Shill bidding on Ebay...

mbogoman

Would you say that a bidder who has bid on 66 of a seller's auctions on a variety of numismatic items and has zero bid activity with any other sellers (i.e. 100% activity with one seller) is a shill bidder? I was bidding on an MS70 Jeff Spouse and got outbid this morning. The seller has two listings for MS70 Jeffs. I checked the other listing. Both listings were bid up this morning by the same user (the one noted above). FWIW, the seller has 100% feedback with over 31K Ebay sales.

derryb

shill bidding and not even trying to hide it. Report it and post a link here so many more can report it.

mbogoman

I did report it.

Ebay items numbers 380218247541 and 330416508645. Check out the bidder with 407 feedback. He's the one with 100% activity with this seller.

coinnut

Here's your Link

sinin1

maybe but not necessarily


possibly bidder has been screwed so many times, they have found 1 seller they trust
and/or is within driving distance and can view pick-up wins


they have quite a few feedback - over 700 transactions with diefferent people
would be interesting to see if that is buying or selling

but the new eBay hide the bidder system - helps shill bidding
and increases eBays take

mbogoman

maybe but not necessarily possibly bidder has been screwed so many times, they have found 1 seller they trust and/or is within driving distance and can view pick-up wins

I don't think so. All of the bidder's bidding activity has been with this seller. 100%. He (or she) hasn't bid on auctions from any other seller according to Ebay's bid history numbers. How can the bidder have been screwed by any other sellers if he hasn't bid with any other sellers?

Furthermore, this bidder placed a single bid on 13 of this seller's auctions, all 8 hours ago, That's one bid for each auction, all placed within a few minutes of each other. Sounds like he had a list and just marched down it, placing the "reserve" shill bid for each item...

sinin1

those are just current bids

does not take into account what has happened in last 15 years
or even last week




but go ahead and turn them in, eBay can check ips and have history of everything ever done on that site
and won't do anything unless they are sure

LindeDad

Did he in some way make you bid more for the item than you wanted too?

Sorry but the new eBay hide the shill system is just working great for eBay.

mbogoman

Good points all. It just looked fishy to me, so I brought it to Ebay's attention. I honestly don't think they will do anything since the seller appears to bring in so much revenue.

AUandAG

I have a good buyer that bids on almost every one of my listings. Bids what he wants to pay
and frequently does win a coin. I don't know how well it helps my prices but I'm glad he's happy
with my coins and my service! He might make the bids on the first day they are listed or the 2nd
or the 3rd, but always puts all his bids in at the same time.

He does buy from a couple of other sellers as well, not 100% with me, for sure.

bob

PS: sounds like shill bidding to me.

CoinCrazyPA

I don't think so, he won around ten items on 3/7, for around $1400.00 that would be alot of fees for the seller to swallow?

mbogoman

Yes, he did. But I find it odd that this bidder has only 4 feedback over the last 12 months. Yes, he won about 10 auctions in the first week of this month and left positive feedback for the seller. However, the seller left no feedback for this bidder even though the seller left tons of other feedback for other bidders. In my eyes, it just all sounds too coincidental to not be shilling...

sinin1

if you guys are talking about ming_merciless(407), that is not the bidder on the current auctions

if you do a search by bidder, that bidder does not show up on active auctions


if the seller is truly using a shill, they would not leave feedback for each other
I do not know how you would find out who the bidder is, unless you were an underbidder
in an auction that closed with this 'shill' as a winner


as you can do a search by bidder with your handle with closed auctions, and it shows who won them
unless you check the 'as high bidder only' button

Rampage

Well, if he was a shill bidder strictly for this seller, he would not have a feedback of 407. Though I do agree it looks a little suspicious.

Frankcoins

When we start all our lots at 1 cent, we always get people who would place a $1 bid on everything, then someone who places a $2 bid on everything, ....all down the line. My regular lowballer wins 1 or 2 lots a year for $1 for a coin worth $25. I still can't imagine that it's worth people's time to do this, and we have been suspended a couple of times because someone posted on a public message board that we are shill bidding and there is absolutely positively no other explanation. When ebay gets complaints from multiple people, they tend to assume that multiple people must be correct.

Greeniejr

I know that I typically bid on the coins of 1 seller on eBay mostly because they list nice coins and I don't want to go through the trouble of sorting through loads of junk. I would say 95% plus of our bidding activity is with them. Are we shills for them? Absolutely not. Do I know if my lowball bid hits that I will get a nice coin, absolutely.

aficionado

It's cool, if there is no Shill bidding ebay will do nothing. They don't kick someone off just because someone says to.

If he's NRU in a week or two we'll know.