eBay put up millions of fake auctions to artificially boost numbers

gamehunter · March 1, 2008 1:18PM

If anyone thinks the boycott and seller exodus didn't adversely affect eBay, read this gem of a thread:

http://forums.ebay.com/db2/thread.jspa?threadID=2000527568

rube26105 · March 1, 2008 1:22PM

is why i got this email from the yesterday,anybody else get it??

Price drop on eBay listing upgrades, 2 days only!

on auction-style and fixed price listings

- Good for Value Pack, Gallery Plus, Featured Plus! and Picture Pack listing upgrades

- Get people clicking and buying

- List a bunch, pocket the savings

2 days only · March 1-2

id say they must be feeling the squish or something from people

Karb · March 1, 2008 1:25PM

Yeah I got that too.

BTW Linky Dink

stevek · March 1, 2008 1:30PM

Not to proclaim any "urban legends" because I don't believe that would happen with ebay generating their own false auctions, but while surfing ebay last week, there was a 0 feedback seller who had over 48,000, yes 48,000 listings - I checked out a few and the writing was filled with errors, glitches, and the auctions didn't make much sense. I didn't give it much thought but now I think this may have been a protest listing just spamming up the ebay site with no intentions of getting any bids.

I'm not any expert on turbo listing techniques done on ebay, but perhaps it wouldn't take that long for someone to punch in some info on a computer, such as maybe some past ebay auctions, let the computer randomly generate more ebay auction numbers and copy auctions, and duplicate over 48,000 auctions.....but I really don't know.

samsgirl214 · March 1, 2008 1:40PM

I'm in the process of moving my hundred thousand cards back to naxcom

Leiascards · March 1, 2008 1:43PM

Well I can put about 50,000 listings into TL in about 10 minutes. Once I get one written just copy it 500 times then make 500 more copies so on and so on.

The truth of the matter is more than likely the "boycott" did not work like some thought it would and now they are crying about it. I had one of my best weeks last week in a long time. Thanks for the boycott.

stevek · March 1, 2008 1:44PM

<< Not to proclaim any "urban legends" because I don't believe that would happen with ebay generating their own false auctions, but while surfing ebay last week, there was a 0 feedback seller who had over 48,000, yes 48,000 listings - I checked out a few and the writing was filled with errors, glitches, and the auctions didn't make much sense. I didn't give it much thought but now I think this may have been a protest listing just spamming up the ebay site with no intentions of getting any bids.

I'm not any expert on turbo listing techniques done on ebay, but perhaps it wouldn't take that long for someone to punch in some info on a computer, such as maybe some past ebay auctions, let the computer randomly generate more ebay auction numbers and copy auctions, and duplicate over 48,000 auctions.....but I really don't know. >>

I just checked - all 48,000 auctions...gone with the wind. LOL

MooseDog · March 1, 2008 1:46PM

I didn't post anything new during the "boycott" but kept my Store Listings going and like stevek said, I too had one of my best sales weeks in months.

stevek · March 1, 2008 1:46PM

<< Well I can put about 50,000 listings into TL in about 10 minutes. Once I get one written just copy it 500 times then make 500 more copies so on and so on.

The truth of the matter is more than likely the "boycott" did not work like some thought it would and now they are crying about it. I had one of my best weeks last week in a long time. Thanks for the boycott. >>

Frankly - So did I - it was a terrific week of sales for me. My feeling is if someone doesn't like ebay, then stay off of it permanently...a week boycott isn't going to do you any good, but just have your potential customers buy from someone else.

SDavid · March 1, 2008 1:56PM

40,000 listings wouldn't be difficult. Paying the listing fees might be problematic, though, unless it was a hijacked account. I'm pretty sure you have to register a credit card or a checking account (can't remember the specifics) to sell on ebay.

Leiascards · March 1, 2008 1:59PM

Actually if you link your Paypal account you don't have to have either in order to sell or get ID verified

SDavid · March 1, 2008 2:06PM

Either way, they have a means to collect. Ebay/paypal also have a collection agency they use for people who default on charges related to chargebacks, fees, etc.

elsnorto · March 1, 2008 2:07PM

<< Frankly - So did I - it was a terrific week of sales for me. My feeling is if someone doesn't like ebay, then stay off of it permanently...a week boycott isn't going to do you any good, but just have your potential customers buy from someone else. >>

Bravo! I understand most people's frustration with the perpetual changes at eBay and, often times, share in them. But the sense of entitlement some seller in particularly have with regards to eBay is ridiculous to me.

Snorto~

MeteoriteGuy · March 1, 2008 2:26PM

I have done good the last couple weeks, but to be honest I should have.

Things die quite a bit after Christmas and we are usually in a lull into tax time, after tax time things will get in another lull, better then the after Christmas lull, into Christmas season again. Of course what you sell makes a difference in your "season" but having played in about all collectibles the above seems pretty true.

Clear Skies,
Mark

SDavid · March 1, 2008 2:26PM

The party line is that a technical glitch caused shopping.com listings to show up on ebay. Interesting timing!

rube26105 · March 1, 2008 3:03PM

Frankly - So did I - it was a terrific week of sales for me

me too

kingraider75 · March 1, 2008 3:32PM

I just list when I can. No real method to my madness. It probably costs me a few dollars in the long run, but with all the snipe thingees not so sure anymore.

