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Post by Tweetiepy on Jan 30, 2007 9:28:37 GMT -5
Check out this history on this item. Why is someone (someone who looks new or suspicious) keep bidding to raise the price? offer.ebay.ca/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewBids&item=110084653199Is this the seller who's trying to raise the bids? What if an item gets lost in the bidding and only goes for a penny +$3 shipping (as indicated) is this still a valid bid? Or will someone almost always try to inflate the price? This item could have gone for a buck or two less.. I need for someone to explain Thanks
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stefan
Cave Dweller
Member since January 2005
Posts: 14,095
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Post by stefan on Jan 30, 2007 9:35:54 GMT -5
I don't understand that at all Tweet- Looks like a case of fake bidding to get the price up- but maybe I'm missing something?- I think I would contact E-bay and ask them for an explaination-
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Post by pho on Jan 30, 2007 10:41:31 GMT -5
I would file a complaint with Ebay on this one. Sure looks like bid rigging to me.
Pho
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free4rms
freely admits to licking rocks
My little pet walrus
Member since January 2007
Posts: 839
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Post by free4rms on Jan 30, 2007 11:10:49 GMT -5
I agree with everyone else, it looks like schill bidding (I think that is what it is called) where someone keeps bidding higher and higher on the item so that their friend (the seller) gets a higher price. However, if this were the case, it would be odd for them to do it in successive bids without anyone else bidding higher than each schill bid. I would definitely get in touch with eBay.
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Post by texaswoodie on Jan 30, 2007 11:11:17 GMT -5
This is called shill bidding. It's illegal on eBay and illegal in most states. eBay makes it easy for shill bidders because the more the item goes, for the more money they get. I doubt very seriously they would do anything if you reported it.
Is this a shill bid auction? Very hard to say. The guy may be new and wants the beads, so he just bids over and over. The place where he bid again and again, he was trying to top the present bid. He stopped when he got the high bid and started again when he was outbid.
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snowdog
fully equipped rock polisher
RIP David Fildes, aka: snowdog
Member since January 2005
Posts: 1,527
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Post by snowdog on Jan 30, 2007 11:25:16 GMT -5
Tweet-- when you placed your second bid -- did you put like a max bid of $5.75 on there -- but got the high bid for 2.25- if so that other bidder just kept bidding --what ebay said to do --- until he got the high bid at $6.00 --- usually when you bid and don't get the high bid then they say bid 25 -50- 1.00 higher ( they put the next higher bid next to the box) and if you only take it one step at a time you will keep getting "outbid" notices until you pass the last person's max bid -------- that's all I see here --- not trying to scam
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stefan
Cave Dweller
Member since January 2005
Posts: 14,095
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Post by stefan on Jan 30, 2007 11:32:15 GMT -5
Oh I see- So the person was just trying to outbid whatever the maxium was- Hmm that would make it difficult to check on schill bidding- would it not?
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Post by Tweetiepy on Jan 30, 2007 11:34:42 GMT -5
I just put in a min bid of what was needed over the current bid - I won by a fluke - logged on to check with less than one minute left and got outbid and bid again and won with probably 20 seconds on the clock.
It's not a big deal since it's less than $3 but I'm also bidding on another of their items and am hoping it'll go low and was wondering if this was normal, it could also be a new person (but these shilling things always seem to happen with people with no feedback)
Snowdog I see what you mean, I didn't put the max bit but maybe that Jane*** did and that's when it stopped I just bid one higher, I'm always thinking it'll increase the bids if i put a max in and people will keep trying to outbid my higher bid instead of quitting when they see they've been outbid once... (yeah I'm naive)
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Post by texaswoodie on Jan 30, 2007 11:36:18 GMT -5
By the way. A couple of things you can do in a case like this. Put in the max bid you want to pay for the item and let eBay take it from there. If he outbids you, he wanted the item more than you did.
The best thing to do, especially when bidding against a newbie is to bid in the last few seconds of the auction. Don't give them enough time to outbid you.
