Shill Bid

[hydemaine]

I have this morning nearly been caught out by shill bidding on ebay.

Basically I went to an amount I was happy to go to but still wasnt winning the item so decided that was it for me and let it go.

In the early hours of the morning (12hrs) before bidding closed the winning bidder retracted their bid stating they had entered the wrong amount.
This left me as the under bidder now winning the auction.

I went to the bidders bidding activity and noticed that they had a feedback of (1) had joined quite recently and of the 10 transactions they had completed, 40% of them were with the seller.

I decided something was wrong and I got through to ebay's specialist team via their live chat system.

They were very professional and saw that it was indeed a shill bid using
advanced technology they can detect seller trends being abnormal.

They cancelled my bid, took the item down and have suspended the seller until a full investigation is done.

Just thought I'd share this.

Has anyone else had similar experiences on ebay?

I can't state enough how pleased I was with ebay's response in this instance.

[manchesterunitedman1]

hydemaine wrote:

I have this morning nearly been caught out by shill bidding on ebay. Basically I went to an amount I was happy to go to but still wasnt winning the item so decided that was it for me and let it go. In the early hours of the morning (12hrs) before bidding closed the winning bidder retracted their bid stating they had entered the wrong amount. This left me as the under bidder now winning the auction. I went to the bidders bidding activity and noticed that they had a feedback of (1) had joined quite recently and of the 10 transactions they had completed, 40% of them were with the seller. I decided something was wrong and I got through to ebay's specialist team via their live chat system. They were very professional and saw that it was indeed a shill bid using advanced technology they can detect seller trends being abnormal. They cancelled my bid, took the item down and have suspended the seller until a full investigation is done. Just thought I'd share this. Has anyone else had similar experiences on ebay? I can't state enough how pleased I was with ebay's response in this instance.

Well done you! One less thieving bastard off the scene for the time being.

[Fishy]

Agreed! Well done.

Highly unusual for Ebay to take notice - perhaps they are beginning to see the error of their ways.................................

[hydemaine]

It rang warning bells also as the seller hadn't previously had any connection with buying or selling programmes before this item.

ebay were fantastic with their solution I must admit I was pleasantly surprised by the speed they resolved things.

Must have got them on a good day ha ha

[Wullie]

It could be argued that you bid what you were happy with and won. But of course if you were happy to say pay £50 for instance , and the bidding started at £10 and you were the only bidder then it is fair that you should only pay £10. It is up to the seller to start the bidding at a higher price or have a reserve put on it. To get a mate to bid you up and see what your top bid is , is out of order. To be fair, eBay probably know most of the tricks now , and they are finally getting their act together. It doesn't do their business any good at all letting the cheats get away with it....

[hydemaine]

Wullie wrote:

It could be argued that you bid what you were happy with and won. But of course if you were happy to say pay £50 for instance , and the bidding started at £10 and you were the only bidder then it is fair that you should only pay £10. It is up to the seller to start the bidding at a higher price or have a reserve put on it. To get a mate to bid you up and see what your top bid is , is out of order. To be fair, eBay probably know most of the tricks now , and they are finally getting their act together. It doesn't do their business any good at all letting the cheats get away with it....

I know what you mean Wullie.
In normal circumstances I would have been happy to win it because the over bidder had pulled out genuinely having made a mistake.
There were numerous under bids that were under my bid so I wasn't the only one bidding.

I just smelt a rat and questioned it with ebay who confirmed there was
something dodgy about the seller and bidder.
I don't know if they can tell if bids are coming from the same isp but they sounded certain they had caught someone out.
They can only do this if an issue is raised to investigate.

[Tintowner]

a similar thing happened to me in the early days of ebay.... I bid a maximum of £25 for an item that had a starting price of £1.

It was at a pound during the run in with me as the only bidder. then another bidder started bidding and eventually outbid me (£26). A few hours later, the bid was retracted with the excuse that they had bid the wrong amount (they had bid at £1 increments until they outbid me).

I then retracted my bid (stating that I had bid the wrong amount too) and sent the seller a damning email.....he never replied!

[hydemaine]

Tintowner wrote:

a similar thing happened to me in the early days of ebay.... I bid a maximum of £25 for an item that had a starting price of £1. It was at a pound during the run in with me as the only bidder. then another bidder started bidding and eventually outbid me (£26). A few hours later, the bid was retracted with the excuse that they had bid the wrong amount (they had bid at £1 increments until they outbid me). I then retracted my bid (stating that I had bid the wrong amount too) and sent the seller a damning email.....he never replied!

Hi Tintowner
must go on quite a lot.
The problem I had was that I was informed A.M. this morning that the over bidder had retracted.
This bid had been retracted in the middle of the night whilst I was still asleep.
You can retract a bid anytime up to 12 hrs before the auction ends.

When I was informed when I awoke this morning there was only 4hrs left on the auction.
I tried to do the same as you but ebay said I couldn't because I was within the 12hr rule for retractions.
Luckily they have a special team that deals with shill bidding and I was put through to them who as I've stated sorted everything out.

It must be a tried & tested 'con' that these people are using. Retracting bids knowing that the under bidder has no time to retract.

Unfortunately for them to our small community it was obvious that they weren't acting normally.

Some bidders would have been happy that they were now winning the bid without bothering to check why.