ebay shill bids

[loxley11]

Hi guys,

 

With the new format on ebay, how can you tell if a bidder is a shill or not? You can't see locations or bid histories anymore. I know we all hate it, but please don't flame me for using ebay.

 

thanks,

drew

[orangefunk]

yep its open to abuse now... my advice is if you want something just bid what you can afford anyway...

[Metrosonus]

I noticed that, alot of feedbacks and bid histories are private now.. what's up with that?

[Diametro]

Seems like an excellent time to not start using Ebay ... !!!

[MartinHines]

You really can't tell, since bidders identities are protected (which protects bidders from bogus offers).

 

As others have mentioned, I would suggest only bidding what you think the item is worth.

[zoink]

Now that they've made buyer information inaccessible, Ebay is turning into more of a bluffing match between seller and buyer than a real auction. It's pretty clear that they did this to help both themselves and sellers make more money, since they've already raised listing fees. In other words, it's already clear that sellers can artificially inflate the bidding on their own auctions, but ebay is giving this power to sellers in return for screwing them on listing fees. Sort of an implicit collusion.

 

I think we're going to be seeing a lot more direct sale "buy it now" auctions on ebay as (1) the market adjusts to the realization that there are few good deals to be had anymore and (2) the inevitable erosion of buyer confidence in the legitimacy of so-called "competitive" ebay auctions.

 

Somebody needs to remind Ebay of what the word "auction" means and implies. Any other "auction house" acting in such bad faith would be out of business in a week.

[Gribs]

I agree with the other guys. I just decide what I am willing to pay, wait about 2 minutes before the auction is over, then bid what I am willing to pay and nothing more. In most cases I lose the auction, but sometimes I win. I like to contact the seller a couple of days before the auction is over with questions and gauge my decision to bid on their response(s).

[gdh]

I have been buying through craigslist the past year or so and have had no issues, always been able to go see the gear first. The fees and other bs as has been pointed out above have left me wary in dealing with eBay.

[loxley11]

Yeah, i'll probably just bid what i'm willing to pay. Only problem is, every day there are more idiots willing to pay $5000k for a jupiter 8 or $1100 for an ax-7.

 

We need to round up all of these people and beat them with clubs. It's the only way! Whatever happened to the current economic hardship? Professional musicians ought to be starving in the streets, not expanding their gear arsenal at twice the price!!!

 

Ah, excellent! A recent perusal informs me that the bidding is already to twice what the item is actually worth. Right on schedule!

 

Somehow, somewhere, this is all ebay's fault

[xmlguy]

Shill bidding is but one symptom of a larger problem: the failure to qualify and financially encumber bidders in advance. Why not overbid when you have no intention to actually buy? There are many bidders who don't intend to buy. There are probably more scammers out there than real bidders. That's bad for both buyers and sellers, but why would the auction house care one bit if no one holds them accountable for creating a system ripe for such abuse?

 

In a real cash auction, at least you can put an item back on the block right away for rebid if they buyer doesn't come up with immediate payment. On ebay, you're looking at weeks/months of rebidding since ebay has created a system with no real accountibility _within the system_ for bidders and sellers.

[bruto]

Also, when items stall, a seller will run up your bid to just below the max. They don't know what you bid but can enter small amounts until the next "enter bid of" amount is less than the bid increment. Of course, they use their friend's eBay ID for this. Pawn shops have cottoned on to this, so watch your max bid. Don't try to bluff with a big pot like in poker.

[stikygum]

I always stick to my guns. I won't bid unless I can look at history and nothing is private. All the rest is BS period

[MartinHines]

 

There are probably more scammers out there than real bidders.

 

While I certainly think eBay and PayPal should devote more resources toward fraud investigation, the vast majority of transactions go smoothly.

[zoink]

 

Actually eBay lowered listing fees, then raised the Final Price fees to counterbalance them. At least for me, the net result of total fees is the same.

 

 

I was actually referring to the previous price hike. Although, increased final price fees work to ebay's advantage all the more in the presence of shill bidding.

