eBAY – Shill Bidding

[wendy jacksonParticipant @wendyjackson]

In a word, yes you can bid on your own items, people use a works PC or the wifes or mates. I have seen this 100,s of times on ebay. one thing I do if I bid on something and then see the price rise to just under my bid is don,t buy. The times I have seen items relisted on ebay due to the selllers pushing the bids up is very common. I use ebay less these days as there is never much on there I want and there are better deals around. saying that I have just had an item turn up today with half the parts missing, which was an ebay buy.

michael

[Tony Pratt 1Participant @tonypratt1]

Michael, I presume you will be lodging a dispute with the seller? You are entitled to your money back if the item is not as described.

Tony

[wendy jacksonParticipant @wendyjackson]

yes Tony I have, but the carrage which I must pay is 60 pounds if i wish to return the item, so i am waiting until ebay comes up with an answer, not good realy. but all the things i want are miles away, so can,t always get to see them first. michael

[Tony Pratt 1Participant @tonypratt1]

Hi Michael, sorry but you are not responsible for the return carriage! You are saying that half the parts are missing so it is the sellers responsibility to pay for the return postage and also to reimburse the purchase price. There is loads of information on the net regarding distance selling regulations.

Tony

[RJWParticipant @rjw]

<Hi Michael, sorry but you are not responsible for the return carriage!>

Tony, that only applies if the seller is a business, private sellers (if it applies in this case), are exempt from Distance Selling Regulations, although in some cases eBay will claw back funds directly from a seller's bank account as per their recent T's& C's !

[David LittlewoodParticipant @davidlittlewood51847]

Terry,

Be aware that there is a 45 day time limit for raising a dispute with eBay. I just got caught out on that: 3 weeks for post office to deliver, seller ignored my email saying I wished to return for 3 weeks, then I spent another couple of weeks arguing when she refused to refund.

You do of course have the option of suing in the County Court, its a very simple on-line procedure to start it. Note the Distance Selling Regulations 2000 only apply (for eBay deals) to Buy it Now transactions, not to auctions, but there are other laws that should help you if the item was defective.

David

[wendy jacksonParticipant @wendyjackson]

I have had a reply from the seller, will know more on weds. years back I did the county court think for a new car. took over 8 months to get a hearing, won the case, but still got know money back. the trading standards laws are useless, no teeth at all. michael

[Tony Pratt 1Participant @tonypratt1]

Hi Michael, as RJW states things are different if the seller is private. If they are I would slap a Paypal dispute in and ask for a chargeback on their account and see what happens. It really is not for you to pay return postage if the seller has indeed stitched you up.

Tony

[FMESParticipant @fmes]

Its about time eBay stopped this last minute bidding frenzy by acting like a real auction, i.e. if a bid is placed in the last few seconds, the end time is increased accordingly – 5 – 10 minutes or so.

Many a time have I seen stuff sold for a fraction of its biddable value because the end time cuts off early.

Hating both shill bidding and sniping, I'll place a bid to register interest early on in the auction, then I'll watch till the end and put a bid in at the last minute or so, and I bid what I think its worth.

If I get outbid fair enough, but most times I'll win at a fraction of the bid price I put in which is hardly fair to the seller and wouldn't happen in a 'real' auction.

[Gordon WParticipant @gordonw]

I've bid on ebay for one or two things and never won, I just put what is a cheaky low bid and leave it. Don't have time or patience to keep watching. Used to go to real auctions, bidding up ones own lot was common but discouraged. I saw a smart auctioneer at a car auction, who realised a chap was bidding his lot up and knocked it down to him. Bought his own motot and had all the costs. This sort of thing was common a few years ago, along with dealer "rings". Don't suppose things are much different now, just a bit more sophisticated.

[BaldricParticipant @baldric]

Posted by Lofty76 on 12/02/2013 22:39:42:

If I get outbid fair enough, but most times I'll win at a fraction of the bid price I put in which is hardly fair to the seller and wouldn't happen in a 'real' auction.

It is like a real auction, if only one person wants the object the price is low, if 2 people want it the price goes up until it is above what one of them is prepared to pay.

Baldric

[AndyfParticipant @andyf]

It's bid histories like the one below (copied from an item currently on offer) which I find odd. Why has a***p been bidding against himself to take the price up from £50 to £104? And, indeed, why was his £104 accepted as a valid bid when -***b had offered £106 about an hour before?

