve price" of the seller without the seller having to pay the extra fees. (Ebay may not like it, but why would we care?)

2) In a non reserve auction the seller can use a shill bid as their reserve. This again is a way of saving on Ebay fees but is riskier to the seller. If his bid wins the item them he pays all fees. It is again not harmful to the buyer as the seller is simply putting a bottom price on his item. (Ebay also would dislike this kind of bidding.)

3) True shill bidding is when a seller incrementally bids up his own item depending on the interest to raise the sale price to the highest possible amount. I believe this is a real issue at live auctions where a "shill" could actually gauge the interest of the other buyers and drive the price up accordingly. This kind of bidding is obviously bad for the buyer as he is forced to pay more for the coin then anyone else would actually pay by giving the illusion of interest in the item. (Ebay actually benifits from this kind of bidding as the price goes up so do their fees.)

I have often read threads here that simply put all shill bidding in one catagory. Am I the only one that sees this differently?

.........No I do not shill bid my auctions......I don't have time... I put them up as no reserves and let them go.........

sonofagunk

DRG, are you the seller dfinkelstein267476mi@comcast.net in these auctions?

DRG

No I sell under my own name DRGOLAN.

I was just trying to shed some light, and a little perspective never hurt anyone.

dbldie55

I suspected the same things when looking at lots of this seller around a year ago. I have avoided the seller since then.

sonofagunk

Thanks, DRG. I didn't want people to think this was you.

sonofagunk

Sent him an email (didn't have to look it up since it is his username). Guess he doesn't like being caught. Here is his response (I added the #'s to clean it up for the kiddies)

> IT'S A##HOLES LIKE YOU THAT GIVE EBAY A BAD NAME.

> YOU ARE A CRAZY F##KED UP B#TCH!!!!!!

> GO F##K YOURSELF GRANNY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Mistercoinman

I have purchased coins from drgolan and he has alway been a stand-up type of seller. I could not see him shilling anyone. Trying to get to #1

Keyrock

SOG,

Looks like you made a friend for life

sonofagunk

Well unless he reads this board, he thinks my name is Sally McBride