Does This Look Like an Ebay Shill?

[TheShadowKnows]

I'm now confused. Are you saying that you are the seller and are concerned that someone is shilling your book?

 

Who has the motivation to shill a book except the owner/seller/consignor? If you are the seller, and you aren't shilling, who else would be?

 

 

 

No, I was concerned about the appearance, that it may look like a shill, even though I know it isn't.

 

 

I've had that happen to me before as well. It almost makes you feel guilty that it looks like you're running a game, even though you aren't. Who knows what lurks in peoples minds?

The Shadow?

[TheShadowKnows]

I'm now confused. Are you saying that you are the seller and are concerned that someone is shilling your book?

 

Who has the motivation to shill a book except the owner/seller/consignor? If you are the seller, and you aren't shilling, who else would be?

 

 

 

No, I was concerned about the appearance, that it may look like a shill, even though I know it isn't.

I think it all goes under people are strange.A customer of mine was watching 3 issues of Wu Fang.They were going for a good price.Around 700 if I remember right.These pulps are valued in the 3-6 hundred range.These is the higher range as they were nice.Instead of using a sniping service he bids until hes the high bidder.This gives the first bidder time to rebid and win the items.

He could have won them at around 1k but lost them at 1250.

[PovertyRow]

It is happening again - just put a couple of items up on ebay and on this one we have (I repleaced the name with bidder 1, bidder 2 etc). These things still make me feel somehow "dirty". If this Bidder 1 person keeps it up I am seriously thinking of blocking them, if I can.

 

bidder4 US $212.50 Mar-23-10 15:56:44 PDT

bidder 3 US $210.00 Mar-23-10 19:16:12 PDT

bidder 1 US $205.00 Mar-23-10 18:12:35 PDT

bidder 1 US $200.00 Mar-23-10 18:12:05 PDT

bidder 2 US $189.99 Mar-23-10 18:01:45 PDT

bidder 1 US $150.00 Mar-23-10 17:26:23 PDT

bidder 1 US $100.00 Mar-23-10 17:26:06 PDT

bidder 1 US $50.00 Mar-23-10 17:25:56 PDT

bidder 1 US $15.00 Mar-23-10 17:24:38 PDT

bidder 1 US $12.00 Mar-23-10 17:24:21 PDT

bidder 1 US $11.00 Mar-23-10 17:24:10 PDT

Starting Price US $9.99 Mar-23-10 15:15:04 PDT

[dupont2005]

Does bidder 1 ever win anything? Is bidder 1 the same guy from the previous auctions?

[lizards2]

Could be that he wanted to scare away other bidders by giving the impression that his bid was so high they shouldn't even bother bidding. Sounds plausable, I've done it!

 

I agree with this guess - look at the timing of the bids - he's not running someone up, he's bidding upwards as he is the top bidder - big difference.

[PovertyRow]

I just took another look but not signed in as the seller. I clicked Bid History and noticed a "show automatic bids" option, which I selected.

 

This was much more revealing and it appears this was simply the ebay automatic bids automatically going to each increment (looks silly to me). After every bidder4 bid ws a bidder4 bid just seconds apart. One could not see that in the main view.

 

I think bidder 4 just made one large bid and when bidder1 came along his bid was incremented up in steps, making it look like he was bidding again and again?

 

 

[dupont2005]

Yeah, that's how it works. If any of the bidders was a potential shiller it would be bidder 1, but shillers usually don't bid in $50 increments. It doesn't look like a shill to me, at least not a glaringly obvious one. If it were the bids would be a dollar at a time and always ending at 49.99, 50.99, 51.99, and so on, since most people bid a solid number. The shillers goal is to be one cent below the high bid so they know not to bid again.