Andy

Member Id: _ ***b £106.00 09 Feb 13 14:42:06 GMT

Member Id: a***p £104.00 09-Feb-13 15:37:02 GMT

Member Id: a***p £100.00 09-Feb-13 15:36:48 GMT

Member Id: a***p £55.00 09-Feb-13 15:36:28 GMT

Member Id: a***p £50.00 07-Feb-13 22:32:32 GMT

Member Id: e***r £30.00 07-Feb-13 15:41:30 GMT

Starting price £29.99 06-Feb-13 20:01:08 GMT

[David Clark 13Participant @davidclark13]

That is how it works.

It is called automatic bidding.

Each time someone bids more than you, your bid is increased up to the maximum of your bid.

He is not bidding against himself.

regards david

[AndyfParticipant @andyf]

Thanks for the explanation, David. When I get it to show automatic bids, it is obvious that there were auto bids from _***b between each of the ones which mystified me.

Andy

[DustyParticipant @dusty]

Andyf

If you click on 'show automatic bids' it will become clear how the situation you quote arose.

Andyf  sorry I was a bit slow you have discovered what I was telling you.

Edited By Dusty on 13/02/2013 11:28:24

Edited By Dusty on 13/02/2013 11:29:01

[Keith LongParticipant @keithlong89920]

Andy

If you go back to your bidding example, just above the bids and to the right you should see the label "Show Automatic Bids". If you click on that then you'll see the "mysterious" bids appear in grey. They work the same way that a commission bid left with a live auctioneer works. The auctioneer can choose to open bidding at your highest offer or more likely will choose a much lower figure to get things moving. Once bidding gets under way the auctioneer will take bids from the floor in the appropriate increments and then counter bid on your behalf – again in the increment – until they reach the limits of any commission bid that they hold. Generally then the auctioneer will announce that the bid is" in the room" and he is "out". That is effectively the system that you are seeing, but unless you choose to see the automatic bids you won't realise what's happening and you'll get the impression that someone is bidding against themselves. In fact that is impossible on EBay, if you are the present highest bidder and you choose to raise your offer to fend of competition, you can offer the higher amount, and the system will register that there has been an additional bid BUT the price shown for the item will NOT increase until such time as there is a real competitive bid from a different bidder. If no one else puts up a higher bid then you will win at the price that was standing BEFORE you increased your highest offer.

Keith

Posts crossed in cyberspace!!!

Edited By Keith Long on 13/02/2013 11:34:38

[David LittlewoodParticipant @davidlittlewood51847]

I don't think Andy's example is a case of automatic incremental bidding at all. Here, a***p had put in a bid at 2232 on 07/02; on 09/02 at 1442 another bidder, _***p put in a bid of somewhere above £106. The a***p, on noticing he had been outbid, started putting in sequential bids, trying to find the second guy's bid and slightly outbid him. He gave up at £104, or ran out of time as the auction ended, and this set the final price of £106. Note that it is always the second highest bidder that sets the price in an eBay auction (unless there is only one bidder!). The creeping barrage approach of a***p is the hallmark of a novice, and he probably can't understand why he hardly ever wins anything – he might have been prepared to bid a lot more, but it may be that the auction ended before he got there.

If a***p had put in a bid of £104, after a previous higher bid had been made by _***p, his automatic bids (if shown, which they were not here) would have been at the same time, and presumably _***p's automatic responses would have shown as well. It also looks like _***p is also a novice; if he had put in his maximum bid of £106 (or more) in the last 5 seconds, it is unlikely a***p would have had time to put in another bid, and he would have won for £51 instead of £106.

There is nothing at all wrong with the eBay bidding syestem; it is rather that people expect it to be like a traditional manually operated auction, which it isn't. The process is set out clearly, and if someone doesn't understand it, that's their problem. It is, or would be if everyone used the best approach, more closely akin to a sealed bid process – everyone decides what they think a thing is worth, they put it in a sealed envelope, and at the end the one quoting the highest price wins. The difference here (and it favours the buyer) is that the highest bidder does not pay his bid price, he pays one bidding increment more than the second bidder.

