Ebay: Why Do People Make Fake Accounts To Bid and Not Pay?

Sethro

I am thoroughly confused, and a little PO'd about something that happened on one of my eBay auctions and was hoping someone here could explain what happened.

On Wednesday I received a Bryce Harper 2012 Chrome auto redemption in the mail, after a year and a half wait. I immediately snapped a pic and put it up for auction on eBay. I was the first one on eBay, so I was hoping that would give me maybe a couple of extra bucks before the others started appearing. The auction runs, and at the end I have what looks like two legit bidders getting it up to around $230, way more than I expected. Then at the very last second a snipe takes it up to 235.

I was watching the auction on my iPhone and immediately clicked to see who won the auction and my heart sunk. The winning bid came from someone with zero feedback. I quickly check the name and address of the winner and his name is Duke Jones, which didn't make me feel any better (seemed fake) and the address cannot be found on google maps or my iPhone map. So now I know I am screwed. I contact the two underbidders and offer them the card at the price before the snipe, but I received no answer. Possibly because they thought I shill bid? Possibly because by the end of my auction several other 2012 Chrome Harper autos had appeared and were going for about 70 bucks less. And, of course, Duke Jones hasn't paid.

So the question is: Why do people do this? Someone saw my auction, created a fake account (it was created the day my auction started) just for the sole purpose of running up my auction. I honestly cannot think of a reason why someone would do this. What did this person gain? I can't figure it out! Any help is appreciated!

Southsider

Could have been another seller who wanted to artificially inflate the selling price so that he could sell his own card afterwards for more money.
Could have been someone who wanted to mess with you, either intentionally or just because people are messed up.
Could have been a child who wanted the card, but didn't have the money, or thought it would be fun to win but not pay.

In the end, the world is filled with many strange and different people who think in ways we don't understand and have value systems that are skewed 180 degrees from what is considered normal in a typical society. These people's motives will largely remain unknowable.

Sethro

Agreed, Southsider. I will never know the real motive, but that's OK. It's over and there is nothing I can do about it. And me being PO'd isn't at this little nerd "Duke Jones" but at eBay, for allowing these kinds of things to happen so easily.

I guess my frustration is just not being able to figure out a reason for this to happen. It doesn't artificially inflate the price because then he'd have to run up all those other auctions. Maybe someone messing with me, but I am so awesome and kewl. Who would want to mess with me? And I didn't think about the kid scenario. Possibly?

I guess I should be more to the point: Is what happened to my auction a common occurrence?

JoeBanzai

Some people get off by playing games while hiding behind their keyboards.

Please let us know this persons ebay Id so we can block him!

WhiteTornado

<< <i>Could have been another seller who wanted to artificially inflate the selling price so that he could sell his own card afterwards for more money. >>



I'll offer a slight variation on this: seller with a similar card bids yours up with a fake account, knowing he will not pay. That takes yours off the market while he sells his. It may result in him getting more for his than he originally planned when others see what yours "sold" for. Just a theory, although perhaps a stretch.

Really sucks, I feel for you. I am an infrequent seller so I have no experience with this. I thought there was another thread recently where this happened to another seller but I don't exactly recall.

Edited to add: Here is a similar situation that happened to another member --> linky

Meatloaf

After a high rate of non-payments, I adjusted my ebay buyer requirements to protect me. Haven't seen a non-payment since I got rid of the low feedback, 2+ non-payment strike people (set mine for the last 6 months to really weed out the scammers). Recommend you do the same.

vladguerrero

I can remember the frontier days of Ebay this was very common. People would just open accounts as they were even easier to fake back then. Run up a competitors auction to set a new high price and bring all the bidding to your auction. I remember catching people because once you found the similar card you could look at the bid history of the shill account and the sellers were typically dumb enough to shill their own auctions with the same account as well.

You can always send a second chance offer to the two under bidders but you run the chance that they think you may have been the 0 feedback bidder running them up for this specific purpose.

Chargers49ersTigers

Its called "no life'.

PMKAY

<< <i>After a high rate of non-payments, I adjusted my ebay buyer requirements to protect me. Haven't seen a non-payment since I got rid of the low feedback, 2+ non-payment strike people (set mine for the last 6 months to really weed out the scammers). Recommend you do the same. >>




Where do you change these settings?

