Originally Posted by tugrul

Those numbers can't be right.

The winner has 6744 bids on 4118 items in the last 30 days?

For the runner's up its 8573, 5861, 6626, 6075, 6200, 5822, 6014, 7267 bids in the last 30 days?

It isn't until the guy who bid 77.89 where the bids drops to 105 in the last 30 days.

WTF?

Am I missing an opportunity to work part time from home for big bucks?

Bid on everything starting at $1?

Originally Posted by himespau

How can you see the reason behind a bid withdrawal? I've had a couple of scares lately when I've been outbid on something with a couple of days to go so I go on and buy what I wanted from another source for the price I want and suddenly with an hour or so left I get an e-mail saying that the bid was withdrawn and I'm now the high bidder. Fortunately, in every case there's a bidding war with a couple of minutes left that wins it, but a lot of times it's something moderately expensive that I don't want two of. I know I shouldn't bid so early, but I figure that's the max I'll pay so whatever and then when I'm outbid, I figure it's a binding contract that the person can't get out of so I'm off the hook and should go buy what I want from another source. Sure there are good deals and hard to find things on e-bay, but I often find it's not worth the hassle and good deals are harder and harder to come by.

Originally Posted by due ruote

Yet another reason to snipe. You can cancel as long as you're still outside the proscribed end-of-auction time parameter. For the service I use I believe it's 6 minutes. The only reason I can see for not sniping is if you're worried about losing something with a BIN option.

Originally Posted by cpsqlrwn

You are suggesting that this guy bid, logged out, then logged in as a different user and bid again, and then repeated the process multiple times. The only way we would know for sure that this happened was if we could trace the IP address of the computer he logged in on. That is assuming he was not so organized as to have machines on different networks doing the bidding. Now that would be elaborate.

Originally Posted by 20grit

I just bought a mountain bike off ebay a month or so ago. Right at the last minute, I was outbid and lost the auction. Then I get a notice saying the bidder had retracted their bid. Basically the owner had ran my bid til they hit my max and then took it back. I'm ok with it because I had set the max at the amount I was willing to pay. It ended up costing me $40, not a big deal.

Happens all the time in various ways.

Originally Posted by cpsqlrwn

OK, I follow your logic. I agree that it is shady that the bidder went right to $400 and there were 20 minutes left and he had to know that the high bid was only $.90 higher and yet he refused to outbid him. But you're saying that these 6 shill bids were put in by 6 different users. That's quite an elaborate method for increasing the price when the moderator (eBay) doesn't really appear to give a **** about it anyway, don't you think? And some of your statements are not accurate and don't reasonably draw the conclusions you are suggesting. Perhaps you're a member of media. Only one of the bids was actually within a minute of the prior bid. And the fact that the bids are each $50 higher means nothing. I don't think those dots connect. That happens all the time in the last hour of an auction when a high bid exists. You are suggesting that this guy bid, logged out, then logged in as a different user and bid again, and then repeated the process multiple times. The only way we would know for sure that this happened was if we could trace the IP address of the computer he logged in on. That is assuming he was not so organized as to have machines on different networks doing the bidding. Now that would be elaborate. I agree that this last bidder was a shill and he was lucky the way the numbers worked out. He didn't have to retract. But I would say in a court of law you couldn't prove beyond a reasonable doubt that all those other bids were shills unless you had the IP address and knew they originated from the same physical location. You can't prove that conclusion just by the bid history which shows six different bidders in a natural progression. Are these bidders from the same geographic location? Is there a history of them having bid on the same item before? Give me some hard evidence. And stop jumping from A to C without B. I remain unconvinced.

Originally Posted by Mike Mills

If this happened to me, I would agree to buy the item at my highest bid before the shill's first bid. I would not agree to buy it at my max bid because this was only exposed due to the actions of the shill.

The action of the shill corrupted the auction from the moment he first bid, onward, but not prior to that bid.