David

Edited By David Littlewood on 13/02/2013 12:35:47

[AndyfParticipant @andyf]

David, when I looked at it after David Clark put me right, I opted to show automatic bids and it is apparent that the current top bidder is/was using them.

The auction hasn't closed yet, but I'm not giving a direct link because some readers might pile in, and I may bid myself!

Andy

[NJHParticipant @njh]

In the early days .watching an ebay auction in its latter stages and placing a bid at the last moment ( manually) used to be quite exciting. Since the introduction of bidding tools and the general disappearance of "genuine bargains" the fun has disappeared. I now make up my mind just what an item is worth to me , place my bid, and then forget it. I often buy consumables – batteries etc on "Buy it Now"where prices are good and delivery ( we are way out in the sticks) is often very rapid and of course I save petrol

Regards

Norman

[wendy jacksonParticipant @wendyjackson]

Well I have had to open a case on the seller. Its not a private chap, will wait and see. But I now sell less on ebay due to the cost and the amount of total fools who use it. ie my last sale was a brian james car trailer which i used for 4 years to tow a smart car behind the motorhome. the trailer was as new, the chap came up and started trying to tale me it was just silver paint used on the trailer and not Galvanised. he would of course take it off my hands for less then he bid on it. he walked without trailer. I sold the trailer to a trailer company for more the the last ebay bid. also most of my buys of late have turned out to be rubbish, so unless i can view first I don,t bother. michael

[FMESParticipant @fmes]

Posted by Baldric on 13/02/2013 10:14:31:

Posted by Lofty76 on 12/02/2013 22:39:42:

If I get outbid fair enough, but most times I'll win at a fraction of the bid price I put in which is hardly fair to the seller and wouldn't happen in a 'real' auction.

It is like a real auction, if only one person wants the object the price is low, if 2 people want it the price goes up until it is above what one of them is prepared to pay.

Baldric

Yes Baldric, but unlike a real auction the bidding is stopped at a predetermined time.

Obviously the idea is to win at the lowest bid, But I might be willing to pay more if its a desirable item, so its hardly fair to not be able to outbid a shill bid or snipe if necessary.

For example, I was bidding on some tool inserts recently, the bid stood at 3.99 for 25 items, I was willing to pay at least a pound an item, so within the last minute I increased my bid to £26, a snipe came in at 5 seconds to the end, preventing me from bidding again.

I could have put a couple of hundred pounds on and hope to have won at 40 – 50, but thats not really the spirit of the auction.

It's like gambling I suppose, you need to know when to stop.

[MattKParticipant @mattk47317]

Hi Lofty76,

I don't follow your logic. If you think it is worth more to you than it sells for then put your limit in. The highest bidder wins. I have used ebay for years and whilst it is true there are a few things against it, the bidding system is fair in my view. The other point is that if there are no real bargains to be had then it can be a great place to sell stuff. I have sold a few items recently and they made good money. My experience is that most people on there are fair people. It always pays to dig around, look at their feedback etc. as there are people I would not deal with on there.

[Sub MandrelParticipant @submandrel]

To me there are only three sensible strategies for Ebay:

Put on a single bid for what you think is your top price. Walk away and if you win, be happy, if you lose – well it sold for too much.

If you really want the item, decide your top price and just submit it right before the item ends. Less chance of your prive being pushed up by other bidders genuine or not and less chance of being outbid.

If you REALLY want the item, contact the buyer direct and see if you can come to an alternative and they can withdraw it. They save ebay fees, you get certainty.

Neil

[MattKParticipant @mattk47317]

I always use option 2. I lose more than I win but thats OK. Option 3 breaks ebay rules but I have done some deals with the seller when going to view an item before. If they want to break the rules thats up to them.

[FMESParticipant @fmes]

MattK, Fair point, but as a seller you must on occasion think to yourself after the rapid flurry of bids in the last few minutes that the item could have sold for more if the timer hadn't shut it down.

I messed up on one recently when I was outbid in the last couple of minutes, I put in a new bid but forgot to press the confirm button, by the time I realised, it was too late.

The logic? keep the initial bids low, putting a high bid on at the start can easily see your top bid being broken in a couple of days, and then be double that by the end time.

I must admit I enjoy the bidding, I'd hate to be halfway into, say, an antiques auction when the auctioneer won't accept a bid due to a time limit.

I think there may be a few moans.

[Author]

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