Sethro

It ended up being not so bad. The auction ended at $202 and the buyer paid right away. So I didn't "lose" as much as I thought I would originally. I am going to pay for insurance just in case. LOL.

The fake bidder is "jones-duke" for those who want to block him. I did, although I was a little concerned that another snipe with another zero feedback bidder was going to pop up. At that point I would have kept the card!

I do have my settings set to block as stringently as I can, but I think the bidder has to have a -1 feedback or something. That was the best I could do. Because I cannot block low feedback bidders, I wrote in the description of my auction "Bidders with zero feedback please do not bid" (as if that would stop someone) but eBay would not let me submit that description.

76collector

Hey man. I'm the other member this just happened to. Really annoying, because I can't see the justification. I'm certain now, it is definitely not someone trying to "mess" with us. It has to be a ploy to try to help their auctions, or piss other sellers of similar items off to the point where they quit selling on ebay, and thus lessen competition, I guess. I was selling a 1978 set. The user who did it to me was ed.engle. Zero feedback, account created two days before my auction closed. The same thing happened to me a few weeks ago, but I was a buyer. It was on a high end set of 1976 Topps. I REALLY questioned the seller, because he offered it to me 2nd chance, and my bid was 75 more than the bidder below me, discounting the zero feedback guy. I told he seller I wasn't willing to pay my "highest" bid amount because it looked too fishy. Anyway, he accepted my lower offer, and it was a great transaction. The set was as advertised, and I am 100% certain there was no foul play on his part, but another D Bag zero feedback user, screwing him. So, it looks like this thing is more becoming more and more common. I am with you, on not knowing how to block zero feedback users as well. The only option I see is to block -1 or worse feedback, and I don't even understand what the hell that means. SO, I'm blocking just the user id's that I have specified, nothing global. Also, I have started to add, that I will cancel any winning bid from someone with zero feedback. This was suggested by another member, but I have never cancelled a winning bid, and didn't even know it was possible.

mlbfan2

<< <i>I am with you, on not knowing how to block zero feedback users as well. The only option I see is to block -1 or worse feedback, and I don't even understand what the hell that means. >>



It means you're blocking every ID on ebay with feedback of -1 or worse from bidding on your items.

You can't block 0 feedback bidders from bidding.

Sethro

<< <i>Hey man. I'm the other member this just happened to. Really annoying, because I can't see the justification. I'm certain now, it is definitely not someone trying to "mess" with us. It has to be a ploy to try to help their auctions, or piss other sellers of similar items off to the point where they quit selling on ebay, and thus lessen competition, I guess. I was selling a 1978 set. The user who did it to me was ed.engle. Zero feedback, account created two days before my auction closed. The same thing happened to me a few weeks ago, but I was a buyer. It was on a high end set of 1976 Topps. I REALLY questioned the seller, because he offered it to me 2nd chance, and my bid was 75 more than the bidder below me, discounting the zero feedback guy. I told he seller I wasn't willing to pay my "highest" bid amount because it looked too fishy. Anyway, he accepted my lower offer, and it was a great transaction. The set was as advertised, and I am 100% certain there was no foul play on his part, but another D Bag zero feedback user, screwing him. So, it looks like this thing is more becoming more and more common. I am with you, on not knowing how to block zero feedback users as well. The only option I see is to block -1 or worse feedback, and I don't even understand what the hell that means. SO, I'm blocking just the user id's that I have specified, nothing global. Also, I have started to add, that I will cancel any winning bid from someone with zero feedback. This was suggested by another member, but I have never cancelled a winning bid, and didn't even know it was possible. >>




It's always great when someone else can feel your pain! LOL Seriously though, I am sorry this happened to you, too.

Could it really be a way to run other sellers off of eBay? Possibly. Like I mentioned before, if this had happened a second time I would not have tried to sell the card on eBay again. So your theory works, at least in my case.

olb31

a good way to stop this would be to have ebay require a credit card up front and bidder pay and/or at least have a case opened against them in order to get their money back. this would also help with shill bidders. ebay should have activity like this posted on that person account for full disclosure. i know this is a little drastic, but some thought should be put into penalizing this kind of activity.