Curt
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Post by texaswoodie on Jan 30, 2007 11:38:17 GMT -5
Stefan........... Yup
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Post by lbowman1 on Jan 30, 2007 11:50:51 GMT -5
The oddest part is that most of the bidding was done by people with single digit feedback. Almost definitely a schill.
They schill their auctions, get caught and then busted by Ebay and then turn right around and start up new accounts in order to start schilling all over again. It's almost impossible to fight that.
...unless you snipe... ;D
Lori
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Post by Tweetiepy on Jan 30, 2007 11:55:07 GMT -5
Oh I see- So the person was just trying to outbid whatever the maxium was- Hmm that would make it difficult to check on schill bidding- would it not? But wouldn't the bid of the person who put in a max bid be visible too between the other person's bid? so it would looke like they're oubidding each other? I personally have bid higher when someone else has that max bid in there, trying to find that magic number, than what I would if I bid, have the higher bid and then getting outbid later (since I usually forget to check the auctions later)
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Post by deb193 on Jan 30, 2007 12:12:39 GMT -5
Right. No shill bidding. Just complicated.
zazzys had placed a max, bid on 28-Jan for $2 but only $1.50 got posted to beat the prior high bid of $1.25. Then on 29-Jan, you must have bid $1.75 (to top the $1.50), which caused zazzys's max of $2 to get activated. The you bid $2.25 and this time prevailed at 10:11:11 EST. (For about 10 hours).
The Jane came along at 20:02:58 EST and bid a max of $6, which Philip made a bunch of bids to try and beat. Initially her bid would have been set at $2.50 - just enough to beat you. 20 minutes later Philip started bidding at $2.76 (just enough to cover Jane's showing bid.) Each time he would have been instantly outbid until he exceeded Jane's max of $6. He finally succeeded and was high bidder at $6.50. Looks like you put in a bid for $7 and was again high bidder until the next guy bid a max of $7.77 and the winning bid was moved to $7.50. You came back at $8 and were the winner.
Two points:
1) you are right that placing a high max might cause someone to keep bidding and run the price up. Philip did this to Jane. This is why some people place snipe bids at the last minute. The danger is you may not bid enough, but you are less likely to give someone else a chance to overbid you. If Jane had bid only $4, Philip would have stopped. later Jane could have come back and rebid, and Philip may not have logged on to check/notice. In this case he kept bidding till he topped Jane.
2) you might want to bid odd amounts. Try for odd numbers just a few pennies over the common 25 or 50 cent boundaries. Notice the 2nd highest bidder's bid of $7.77. If you had placed a max of $7.75 instead of you bid of $7, he would have beat you by only 2 cents. Once the bid was at $7.75, nobody could bid less than $8, but before hand, a max of $7.77 could be set. In this case you bid $8, so his gambit did not work. But if he had entered a max of $8.03 or $8.11, he would have won by just pennies.
Most people do bid in even nickels and quarters. An if you later bid the same amount, their earlier bid breaks the tie in their favor. So if you routinely bid just a few pennies over the "usual" amounts, you win a few extra auctions.
Another benefit is that it may tell you if they have reached their max bid yet. If you see something for $5 and you do not know what the high bidder's max might be, and you bid $7.77 and the high bid goes to $8, you know that $8 is their max and you can win with one more bid. You know this because if their max was $9, the bid would have been set 25 or 50 cents higher than $7.77, say $8.27, and you still would not know their max. But since in this case the high bid went up by less than 25 or 50 cents over your max, you have successfully probed the situation and know that you next bid will prevail. You can wait until there is just a little time left and bid. Unless they are online to watch and quickly overbid you, you will win.
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Post by akansan on Jan 30, 2007 12:13:07 GMT -5
The max bid only shows up when it is reached. If I bid $7.00 on an item, and someone keeps bidding until they hit my max bid, it will show multiple bids by that person trying to find my maximum.
I've done something similar to what you see in this bid history, but my increments are generally more than 50 cents. And I also generally stop if my third jump doesn't hit the maximum bid.
