I bid on a wheelset on the bay yesterday and was easily the high bidder for a bit........then, another "member" bid me up to my max, then bid over, then retracted their bid within 4 minutes citing that they "could not contact seller". After searching the other bidders I found that all of them had bid on this sellers items in the past with one of them having 78% of their activity with this seller.....many of them 1 bid wins.

Then I went to the ebay discussion boards and listened to all the libel and slander warnings followed by some discussion that leads me to believe I have been a victim of shilling. Seller has a sparkling record a LOT of sales under his belt. I went ahead and paid for my item, but I am a bit irritated by all of this........Rant over.

If you snipe you can't be shilled.

Are you saying you got the item for your max bid? And the problem with that is? If you had sniped, that's essentially how it works anyway.

Neal

Did you report it to eBay?

+1

I am guessing he didn't want to pay his max bid if he didn't have to. And your comment on sniping doesn't make sense. That is not how it "essentially" works.

There's definitely something fishy about the reasoning he gave for retracting his bid, especially as one cannot retract a bid completely without the seller's consent. Unless Ebay has changed it's policy.

However, I'm in the boat with the other respondents: if you put a max bid in and you got the item for that price or below it, I don't see the point in making a complaint. That's the nature of the beast.

DD

Shilling is when the seller has someone or several accounts to pump up the value during an auction. Before biding, look at the bidders and their ratings, usually the rating is under 5, or no rating. Stay clear, it's shilling or if you do bid, the seller will contact you with an second chance offer, on the pretext that the winner backed out. Sniping applies, based on the auction(if legitimate).

+1 I can't imagine you'll get any traction with this matter.

Huh? When I snipe (and that's the only way I bid on eBay auctions), I make a decision as to what's the maximum amount I'm willing to pay for an item. That's my snipe. How is that different?

Neal

Yes, I got my item for the max bid..............however, I believe I was shilled. Snipe bids are legal, shilling is not. Winning or losing an auction fairly, I don't have a problem with. A seller bidding up his own items, I do.

When a bidder cancels their bids the price goes back to the last bid before theirs, so it should not have an effect.

Shilling works if they bid you up without going over your bid and then staying where they are.

I think what may have happened is that the seller had multiple accounts and that they simply used one to find his max and had another bid right under it, thus getting all they could out of him.

Just re-read original post, I didn't know it is possible to retract a single winning bid but keep your bid that is just under who is winning so they pay more. weird.

I can see what the OP is saying. Let's say he put in a max bid of $20, and was winning the auction for $4.. then the shill comes in and bids 5, then 10, sees that OP's bid is still higher, so shill bids 15, then 16, then 17, then 18, then 19, then 20, then 21.. then the shill retracts the last bid leaving the OP in the lead of the auction for $20. Without the unfair shill bidding the OP would have won the auction for $4.. that's what is unfair..

What I do on an auction like this is to bid $4 as a max bid, just to get on record and get outbid notices.. then I wait till 1.5 seconds before the end of the auction and bid $20(even if I am "winning"), not leaving the auto-shills time to shill the bid. That way I often win the auction near my original $4 bid.

Word of warning, if you better have a solid fast internet connection or you will miss a lot of auctions because 1.5 seconds wasn't long enough to get your bid in. OTOH worst that can happen is you don't win the auction.

YMMV

Correct. And if you snipe the seller doesn't have the opportunity to "feel out" your max bid, just like Atavar says above.

I find it amusing how often if I make my initial bid in exactly the next auto-bid amount a shill bids over me, sees I don't have a higher max bid and retracts. I bet that happens in about 1 out of 4 auctions.

Because of this and for general principals I *never* take advantage of "Second Chance Offers". When I get am SCO I politely decline, explaining that while I know this auctioner is honest it is my practice not to support shilling by accepting SCO's.

There's something I'm not understanding here. If someone else wins the auction, aren't you off the hook? I'm not aware of there being a 5-minute period after the auction ends, in which the highest bidder can back out, and the second-highest bidder is contracted to be the substitute winner.

Unless that's so, I don't see what all the fuss is about. If you want to play in the auction sandbox, then know what stuff is worth, and don't bid more than you're willing to pay for it -- pretty simple.

I've overpaid for bike stuff, but I have nobody to blame for that but myself. And I've been offered "2nd chance" opportunities -- sometimes I've taken them, sometimes not.

My bid was taken up to my max with several hours left, then outbid with plenty of time left. Then 4 minutes after making that bid, it was retracted.

I don't feel I overpaid, but I think this is a dishonest practice by a seller.

The points from everyone responding here are well taken. I have tried sniping manually in the past with poor results......I will make an effort to upgrade my skill level with automated sniping in the future.

If you're not losing, you're not bidding low enough.

I don't do a lot of Ebay buying but I use Auctionsniper when I do. I tried another one before that; can't remember the name. IME they all seem to work. Frankly I don't understand why everyone doesn't snipe.

Another benefit of sniping is you can change your mind and cancel a snipe eg. if you discover you do in fact have a seatpost in the stash and don't need that one you were about to bid on. Bidgroups are great too - set multiple snipes for like items, and when you win one (or the number you specify) the others are automatically cancelled.

In the case the winner backed out, I would have expected all their bids would have been canceled and the item offered to the new winner at an increment over the next bidder.

Instead it just offers it to you at your max bid... pretty much having you bid against yourself.

Sweet for eBay's bottom line.

Exactly why ebay doesn't enforce the shilling rules.

I"m with Neal on this one. I snipe and put my "max" bid in at the last minute. that stops the shills and also keeps people who decide to raise their max bid only after they get beat. Usually it is some fool who will "think" about it and not want to lose the bid so they go and ask their mom for a raise on their allowance or borrow more money from their grandma.

if you give these people more than 14 seconds to think about it they will always raise their bids. Why drive up a price if you don't have to?

Nowdays I don't use PayBay now that PayPay is required to play. Things might have changed in the 2 years or so since I've actually bought anything over at PayBay.