Something fishy - dirty tricks on eBay?

[TriumphDriver]

I was looking for a certain classic part recently and guess what - four of them came up at once, all from the same seller. I bid on one with quite a high maximum bid, and watched the other three. Two days to go and my item is outbid, so I bid on the second one which was still at the starting price. It was outbid too... so I bid on the third item, with two hours to go until auction end. Guess what? It was outbid too.
Four identical items from the same seller.
All winning bids from the same buyer.
HOWEVER: the fourth one didn't sell at all.
This makes me believe the seller was working with a mate who bumped up the bids on each item in an attempt to raise the price. After all, why bid on an item which has a price of over twice the start bid while there's still one with no bids, at half the price he'll pay for the sold items?
Strange. No doubt they'll be relisted, or I'll get one of those bogus 'second chance offers' when the winning bidder mysteriously fails to pay.
Don't ya hate it when that happens?

[TerryG]

It's called Shill bidding and it's against ebay policy
http://pages.ebay.co.uk/help/policies/s ... dding.html
If you think he has done it then report him!

The way i buy items on ebay is with snipe bidding. I place a bid of the maximum amount i'm willing to pay in the last 5 seconds of an auction.
There is no opportunity for people to piss around then.

[Grumpy Northener]

You can easy stop this plonkers game - there is a section for reporting this within E Bay - it takes a little tracking down but is worth the effort - I did so recently with an idiot who was dupping buyers with mislisted parts and stupid postal rates - this idiot had a bonnet badge for sale at a buy it now price of 99p but was charging a UK internal postage rate of £199.00 for somthing that weighed 300 grams - his listings were taken out within a few hours of the complaint.

[Willy Eckerslyke]

That's rather different though - eBay see excessive postage rates as fee avoidance and stamp on them hard and fast. But shill bidding doesn't affect their profits so they don't generally care. If you complain you'll get a standard reply and nothing will change.

[TerryG]

shill bidding doesn't affect their profits so they don't generally care. If you complain you'll get a standard reply and nothing will change.

Not true, the user in question gets a warning, Ebay can ban them imediately if they choose but regardless if they get 3 of them then they get booted off.
nothing to stop them signing up with a new account though :S

When this happens, the member may be suspended from using our site

Shill bidding does affect their profits as "both parties can agree to cancel the transaction" so they don't get paid.

[Willy Eckerslyke]

OK I'll put it this way, while eBay have a policy that forbids shill bidding, it's not one that they enforce very strongly and often not at all. And it could be argued that they actively encourage it by hiding the IDs of other bidders. I'm also certain that it increases their profits by pushing up selling prices and therefore final value fees. The tiny number of cancelled transactions won't make much of a dent there.
By contrast, people selling items for 99p + £99 p&p are avoiding a huge amount in fees which is why a) eBay jump on them very fast and b) eBay are considering charging fees on the full price including postage - and already do so where they encourage sellers to offer "free p&p".

[tractorman]

I'm below performance level as far as eBay is concerned! Of three complaints about my p&p costs are two people who bought some die-cast cars (Matchbox etc). The cars weighed quite a lot (a dozen or more per sale) and I didn't charge full p&p - I never have done so. eBay aren't interested in my side of the story though, they just reckon I should do something about it!

OTOH, I sold a camera lens on Saturday, the buyer hasn't paid and hasn't responded to the invoice - or the polite reminder I sent yesterday. I can't give him negative feedback or affect his "star rating" and, to improve my rating, I offered free p&p. I wonder if eBay give a XXXX about the people who are making them money.

I put a bid on an instruction book for my foreloader a few weeks ago - it would make the set up. The seller had four or five altogether and none had any bids. Strangely, the one I bid on suddenly had another bidder and went over my original bid (start bid +1p!). Even odder - no feedback given by seller or buyer!

[Willy Eckerslyke]

I wonder if eBay give a XXXX about the people who are making them money.

As I've said before, I believe that eBay calculate very carefully how far they can squeeze their customers and do so to the absolute limit. They don't want us to be happy because that would mean they're missing out on a fraction of their potential profits. They don't want us so unhappy that we leave, but the closer they can get us to that point the better. That's why so many of us grumble about eBay but still buy and sell on their site. As a business strategy it's perfect.

[TriumphDriver]

I've checked my seller's feedback, he has a lot of sales to the same group of people - in one case seven identical items all to the same buyer, with other small groups of sales of three or four identical items to different buyers. In my opinion you wouldn't want - or need - seven of this particular item, and it's not as if they're particularly cheap to be worth selling on at an additional profit.
I've also checked out the buyers - one of them has a bid history of 100% with this seller, the other 60% - this means that one guy has only ever bid with this seller.
It stinks like something dead!
Regarding postage - I know of at least three items, currently running which are 1p to buy and £19.99 postage.
I still love eBay, though - I sold a number of items last month for way above their starting price, which is what I reckoned they were worth - in one case FOUR TIMES the starting price. Swings and roundabouts I suppose.

[JohnE]

I am sure I've quite often been the "victim" of shill bidding on eBay - except that I bid what I am prepared to pay then just ignore it if outbid. If I get a second chance offer I just tell the seller no thanks I managed to get one elsewhere. If I have paid more than I would otherwise due to shilling that's one thing - but if I'm happy with the price I paid I don't really lose any sleep over it.