In the case of this auction, in the end it didn't really matter if the middle bidding was shill bidding or not. The last bid was $7.77, and Tweety bid $8.00 on it. Even if you discount the middle bidder, Tweety wouldn't have been able to get it for less than $8.00 anyway. Phillipsyip tried for about three minutes to beat Janew1542's bid, and then stopped once that bid was passed ($6.50). Then about twenty minutes later, Haybro came along with a max bid of $7.77 - which Tweety passed about 10 seconds later with her $8.00 bid.
I guess if I was reviewing the history on this one, I'd take it for a new ebayer rather than a shiller.
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Post by deb193 on Jan 30, 2007 12:19:56 GMT -5
That there were a lot of bidders with low feedback is suspicious. Akansan is right that it ultimately did not matter, but still all the activity may have caused the auction to get noticed. You can search for what is "hot". Also, some folks assume that if it had a bunch of bids it must be good stuff.
Some sellers do put up the item at a very low opening to avoid fees. Then they have a shill put in what they really want the minimum to be. It has to be low, because they are stuck of nobody overbids. The shill doe snot keep trying to raise the price once there are real bidders. This is kind of a soft-shill. Still against the rules, but more akin to a reserve price than a fraud.
The only way you can spot this is to look at the bidding activity of the suspected shill. You can search for all their bidding activity in the past 30 days. If they bid on a lot but win very little and if they bid almost exclusively with one or two sellers, then it is likely a soft-shill. Not conclusive because they could just tbe frugal and really like the stuff those two sellers have, but likely.
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spacegold
has rocks in the head
Member since September 2006
Posts: 732
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Post by spacegold on Jan 30, 2007 12:21:35 GMT -5
I agree. The bidder was what I call a ladder maker. He was looking for the high bidders bid so he could leapfrog it, which he finally did. But he got beat by a sniper anyway.
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earthdog
Cave Dweller
Don't eat yellow snow
Member since June 2006
Posts: 2,731
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Post by earthdog on Jan 30, 2007 12:24:08 GMT -5
I'm with Deb193, that isn't any "shcill" bidding. The guy just couldn't hit the right number. So most of you think automatic that someone is screwing with the bids. Tweet, you still got those at a pretty good price..
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Post by deb193 on Jan 30, 2007 12:57:06 GMT -5
this maymake my Odd-number bidding strategy a little clearer. Here are two auctions snowdoh has. (I don't need more slabs but the bargain factor kicked in.)
picture jasper slabs -- over 50 slabs, & over 6 lbs. $8.29 $7.79 $8.60 snowdog0_16(12) 4d 02h 51m
picture jasper slabs -- over 50 slabs, & over 6 lbs. $12.00 $11.77 $8.60 snowdog0_16(12) 4d 03h 05m I had bid a mix of $11.77 on the 2nd lot and a max of $7.79 on the 1st lot. Some guy came along and outbid me on both.
BUT, on the 1st one I have no idea by how much he outbid me because current bid of $8.29 replicated the 9 in my bid.
However, on the 2nd, the current bid of $12 tells me that this is his max - otherwise it would have gone to $12.07.
So it is reasonable to assume his max was $12 on both auctions, and if it still looks this way in a few days when the auction is about to end, I could likely win with bids just over $12 on the 1st and just over $12.50 on the 2nd.
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RedwoodRocks
freely admits to licking rocks
Member since March 2003
Posts: 762
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Post by RedwoodRocks on Jan 30, 2007 22:41:04 GMT -5
I used to do the same thing as the guy putting in a multiple bids, each bid was right after another until I got the top bid. Then someone would outbid me. Now, I will use auction sniper or just bid the price that I am willing to pay. Sometimes, I get the piece for less than I had planned, other times, I get outbid. I am not sure if auction sniper is any more effective than just bidding what I am willing to pay.
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Post by rockyraccoon on Jan 30, 2007 23:05:17 GMT -5
hah! i didn't know you could look at the history! thanks for showing me that tweetie.
kim
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