Smelling a Rat? eBay
Discussion
Bid on an item last night and put in a top bid. The item was never above £150 so I put in a top bid.
I discovered I'd won the item and as always had a look at the bidding history.
The bidder below myself had no feedback and had only made two bids on eBay, both bids or 100% with this seller on this one item at the time the item ended.
Now i've been on eBay long enough and it just doesn't seem legit.
here is the bidding history below (with names blocked out obviously)
Shill bidding is of course illegal, surely ebay have ways of spotting it should I send them my concerns.
I discovered I'd won the item and as always had a look at the bidding history.
The bidder below myself had no feedback and had only made two bids on eBay, both bids or 100% with this seller on this one item at the time the item ended.
Now i've been on eBay long enough and it just doesn't seem legit.
here is the bidding history below (with names blocked out obviously)
Shill bidding is of course illegal, surely ebay have ways of spotting it should I send them my concerns.
BlueHave said:
Bid on an item last night and put in a top bid. The item was never above £150 so I put in a top bid.
I discovered I'd won the item and as always had a look at the bidding history.
The bidder below myself had no feedback and had only made two bids on eBay, both bids or 100% with this seller on this one item at the time the item ended.
Now i've been on eBay long enough and it just doesn't seem legit.
here is the bidding history below (with names blocked out obviously)
Shill bidding is of course illegal, surely ebay have ways of spotting it should I send them my concerns.
Bidding timeline...I discovered I'd won the item and as always had a look at the bidding history.
The bidder below myself had no feedback and had only made two bids on eBay, both bids or 100% with this seller on this one item at the time the item ended.
Now i've been on eBay long enough and it just doesn't seem legit.
here is the bidding history below (with names blocked out obviously)
Shill bidding is of course illegal, surely ebay have ways of spotting it should I send them my concerns.
4/3, 04:36 - 2 feedback user places a couple of bids, up to £120.
4/3, 12:07 - 19 feedback user tries to onesy-twosy it above, and happens to drop out right on 2's cap.
4/3, 21:32 - "Shill" places £152 bid.
5/3, 20:42 - 767 feedback user bids up to £148 and drops out.
6/3, 13:33 - 3 feedback user bids up to £160 and drops out.
6/3, 19:24 - dying seconds of auction, you hit it with £251.50. "Shill" comes back and bids £247.45. You're still ahead - but bid again so as not to lose it, undisclosed amount but higher than £251.50. Auction closes. You've bought it.
It's not exactly classic shill behaviour, is it? This "shill" was actually winning, right up until the last minute. He then bids damn near £100 higher than the apparent close price, and gets SO close to your previous high that you bid again, even higher. If this was a shill, it really wasn't a very good one - he stood a huge chance of being left holding the baby. Honestly? It looks more like buyer's remorse after a bit of last-second auction fever...
Only you and this zero feedback user thought it was worth above £160. You both thought it was worth around £250 - or more.
And as for "discovered I'd won"... Bit disingenuous... You were not only absolutely happy to pay £250 for it, but you were so keen to pay at least £250 for it that you topped up your own £251.50 bid and placed the winning bid in the dying seconds of the auction, when the suspected shill got close to your previous highest bid?
This zero feedback user has bid on two items. This one, he bid on twice. The other one was a different seller.
CAPP0 said:
TooMany2cvs said:
I've spent several hours now investigating the issue in considerable depth
Wish I had that much time on my hands!No, I simply put the bidders into time order. Not hard, there's only six of 'em. Took seconds.
Looks like the seller potentially had another account or a friend/family bid it up, then cancelled their bid before the end of the auction once they'd find out what your top bid was.
I mean you could just be equally as much of an arse and just not respond to the invoice & payment request, the chances of you ever actually getting done are minimal, plus the seller isn't allowed to leave negative feedback for a buyer, so they'll probably just cancel the transaction & re-list.
I mean you could just be equally as much of an arse and just not respond to the invoice & payment request, the chances of you ever actually getting done are minimal, plus the seller isn't allowed to leave negative feedback for a buyer, so they'll probably just cancel the transaction & re-list.
SmoothCriminal said:
Going by the op I don't think he put in a last minute bid ebay did it for him.
Yes - you're probably right. It's entirely possible I'm mis-reading it, and the OP's one bid is showing twice - the top line with the closing time and price. I've not bought anything in an eBay auction for donkey's.But, even if that is the case, then that one bid was put in just 14 seconds before the close. The "shill" put their final bid in six seconds later, eight seconds before the close, £80-odd (50%) higher than what would have been showing as the highest bid.
Gassing Station | Speed, Plod & the Law | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff