eBay bucks gambit

slum22 · March 29, 2014 5:08PM

In normal cases, I think I agree with most on the board that shill bidding is on the wrong side of the morality spectrum. That said, I put in my first shill bid on an item yesterday and I couldn't be happier with the result. Yesterday, I woke up with an email telling me I would get quadruple eBay bucks for any item won over $150 for the day. I had been watching an item all week that was sitting at its minimum bid of $149.99 all week. I had planned on trying to win that card for as little as possible but in this case it would actually benefit me to get this card over $150 as I would go from getting $3 in eBay bucks back to over $12 if I could get the card past $150. There were no other bidders on the card so I decided to create a new eBay account and bid against myself if necessary. I set an auto snipe with my regular account for $170, in case a legitimate bidder did come out of the woodworks, and a few minutes before the auction was supposed to end I placed a bid of $149.99 on the card using my new shill account. The snipe went off as planned and I won the card for $152.49. The seller made a couple extra bucks and so did I (eBay bucks at least). So I think this is a case where everyone won. Even eBay gets to report a $2.50 greater top line revenue in their next quarterly report. I guess eBay loses some on the bottom line but I don't think too many on here are crying for them.

WhiteTornado · March 29, 2014 9:27PM

Even though it was just "you versus you" in the bidding, I still think it's a bit cheesy. Just my two cents and others may have different views on it.

jay0791 · March 29, 2014 9:33PM

That's not really shill bidding.

It wasn't a card you had a vested interest in.

I have 2 ebay accounts and a few times had placed snipe bides from both accounts by accident....won the card and paid

a decent sum over what I would have won it at...if took out my idiot factor and last bid other than me.

stormtrooper80 · March 29, 2014 9:47PM

Some consignors bid on their own cards by mistake........at least that's what they say

Dusto · March 29, 2014 11:28PM

Wow, for a whole $9. Sorry, but I find this to be incredibly lame and dishonest for such a meager sum. I was actually in a similar position last month and asked the seller if he could change his $145 auction to a bin for $150 and he agreed. Why not go that route and level with the seller?

CollectorAtWork · March 30, 2014 12:21AM

I'd do the same thing as the OP. Not really shill bidding. More like trying to execute a straight bid rather than a max bid.

slum22 · March 30, 2014 12:39AM

Dusto--It seems like you are implying I have injured the seller in some way. I don't see this as the case. He set his minimum bid required for the auction and I met and exceeded it. If you want to make the case that I injured eBay then I think a valid argument could be made there.

Dusto · March 30, 2014 1:58AM

No, not meant to imply that at all. Just seems like setting up an additional account to fake bid from in order to take advantage of $9 in ebay bucks is something that seems a little strange to me. Believe me, there's no love lost from ebay being on the wrong end of this deal.

slum22 · March 30, 2014 2:09AM

Dusto--It is actually scary how fast and easy it was to set up an account. Probably less than one minute in total. It took me longer to set up the snipe than it did to create the new account.

psychump · March 30, 2014 2:21AM

No need for all that. Just bid once on the minimum then bid again. You will have two bids on on top of another. Then have somebody bid the new minimum and your second bid will be accepted. When I see the top bids on an item are from the same bidder, I always throw in a "new"minimum bid to up the amount as I become the second highest bidder in between the one who bid twice! I see this all the time! Why outbid yourself?

grote15 · March 30, 2014 2:33AM

<< No need for all that. Just bid once on the minimum then bid again. You will have two bids on on top of another. Then have somebody bid the new minimum and your second bid will be accepted. When I see the top bids on an item are from the same bidder, I always throw in a "new"minimum bid to up the amount as I become the second highest bidder in between the one who bid twice! I see this all the time! Why outbid yourself? >>

Where is he going to find this somebody to put in another bid for him if he was the only bidder in the auction to begin with?

DoctorK · March 30, 2014 2:36AM

<< Wow, for a whole $9. Sorry, but I find this to be incredibly lame and dishonest for such a meager sum. I was actually in a similar position last month and asked the seller if he could change his $145 auction to a bin for $150 and he agreed. Why not go that route and level with the seller? >>

Is there a certain $$$ amount that does not make this lame and dishonest?

mlbfan2 · March 30, 2014 2:43AM

<< When I see the top bids on an item are from the same bidder, I always throw in a "new"minimum bid to up the amount as I become the second highest bidder in between the one who bid twice! I see this all the time! Why outbid yourself? >>

What's your motive for becoming the 2nd highest bidder? Just trying to make someone else pay more?

psychump · March 30, 2014 3:09AM

<< 

<< When I see the top bids on an item are from the same bidder, I always throw in a "new"minimum bid to up the amount as I become the second highest bidder in between the one who bid twice! I see this all the time! Why outbid yourself? >>

What's your motive for becoming the 2nd highest bidder? Just trying to make someone else pay more? >>

Usually fellow eBayers I know will ask me or others to bid if they see this and I occasionally do. If you double bid you pay for it!
If it is an item I am interested in, of course I will.

Dusto · March 30, 2014 3:33AM

Is there a certain $$$ amount that does not make this lame and dishonest?

No, since we are only talking about $0.01 being the difference in an extra 9 ebay bucks and anything over the $150 start would automatically qualify for quad bucks so it would be a moot point. Dishonest was a poor choice of words by me.

LarkinCollector · March 31, 2014 12:49AM

<< I was actually in a similar position last month and asked the seller if he could change his $145 auction to a bin for $150 and he agreed. Why not go that route and level with the seller? >>

+1, I did that for one of the recent 10%'ers. BIN of $199.99, asked the seller to raise it to $200 and got $20 bucks back instead of $4.

Steelernation · March 31, 2014 1:18AM

I took a toyota for a test drive this weekend, they forgot to copy my I.D. beforehand, so I just drove it home and am keeping it. Heck they netted over 5 billion dollars last quarter so what's a $40k loss?

Of course I'm being facetious. And actually agree if the OP is saying eBay charges way too much in various fees for what u get in customer service etc. Changing their eBay bucks rules etc. I'm hesitant to list some items because after their outrageously high fees it's sometimes not worth my time. So 9 bucks..eh.

But just for discussion sake, where's the line? Not $9. If they erroneously refund your payal account $300? If they mistakenly send you a rebate check for $30,000?

Just being devils advocate to stimulate discussion/opinions. Thoughts?

eBay bucks gambit

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