 

Regardless, the result is that ebay continues making more money while (1) somehow managing to increase the level of disinformation a buyer is faced with in deciding whether to bid or not, and (2) disavowing their own role and responsibility in the process. On the latter, whenever questioned on the way they handle scammers (who in large part operate thanks to evident flaws in policy), ebay tends to simply say it's not their problem.

 

But that's okay. As soft as consumer spending is right now, and with Craigslist growing all the time (with the associated advantages - local sale, no commissions, no shipping, less risk of being scammed, etc.), ebay will be forced to adjust as the lower population of buyers reduces the population of sellers. Rather Malthusian.

[Purity_Control]

also, ebay fails to penalise people for being dishonest, and penalises those who are.

 

if you buy a synth that the seller says works perfectly and it comes through completely f*cked, they make you jump through a bunch of hoops to get proof of this, then the absolute best cast scenario is that you get your money back minus shipping costs to you and shipping costs back to the seller, and the seller gets their gear back.

 

So you're out of pocket on two lots of shipping, and he's right back where he started to do it all again:confused:

[russ1974]

Bid 10 seconds before the end of the auction. ANYONE who bids earlier than this (shillers or genuine buyers) are _ALL_ pushing the price up !!

[Khazul]

Im in the camp that subscribes to the view that whenever you get scammed or lied to on ebay, then you should have the devine right to go round to pay them a visit with a bunch of thugs armed with baseball bats with 6" nails hammered through them and to not let up until the scammer is a puddle on the floor - optionally still alive to learn from their mistake.

[ShakaCthulu]

"GRIEVANCES

 

1. Feedback Changes

A. Sellers will no longer be allowed to leave negative feedback

B. Feedback older than 12 months will no longer be applied towards your

feedback percentage.

C. Neutral Feedback will now be considered as negative to determine buyer

dissatisfaction rate and seller account restrictions

 

2. DSR'S (Detailed Seller Ratings)

A. Ebay allows buyers to think that a 4.0 (on a scale of 1-5) denotes good

business practices by the seller in regards to item as described, communication, shipping time and shipping and handling charges while sellers are subjected to penalties.

B. DSR's are rated on a curve and due to this; even a rating of a 4.8 can be the median in a given rating category.

C. DSR'S will now be intertwined with "Best Match" search positioning

D. Ebay is unjustly red-flagging "good" sellers as well as "bad" sellers by stating sellers with a 4.5 rating (On a scale of 1-5) now have a "low" rating, thereby implying they are in the category of "bad sellers".

E. "Bad" Sellers will be kept because of their monetary value.

 

3. 21 Day Paypal Hold For Risky Sellers And Risky Categories

A. Sellers whose total feedback score is not more than 100 will have payments held for up to 21 days.

B. Risky category sellers will be subjected to a 21 day hold, even well established sellers.

C. Sellers with 5% or greater negatives in a 30 day period will be subject to the 21 day hold regardless of the circumstances.

 

4. Unreasonable Fee Increases

A. Promoted to the Ebay community as decreases, only the insertion fees were decreased. Insertion fees decreased by $.05 with the gallery picture given free ($.35 savings) yet FVF (final value fees) raised by as much as 66%

B. Reserve fees increased from $1.00 to $2.00 and will no longer be refunded if the item does not sell.

C. Store FVF's (final value fees) increased to 12% above and beyond monthly and listing fees.

 

5. Miscellaneous

A. The universal anonymous bidder policy promotes additional

unsafe buyer practices and has led to buyers losing trust in the system.

B. The majority of Power Sellers will not qualify for newly stated discounts

C The note "This item is not covered by buyer protection on Ebay," which is

placed in two areas of the listings of sellers who do not offer PayPal, causes

harm to the good sellers' reputations and intimidates buyers.

D. Ebay sellers are red-flagged on their listing page as having slow shipping

if their rating is 4.2 and below.

E. When sellers are red-flagged, Ebay also lists other sellers' items on said sellers' listings."

 

- http://fairshake.freeforums.org/portal.php

[loxley11]

Case in point:

 

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ssPageName=STRK:MEBTOX:IT&item=260224732789&_trksid=p3984.cTODAY.m238.lVI

 

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!!!!!

