Shill bidding? What do you think?

Barberian

I purchased a seated liberty half in EF for $209. Just prior to my final bud, someone raised the top bid from $134 to $206. The ebay statistics for this bidder (#8) are as follows: Feedback: 1-9; 100%, one year or less. 30 day summary: 64 total bids, 33 items bid on, 90% activity with seller (!).

Bids to unique sellers: 6. All but 8 of the last 30 bids were placed less than one hour before closing. All but 1 of the last 30 bids were placed less than 4 hours before closing.

Seems to me that this bidder bids a lot for this particular seller's merchandise in the last hour, yet has little success as the high bidder. What do you think?

I otherwise have had no problems with this seller that I can recall, but I may search my past records and see if I have purchased other coins from him.

Zoins

How much time was there between your final bid and the end of the auction? How much time was there between your final bid and the under-bidder's final bid?

Barberian

The suspect bidder placed their bid 4 minutes before the auction ended. My final bid was made within the last 25 seconds.

TwoSides2aCoin

To me, it reads as though someone likes the same type coins as you or he likes the seller's offerings and is willing to compete but just can't SNIPE as good as someone else does.

Barberian

Thanks for your reply. I do not use sniping software.

Sniping is easy even if one doesn't have the software for it. I have dial-up and I just wait until the final 30 seconds to enter my final bid.

This bidder consistently bids within the final hour and rarely wins any of the coins they are bidding on. And again, 90% of the coins they are bidding on are from one dealer

notwilight

Looks suspicious to me. That's what the ebay software is supposed to point out. But it may be perfectly innocent. When I was buying tools I bought thousands of items and 75% were from the same ebay seller. They often had duplicates so I would use my sniping software to bid low near the end of lots and lots of auctions. Sometimes I'd get frustrated when I'd look and see I came in second on hundreds of auctions. Some my have suspected shill bidding. --Jerry

mozin

It cost extra for reserve auctions, so figure it out.

There is so much dishonestly on ebay, it makes me ill.

Barberian

This bidder wasn't bidding low. They raised the current bid from about $130 to $202. Well over retail price. The coin was really nice, so I just dug deeper. But then I looked at the losing bidders bidding history later. With such aggressive bidding, one would think they would win more than 5% of the auctions they bid on. This bidder always bid on the same sellers auctions and never seemed to win.

Zoins

<< <i>This bidder wasn't bidding low. They raised the current bid from about $130 to $202. Well over retail price. >>

If the under-bidder is bidding well above retail with less than 5 minutes to go, does that make him/her less likely to be a shill?

<< <i>With such aggressive bidding, one would think they would win more than 5% of the auctions they bid on. >>

One would think, but for some reason the winning bidders all want to pay even more over retail? Are there really that many people out there willing to beat out someone who's already bidding well over retail?

storm888

Suspicious.

After you do some more research, if you are still
concerned call EBAY and chat with Trust & Safety.

If the boys are neighbors, EBAY will bust them fast.

Or, you could take a NPB-strike and see what happens
to the coin next. (EBAY will remove the first strike as
a courtesy, upon request.)