Originally Posted by due ruote

Yet another reason to snipe. You can cancel as long as you're still outside the proscribed end-of-auction time parameter. For the service I use I believe it's 6 minutes. The only reason I can see for not sniping is if you're worried about losing something with a BIN option.

Originally Posted by Mike Mills

If this happened to me, I would agree to buy the item at my highest bid before the shill's first bid. I would not agree to buy it at my max bid because this was only exposed due to the actions of the shill.

The action of the shill corrupted the auction from the moment he first bid, onward, but not prior to that bid.

Originally Posted by 753proguy

Exactly. I've occasionally offered to do the same (but never had the offer accepted, of course...).

Originally Posted by cpsqlrwn

. . .Quick question.... Do you think the next to last bid on this DeRosa auction that just ended was a shill bid or just a new user hoping to get a DeRosa on the cheap?
https://offer.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.d...m=270810777417

Originally Posted by cpsqlrwn

This is kind of interesting because we have two things going on here that are shady/not by the rules and eBay, for the most part, allows both of them to occur with little punishment. We have the shill bidding which we all acknowledge as out and out stealing. But we also have the buyer who really has the option of refusing to pay and my understanding is that eBay really does nothing about that in terms of penalties or sanctions. Perhaps as buyers, we should start refusing to pay when we suspect an auction is shill bid. But that would also mean giving up the merchandise we want. Quick question.... Do you think the next to last bid on this DeRosa auction that just ended was a shill bid or just a new user hoping to get a DeRosa on the cheap?
https://offer.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.d...m=270810777417

Originally Posted by cpsqlrwn

This is kind of interesting because we have two things going on here that are shady/not by the rules and eBay, for the most part, allows both of them to occur with little punishment. We have the shill bidding which we all acknowledge as out and out stealing. But we also have the buyer who really has the option of refusing to pay and my understanding is that eBay really does nothing about that in terms of penalties or sanctions. Perhaps as buyers, we should start refusing to pay when we suspect an auction is shill bid. But that would also mean giving up the merchandise we want. Quick question.... Do you think the next to last bid on this DeRosa auction that just ended was a shill bid or just a new user hoping to get a DeRosa on the cheap?
https://offer.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.d...m=270810777417

Originally Posted by 753proguy

Once the $400 shill bid exposed the mark's max., the shill bidding stopped. Bid retraction not required. Coincidence? I think not. One of the shills has over 6000 bids in the past 30 days????

Originally Posted by Tundra_Man

That's funny. Reminds me of when we bought our most recent house. We were in need of a dining room set and my mom found a nice one at a local used furniture/antiques house. She ooed and aahed over it and asked a bunch of questions, then called us up and told us to come check it out.

We couldn't get out to the store until a few hours later. When we saw the dining room set, we agreed that it was exactly what we wanted. I attempted to haggle on the price, but the owner was unsually firm. After some unsuccessful negotiation, I finally agreed to pay asking price.

As I was paying for the set, the owner informed me that the reason he had been so firm on the price was because a lady had just been in the store that morning and had made a big deal out of the table, and the owner was certain she would return with her son and daughter-in-law to purchase it.

Originally Posted by khatfull

Wife, "I think it's the most beautiful bed I've ever seen in my life!".
$50 discount on $2100 of furniture.
Damnit.

Originally Posted by cpsqlrwn

First off, let me say that I wholeheartedly agree with the fact that shill bidding goes on and costs all of us money from time to time. But I am a liitle perplexed as to how you conclude from the bidding on this particular item that shill bidding took place. My understanding is that most of the time shill bidding is evident from bids from user names with little or no history (user names created expressly for the purpose of raising prices but not winning items). This item had nothing but veteran eBay buyers. And I think the fact that one bidder was smart enough to just go over $400 anticipating a $400 bid by someone else is not evidence of shill bidding. Was there a retraction on this item? I didn't notice one. Please enlighten me as to your thought process on this and further my education please.