 

and i was pissed when it was $350 (these things usually go for less than $200)

[Newtype]

I reduced my bidding on ebay drastically because of the Shill network. In a previous post I talked about my Cisco router story. It confirmed to me that shilling is alive and very well on ebay. Another thing that tipped me off is the amount of people with 300 positive feedbacks buying music gear over and over again. So much for starving musicians. If I do use ebay I wait until the last 10 seconds to bid, I never visit the product page more then once, I absolutely never ever ad an item to my watching queue since this is available to sellers and of course I never bid on anything with a bidder with over say 50 positive feedbacks.

The sad thing is that there are still many people out there feeding the broken system not questioning human nature and thinking everything is working perfectly normal since Ebay is a perfect institution. They either have to much money and or to little sense. I myself try to buy off of craigslist as often as possible.

[minime123]

blocking bidder IDs is eBay's way of preventing people from detecting all the shill bidding thats going on there. it wasn't to prevent scammers from contacting honest ebayers as they've made it nearly impossible to communicate with people you're not involved in a transaction with.

 

its in ebays best interest for their sellers to sell for higher prices as they earn a higher commission. the media really needs to expose ebay and paypals shadiness because its been allowed to go on for too long.

[bruto]

 

I absolutely never ever ad an item to my watching queue since this is available to sellers...

 

 

Sellers have no way of knowing who's watching the auction, just how many people have placed that item on their watch list.

 

As for eBay itself, you have to realize how quickly it became a business phenomenon. Many cities, states, and countries now want to regulated it, tax it, or restrict sales of certain items that violate regional selling rights. (I'm not talking about porn or firearms, but businesses that have exclusive product rights for a given area.)

 

eBay changed the rules on PowerSellers because they were forced to. Many governing districts consider PowerSellers as small businesses. eBay has to provide financial information on sellers over a certain volume to municipalities that request it.

 

Shill bidding can happen whether the bidders ID is hidden or not. It's just a matter of running up a bid.

[minime123]

"Sellers have no way of knowing who's watching the auction, just how many people have placed that item on their watch list. "

 

you can also add a counter so you know how many hits the page has received.

 

 

"As for eBay itself, you have to realize how quickly it became a business phenomenon. Many cities, states, and countries now want to regulated it, tax it, or restrict sales of certain items that violate regional selling rights. (I'm not talking about porn or firearms, but businesses that have exclusive product rights for a given area.) eBay changed the rules on PowerSellers because they were forced to. Many governing districts consider PowerSellers as small businesses. eBay has to provide financial information on sellers over a certain volume to municipalities that request it. "

 

well, i can understand this. ebay has encouraged people to beg, steal and dumpster dive to make their entire living off selling on ebay. why should full time ebayers not be responsibility for paying taxes like any other business?

 

"Shill bidding can happen whether the bidders ID is hidden or not. It's just a matter of running up a bid."

 

this is true, however, it was easy to spot shill bidders if you knew what to look for. now theyve made it really hard. even back when it was easy, ebay didnt care. i gave them solid proof about shilling that was going on and they did absolutely nothing.

[zoink]

 

it was easy to spot shill bidders if you knew what to look for. now theyve made it really hard. even back when it was easy, ebay didnt care. i gave them solid proof about shilling that was going on and they did absolutely nothing.

 

 

 

This more or less underlines a fundamental problem with Ebay, in how they selectively define their role. Up to now they've managed to evade important legal questions about the extent of their involvement and liability in the auctions they host. It's a hazy region, and they know it. They don't care if there is obvious shilling going on as long as they're making money. Their way around it is to create an environment that indirectly facilitates and encourages certain behaviors, while they shrug their shoulders and publicly disavow the behavior.

 

It's disingenuous, but they get away with it.

 

I'm always amazed at the ludicrous {censored} people will say with a straight face when a lot of money is at stake.

 

Meanwhile, the legal system is always slow to adjust. One could write a history of American political economy based on the game of catch-up government has had to play with big business in just this way. As the jury is still out on the many legal questions pertaining to internet commerce, Ebay will in the meantime ride it for every dollar they can get their hands on.

[mytee2.0]

its in ebays best interest for their sellers to sell for higher prices as they earn a higher commission. the media really needs to expose ebay and paypals shadiness because its been allowed to go on for too long.

 

or you could just stop using it?