Blackborder · March 1, 2008 11:47PM

The thread is gone.

Leiascards · March 2, 2008 1:08AM

I bet the OP is as well..

storm888 · March 2, 2008 3:38AM

"The thread is gone. "

//////////////////////////////////////////////

MOST poofed threads from the EBAY boards can be retrieved at

boardreader.com

christopherking · March 2, 2008 9:06AM

Looks like the crap is about to hit the fan! eBay deleted that thread, but there are others springing up. Here is one on the central seller board:

http://forums.ebay.com/db2/thread.jspa?threadID=2000527614&tstart=0&mod=1204489951151

and another news story on Auction Bytes:

http://blog.auctionbytes.com/cgi-bin/blog/blog.pl?/comments/2008/3/1204379814.html

Fox News, CNN and The Wall Street Journal will be running stories about it
Monday morning and the SEC has been notified also. Wouldn't be surprised to
see a class action suit against them. This is basically fraud since they
are a publicly traded company. Purposely reporting false numbers has severe
penalties.
Our listings were buried under a pile of fake listings that ebay put there.
This made it harder for people to find our listings and resulted in a drop
in sales for us. They took money from us so we could list our items and then
they buried them with phony listings that competed against us. Bad-faith
dealings.

Here is one of many live recorded screenshots on YouTube of the fraud. They
listed millions of fake auctions with NARUd user IDs and zero feedback user
Ids.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mePI-UWDGOE

Ummm....something ain't quite right on eBay. Check out this seller - has
been on ebay 10 years with a feedback rating of only 558 - but he currently
has 90,721 items listed! Something smells funny and it's not my sneakers.
The seller's 1-800 number belongs to an airline! Wonder how many other
"sellers" have 100,000 items listed?

http://search.ebay.com/_W0QQsassZcollect2000

Here is a zero feedbacker with 10,000 listings. None of them had any bids:

http://cgi6.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?MfcISAPICommand=ViewListedItems&since=30&userid=sdc_prod_9074_35&include=0&rows=50&sort=3&completed=1

New boycott scheduled for May 1 to coincide with the new improved feedback
policy. I wonder if Ebay will list a bunch of bogus auctions again?

http://seekingalpha.com/article/66733-ebay-bares-its-ugly-new-face

storm888 · March 2, 2008 9:10AM

Once an EBAY thread has been crawled, it can usually be found at

www.boardreader.com

EVEN after it has been poofed.

swartz1 · March 2, 2008 9:29AM

What were the bogus auctions selling? How can you have an auction with no product - Tell me what I am missing here...

calaban7 · March 2, 2008 9:51AM

go to You Tube.com-- list Ebay in the search and the 1st video that pops up is an eye opener.

Leiascards · March 2, 2008 12:04PM

Really and truthfully who cares its their site that can do what they want. You eiter play by their rules or you leave its that simple.

What it boils down to is that some sellers are upset because not every seller participated in the boycott and those who did list had better than average sales. Mine were up over 500.00 last week. I got three emails from sellers calling me a scab and everything else accusing me of being an Ebay employee etc..

I would guess the more than likely culprit are sellers who were mad at those who continued to list so they created dummy accounts and listed thousands of auctions with no intent of ever paying. Once I have a template set up I can multiply it by 50000 in about 10 minutes and about an hour load time. Get a hundred "sellers" doing that guess what you got the scabs buried in lots of different categories.

storm888 · March 2, 2008 12:25PM

"Get a hundred "sellers" doing that guess what you got the scabs buried in lots of different categories. "

///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

BUT, that would not demonstrate that the boycott reduced
the number of listings.

The WSJ is doing another story on the whole thing, this week.

Leiascards · March 2, 2008 12:53PM

It would though be an effort to punish the sellers who did not participate in the boycott by burying their listings under tons of junk..

wolfbear · March 2, 2008 1:06PM

Any publicity is good publicity.
Sounds like a heck of a time to start putting up a bunch of auctions on eBay.

Hope all those boycotters
with all their .99 sales of junk with a 5.99 shipping fee just end up going away forever.

stevek · March 2, 2008 2:57PM

<<>>

I agree that is what happened. They just listed the auctions under their pet dog's account and doghouse address so they wouldn't possibly get barred from ebay.

70chip · March 2, 2008 4:36PM

<< Really and truthfully who cares its their site that can do what they want. You eiter play by their rules or you leave its that simple. - NOT GOING TO QUOTE THE REST OF YOUR POST BECAUSE OF SPACE AND YOUR MESSAGE IS CLEAR >>

I guess I would feel the same way if ebay wasn't a NASDAQ traded stock at $26.36 per share. If they were a private entity then who cares, inflate the numbers like a boob job for all I care. But at $26+ per share and a huge mover on the NASDAQ boards..............ummmmmm, I smell Enron, get the drift?

SDavid · March 3, 2008 12:03AM

If this was caused by ebay sellers, they would have said so.

Straight from their system announcements page:

March 02, 2008 | 02:32PM PST/PT

Some Shopping.com listings appeared accidentally on eBay.com over the
past two days. This system issue has been resolved. We apologize for
any confusion or inconvenience this may have caused.

eBay put up millions of fake auctions to artificially boost numbers

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