eBAY - Shill Bidding

Not to belabour the point (.... well, OK, to belabour the point):

Why not $17.90 or £17.90 ?

(Unless of course you also given to writing 1 inch and 125 thou for consistency)

Well said Sid.

Ian

Bri?

If I search on Google I get lots of sniping programmes, which one did you mean was 'it'?

Presumably it will explain the 108.80 Principle you mentioned?

Ian

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

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

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

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

<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 !

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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