What do you do when you find a bad seller on Ebay
Kirk222
Posts: 477 ✭✭✭✭
I've been on the bay for many years. I sell and buy. I have turned in many sellers for various violations. But my pet peeve is a seller who uses shill bidders. I know of a dozen or so, in various categories, that do this. I report them, but nothing happens. Once I called Ebay and a rep told me that there wasn't really anything they could do. He told me that I had to take up with local authorities in the area where the seller resides. What a croc of ****. What do you guys do?
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Basically ignore it. The bottom line is I bid what I want to pay and don't really care how the underbidding plays out.
My biggest issue is with "buyers" who outbid me and then retract their bid, now knowing my max bid. I check their retraction history and inform ebay. It is not an accident, it is a strategy....
There are so many bad ones now that I just do not bother anymore. Well, sometimes I do go to ebay looking for a special item (not coins) such as a tool or part for something....That is uncommon though. I used to love ebay, back in the early years... was really great then....Not anymore. Cheers, RickO
Simply put stay away from them.
I’ve been on eBay for a long time so I should know... how can you tell if there are shill bidders? The user names are censored.
BHNC #248 … 130 and counting.
In person auctions are shilled, big auctions firms were nailed for collusion, substandard items are gussied up and passed off as great in coin shops routinely, the selling grade of a coin is 8 points higher than the buying grade of a coin, mint marks added or removed, whizzing, chemically coloring, on and on and on.
On ebay, there are over 2.4 million listings just in the coin section that have the word "coin" in them. If you looked at each one for 10 seconds, it would take over 7 years.
So ignore the bad ones, find the good ones, go play with a dog, give a $10 Starbucks gift card to a bagger having to work extra hours in a grocery store wearing a mask, plant a tree that you will never enjoy being shaded while sitting under.
If partaking in something makes you angry, upset, frustrated, irritated, then give it up and find something that is fun.
Shills are as old as auctions.
Mostly my solution has been to stay off eBay. When I need to shop there, I usually avoid sellers I don't already know or can't independently verify as upstanding businesses.
Only look at Buy It Now auctions with a "Fair" price, not going over my set price for buying, seems to be several Honest dealers out there.
You have found out what others already know: ebay 'auctions' are not auctions in a real, honest sense.
The ONLY time you bid on an item in their 'auction' format is at the last moment/snipe. Never bid early.
then retract your bid as well.
I was once outbid, informed I was no longer the high bidder so I purchased elsewhere. Outbidder backed out causing me to win auction. I called ebay, told them the story and informed them that once they told me I was outbid, I was no longer in the running. Rep agreed with me.
Gold has a world price entirely unaffected by accounting games between the Treasury and the Fed. - Jim Rickards
In general, I follow the sniping practice (as evidenced by my photo). However, there are times in which an auction ends in the middle of my night or when I am otherwise unavailable (on an airplane) so I have no choice but to bid early.
Just avoid them and move on.
There are plenty of snipe programs out there that one can avail oneself of, if necessary. From reading this thread, you'd get the impression that virtually all Ebay auctions are shady. Total nonsense!
For a long time the user names were censored but they traveled with the bidder, i.e. Billy Bob Johnson always showed up a gk7xpp in the Bids list on any auction in which he participated. If you know the players in a collecting/topical area, over time you can figure out the individual names. This can help determine potential shills --or determine other collectors with similar interests -- even without knowing their true names.
A while back a paranoid eBay customer of mine emailed me a list of 30 or so exonumia collectors and their eBay censored names (they checked out against my eBay sales to them). My customer was certain that there were always ongoing bidding conspiracies against him. I believe that the Real Name = Censored Name constant is still in place.
I can't stand shill bidders, they're crooks. They often get away with ripping people off. It angers me just thinking about them, and I wish I could reach out to an African tribe and get them to do a curse dance and put a curse on all shill bidders!!
It seems short sighted to say you bid what you feel an item is worth, so shill bidders do not effect you. If the price of an item is pushed up beyond what it would have been without shilling, you lose money.
Ignore. There are so many...
Simply think of a shill bid as a hidden reserve and you'll see that it all boils down to whether the price you are willing to pay is:
The only possible annoyance is that what you thought was a true, no reserve auction is, in fact, not. Ultimately, so what? In the end, you either win or you don't. As stated earlier in the thread, sniping is the only sensible way to bid on eBay auctions.
It shows Up as a 5 letter name with a letter on each side of three asterisks: b***h.
I have to look a little harder to see if those follow certain sellers. Would still show evidence of shill activity if they’re the same.
BHNC #248 … 130 and counting.