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Shill or no shill?
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Started by RidersRohan,

24 posts in this topic

kav

kav

Posted
Posted
Just now, RidersRohan said:

It is just the end price.  Yikes!!!

 

there's a sucker born every 2 minutes

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RidersRohan

RidersRohan

Posted
  • Author
Posted
Just now, kav said:

there's a sucker born every 2 minutes

Yep.  So suckerish that they do not even bother to see the same book is being offered in multiple listings for half the price.  Damn Kav--I think you replied to my post even before I posted it.  Super fast!!!1

 

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kav

kav

Posted
Posted
1 minute ago, RidersRohan said:

Yep.  So suckerish that they do not even bother to see the same book is being offered in multiple listings for half the price.  Damn Kav--I think you replied to my post even before I posted it.  Super fast!!!1

 

I dont spoon around

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AndyFish

AndyFish

Posted
Posted

Now what makes you think it's a shill?  There are plenty of buyers who do stupid things-- we've had auctions where the high bidder cancels his bid because they "accidently" bid the auction up-- we've had people with zero feedback bid in increments of a few dollars-- all of which looks like shill bidding while we don't do that.  This type of thing gives honest sellers a bad name.

As for overpaying-- that's part of the auction process, people get caught up in it.   I for one always check to see if an item is available in the same condition elsewhere-- but not everyone does.

I think we should be less inclined to call foul unless we have some evidence to the contrary-- it's not fair to the seller's reputation.

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ygogolak

ygogolak

Posted
Posted

When eBay moved to limit the information for a buyer to 30 days, they really took away the ability to determine inappropriate bidding practices. There are plenty of people who will only bid on one item a month or less. They are looking for something specific.

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AndyFish

AndyFish

Posted
Posted

I had a friend who used to sell on eBay all the time, and there was a guy who would often win his auctions who lived not that far away and the guy would always arrange pickups of his wins.  My friend wasn't crazy about this-- while it might seem like it was great to save the hassle of shipping these were mostly comics and mailing them wasn't all that hard to do.  Taking time out of his day to go and meet in neutral territory was actually more work.

Now this guy won a LOT of items he put up, but that meant he bid on a lot too-- and it turned out this guy was ONLY bidding on stuff my friend was selling because he was local and he liked the idea of being able to pick up a win and not have to wait for shipping.

Trouble was, when you looked at it-- it looked completely shill.  Not only was this guy not bidding or buying other people's stuff very often, when they would do local pickup there was no tracking to prove he'd gotten it.  It created all kinds of trouble when someone reported this apparent shill bidding and it caused my friend to sour on the whole process.

He's since back on but he insists on shipping even if the person is across the street. 

But my long winded point is just because it looks like shill bidding doesn't mean it is.  There are a ton of people on eBay who don't seem to use the "max bid" and let it go feature, choosing instead to bid up in increments.  Me?  I use Gavelsnipe so I set my bid and I forget about it, but I'm always hesitant to assume a seller is crooked unless there is more evidence.

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ygogolak

ygogolak

Posted
Posted
44 minutes ago, Gaard said:

re: bidding up in small increments.

Andy (or anyone) - Do you know why people do this? I've often wondered why, but can't figure it out.

Why do people bid in big increments? Just personal preference.

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revat

revat

Posted
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9 minutes ago, ygogolak said:
54 minutes ago, Gaard said:

re: bidding up in small increments.

Andy (or anyone) - Do you know why people do this? I've often wondered why, but can't figure it out.

Why do people bid in big increments? Just personal preference.

I do it sometimes.  In some cases I'm not too sure how much I want an item but get more competitive if I think other people want it, in some cases I'm curious what other people are bidding. In some cases, I'm willing to pay this much for it now, but not sure if I'll be willing to pay more for it when the auction ends, but want to make sure I at least get my bid in.

Its probably rarely the best strategy, if ever.  But I think mainly for me its about the uncertainty of how much I'm actually willing to pay for it at a given moment in time.

 

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ADAMANTIUM

ADAMANTIUM

Posted
Posted
56 minutes ago, revat said:

I do it sometimes.  In some cases I'm not too sure how much I want an item but get more competitive if I think other people want it, in some cases I'm curious what other people are bidding. In some cases, I'm willing to pay this much for it now, but not sure if I'll be willing to pay more for it when the auction ends, but want to make sure I at least get my bid in.

Its probably rarely the best strategy, if ever.  But I think mainly for me its about the uncertainty of how much I'm actually willing to pay for it at a given moment in time.

 

it's the unknown

kind of like: why does anyone bid at all in the first couple of days? if most people snipe, why get in a bidding war? 

It's just each day is new and new temptaions that make it easy to up the bid, I guess...

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Get Marwood & I

Get Marwood & I

Posted
Posted
3 minutes ago, Foley said:
12 hours ago, RidersRohan said:

 

On 2017-6-6 at 0:37 AM, AndyFish said:

 

 

 

I concur.

I don't see it that way at all. 

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