Scam bidders question....
JohnnyD
Posts: 521 ✭✭
I have been hearing about people who have two ebay accounts bidding on their own items to raise the auction total. Just a couple questions......to sign up for an account you have to give name, address, phone numbers, etc....will ebay even allow you to open two accounts with the same personal info? If you bid on your own item with a second ebay account, does ebay know where the bid is coming from and know it is illegal, or does it have to be reported to them before they investigate? I have reported a few auctions that I thought were suspicious but never received a response. I lost an item last week that bid too high for me, suspiciously the seller and one of the high bidders were from the same small city. Guess it could have been a coincidence.....Thanks! John
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As for bidding on your own auctions, it is not allowed. Ebay does not monitor it to the best of my knowledge. They require users to report it in.
Hope this helps
I don't usually care what I get for stuff, I'd rather make sure it's gone than try to squeeze every dollar out of a buyer. By the time it's on ebay I don't want it any more.
As far as contact info goes you can create IDs on Ebay and put any contact info you want Ebay does not reguraly verify this information.
If you lost the item you were not shilled, it was either just a coincidence or you got lucky and met a dumb attempt at a shill.
<< <i>I like the idea of having two accounts for buying and selling...I have 718/100% positive right now but there have been times that I was tempted to throw a negative at a seller that I did not because of the retaliation. >>
I think this is brilliant. I'm gonna go create a "buying" account right now. I've always been pissed when possible retaliation has prevented me from leaving justified negative feedback.
Thanks FavreFan.
? If you do that you could get shilled. Did you mean to do that with 3 seconds left?
If what you say is done early a shill could run you up.
Steve
<< <i> The best way to keep from getting hurt by a shill is research and bidding only once and bidding the max you are willing to pay.
? If you do that you could get shilled. Did you mean to do that with 3 seconds left?
If what you say is done early a shill could run you up.
Steve >>
I ONLY snipe with my max bid, I do not even bothering bidding anymore.
I also have a buying and selling accounts, my only negs are from a seller on my selling account
<< <i> ONLY snipe with my max bid, I do not even bothering bidding anymore. >>
That is the only way to go on ebay.
<< <i>I have been hearing about people who have two ebay accounts bidding on their own items to raise the auction total. Just a couple questions......to sign up for an account you have to give name, address, phone numbers, etc....will ebay even allow you to open two accounts with the same personal info? If you bid on your own item with a second ebay account, does ebay know where the bid is coming from and know it is illegal, or does it have to be reported to them before they investigate? I have reported a few auctions that I thought were suspicious but never received a response. I lost an item last week that bid too high for me, suspiciously the seller and one of the high bidders were from the same small city. Guess it could have been a coincidence.....Thanks! John >>
You can register multiple accounts on eBay. Some giant powersellers have been forced to do this because the "my eBay" software and misterlister can't handle such huge loads. Other sellers do it to seperate the items they sell with appropriate IDs, and buyers do it to keep their buying and selling activity seperate. Message board trolls do it so they can talk nonsense on the boards and go about their normal selling and buying unimpeded. I guess there's lots of reasons to have more than one account on eBay.
Back when shill bidding was allowed on eBay (in fact it was encouraged as a way to set a reserve before eBay had the reserve feature), people did this openly and blatantly. They made no attempt to hide it and used two accounts registered to the same name and address. When eBay banned shill bidding (a course of action brought about by the pre-existing federal law criminalizing it) stupid shillers would continue to engage in the activity with accounts registered to the same name and address, and they were easy to spot because ANYONE could pull contact information on ebay on anyone else without having a transaction together. Now, they've gotten smarter. Along with the numerous steps eBay has taken to make it nearly impossible to investigate shilling on the site, experienced scammers register accounts with bogus contact information to avoid being detected by any automated "shill detecting" software eBay claims to have.
eBay won't investigate or take action unless a user reports a violation. While it's impossible for us to determine users are shill bidding with any degree of accuracy anymore, if you suspect it you can report it to eBay and they can access information about the users that we cannot (IP addresses, registration information, etc). Whether or not they take action is a crap shoot. The official policy is that they want to rid the site of shill bidding, but in practice they seem lax in enforcing it.