Reverse shill bidding?

SamThompson

Hi folks, being relatively new to ebay (compared to many of you) though not brand new I've been studying up on protecting my best interest when selling. I have recently read about an occurance that is less common that classic shill bidding but is where a person has 3 or more user ID's and bids the minimum on a no reserve auction, then jacks the price WAY high with the 2 fake names, and at the last minute withdraws the high bids. The reason i've brought this up is in one of my auctions (non-coin) I am receiving odd bids from two zero feedback people and it's got me a bit on edge. Firstly does anyone have tips on how to detect this, and secondly, if Ebay can bust them, what kind of trouble could they potentially face? I'm sure it's illegal, but then again shill bidding is too but nothing ever happens...however this seems a bit more serious an offense in my eyes, so i wonder if anything could/would actually be done legally or otherwise?


here's the auction in question:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2482084073&sspagename=STRK:MESE:IT&rd=1

4thStooge

Bids can not withdrawn in the last 12 hours of bidding. Shills generally only bid on one seller's auctions as they are too lazy to cover themselves as well as being cheets.

Theop

1. What is the advantage people would get using the "reverse shill bidding" procedure that you described?

2. How does this apply to your auction since what you described is a seller with additional ID's doing the bidding? In this case you are the seller.
I don't know how any bidding, even from zero-feedback users, could be considered illegal bidding on your auction.
If you are really concerned, cancel their bids and place them on your blocked list.

3. Shouldn't this be in another forum? Oh, I forgot, THIS IS THE EBAY AUCTION FORUM.

razorface1027

LINK

Here's a link

SamThompson

well the benefit would supposedly be that nobody else would bid and when the high bids were canceled the very low bid would win.......

flaminio

This is what's known as "bid shielding". As 4thStooge mentioned, eBay "fixed" the problem by not allowing retractions in the last 12 hours of an auction, but this is a fairly recent change.

The way the scam works: let's say you list a coin with a starting bid of $1, and you expect it to sell for about $100. Person A comes along and bids $5000, and then Person B bids $5100. Of course no one is going to outbid Person B. With seconds to go in the auction, Person A retracts his bid. Person B's bid then falls down to $1. Auction ends, and seller just got ripped big time.