shill bidding on Ebay

[nwpassage]

I can't stand it when you place a bid on a book that has sat untouched,only to find that you are outbid instantly. Classic shill? Makes me hate fee-bay as a buyer as much as some sellers do.

 

Second thought, is that a reserve not being met that I can't see? Why not just start your auction at the reserve price?

[Comics-n-ERB]

Who cares if he is shill bidding vs. setting a reserve on his auction??

 

Look, whenever you bid on eBay you should do the following:

 

1.) Decide what YOU are willing to pay for the book

2.) SUBTRACT the shipping charges from what you're willing to pay.

3.) Bid that amount now or wait until the last minute.

 

I really don't get why people get so mad about Shilling and/or shipping charges on eBay. If you follow those steps you're NOT getting ripped off on price.

 

Especially people complaining about shipping charges. They are fully disclosed ahead of time. So what if the seller wants to save some money on FEEBay fees.

 

NO, this is not my auction and I rarely sell on eBay. I just buy books there.

 

 

So if hypothetically your prepared to spend say 200.00 and a shill bidder runs it up to 199.99, but if it wasn't for the shill bidder you could of had it for half. Your cool with that because it didn't go above your set limit. That to me doesn't make any sense whatsoever.

[pink181]

Im bidding on a run of a comic and noticed that a bidder with 1 feedback is bidding on the same auction as well as at least 4 others from the same seller. You may say that is not strange but the thing is that the auctions are ending in less the 4 hours. Its one thing to start an auction with a low starting price, but as a seller you are taking a gamble and if it does not sell for what you want then you should bite the bullet rather then bidding it up yourself or your friends to bid it up.

[SolitaireOne]

$232.52 final hammer price.

 

The 'shill' was out by $160, 3 others from there on.

 

 

Neat item...

[Dick Pontoon]

But did Comics-n-ERB win?

[Bomber-Bob]

Shilling is rampant on E-Bay. Once E-Bay started hiding the ID's of bidders they essentially condoned shilling. Without ID's how can you prove shilling is going on ?

All you can say is it looks funny but you can't prove anything to E-Bay. Shilling

is a cheap way of putting a reserve with more flexibility.

 

[dopy02]

Who cares if he is shill bidding vs. setting a reserve on his auction??

 

Look, whenever you bid on eBay you should do the following:

 

1.) Decide what YOU are willing to pay for the book

2.) SUBTRACT the shipping charges from what you're willing to pay.

3.) Bid that amount now or wait until the last minute.

 

I really don't get why people get so mad about Shilling and/or shipping charges on eBay. If you follow those steps you're NOT getting ripped off on price.

 

Especially people complaining about shipping charges. They are fully disclosed ahead of time. So what if the seller wants to save some money on FEEBay fees.

 

NO, this is not my auction and I rarely sell on eBay. I just buy books there.

 

 

So if hypothetically your prepared to spend say 200.00 and a shill bidder runs it up to 199.99, but if it wasn't for the shill bidder you could of had it for half. Your cool with that because it didn't go above your set limit. That to me doesn't make any sense whatsoever.

 

yes. I would NEVER enter my max bid to open. If you do, you are just asking to have the bid walked up.

[Not*Sure*]

I totally agree that Ebay hiding IDs thwarts detecting shill bidders.

 

I know in the past there have been many shill bidders brought to light on the Ebay comics chat. You find someone with nice books having their wife, brother, cousin twice removed, employee, bidding on their books to raise the final price. Sometimes in a shameless fashion.

 

Ebay really does very little to these people. There are entities that out and out say "We reserve the right to have employees bid on our item if we feel the item has not reached an acceptable price." I tend not to bid on their auctions.

 

If you are selling auction style you should be prepared to let the marketplace dictate your selling price.

 

I sell Magic the Gathering gaming mats. When I sell them auction style they can end up anywhere between $4.99-$60.00 for the very same mat.

If I list them BIN. The most I will every get is whatever the Buy it Now price is. There is no chance that my mat will get $60 when the buy it now is $29. Getting $60 is super, $4.99 not so super. All the same I wouldn't have my husband start bidding up my prices to boost my bottom line. It's just not ethical.

 

Ebay, well they really don't care these days. Years ago they would've given a hoot. Now they think they are protecting the bidders even if they are shills.

 

Keep trying to drive all their sellers away really. That is what they are doing.

[Not*Sure*]

That being said I have gotten some fabulous deal on Ebay! Even using the make an offer feature. I have made some offers I thought would get the seller angry. Then low and behld they say "Sure!" and take my pennies!!

 

I usually don't take the offers unless they are super-de-duper or I am hard up for cash. We recently had a book listed with a $575 start $1,400 BIN. We ended up accepting $480 something and change. The book was worth $1,400 but it was not a comic book, not authenticated, etc. it was autographed. We really needed the cash so we took it. Another item that I had up I listed with $89.99 price. I got offers from $5-25. less than an hour before the auctions end someone did a Buy it Now. It was the third time relisting but I just knew it could bring at least that much.

 

But in either case I wouldn't have had anybody else bid those up for me if they weren't getting bids.

[Comics-n-ERB]

But did Comics-n-ERB win?

 

I'm sorry to say I didn't. I planned to bid in the final minutes and got tied up with a visitor at work

 

Guess I'm the insufficiently_thoughtful_person...........or at least feel like one for not getting that blasted book.

[Dick Pontoon]

 

I've done that myself plenty of times, and not set a snipe or figuring I wouldn't need to since I'd have computer access, and then forgot.

 

Well, as somebody once said, they're only funnybooks. Or BLBs.

[Comics-n-ERB]

I even went so far as to put a post-it note on my computer screen so I wouldn't forget, but got tied up with the visitor and was showing them around the business. Man was I bummed...........