eBAY - Shill Bidding

Nick, Yes PP auction and because of their stupid setup missed getting the wining bid on.

Someone got a CVA toolroom lathe for £55, damn thing would have weighed in for £150

Decided to bang a bucket bid on to miss the increments of £1.

Page said next bid is £56.00 so offered £78.00 and got a message saying "Will only accept whole pounds only " ??? So why state £56.00 ?

So then offer £78 and after the page keeps updating I get the Terms and conditions page ???

WTF why not put this up when you log on ? Then to make it worse scroll down and just about to click accept when it jumps back up to the top, pull it down, about to click and jumps back.

All the while the seconds are clicking away. Finally manage to get it held central in the screen and click accept.

Then get "Confirm this bid page "

Click confirm and then get, "The auction has finished "

Would have won this because there was no way anyone could have got a better bid on.

OK so I'm pissed that I lost this by virtue of their crap layout but you live and learn, never use PP auctions again.

Hi John, yes, I got the same message about whole pounds only. You might imagine how I was shouting at the 'puter that I only put in whole pounds. Tried it a couple of times, then thought maybe you could only put in the starting bid first but, no that didn't work, then tried a simple 10 and made some sort of comment like stupid %$*"!)( idea when it accepted it. I then had to do it all again to get my max bid that I was happy about and hope for the best. But I lost out.

Regards Nick.

Oh and there is no results page to see how much you lost out on.

Edited By Nicholas Farr on 14/02/2013 22:18:40

Somebody else was watching it down to the wire and it made £55.

In all fairness it was for spares or repair and an unknown quantity as opposed to a runner but the bits i wanted were there.

Seems stupid that they didn't have a reserve given that it will go over the weighbridge for £150

Does this look like a shill bidder?

23% of 1395 bids on one seller

65 bid retractions in 6 months

Steve

"65 bid retractions in 6 months"!!!!!

Bid retractions are the other version of shill bidding. Bidder makes his max bid, SELLER then bids until the original bidder's max bid is exceeded and then retracts his(her) last bid. Result - original bidder has been forced up to his max bid by shill bidding. Answer - if ANY bid retraction is noted, contact seller and point out that your ONLY valid bid is the one which preceded the FIRST of the retracting bidder's bid. Alternatively, point out that you will not complete any sale which has included a bid retraction ... have done both of these and the responses were 'interesting'

Rgds

Bill!

Hi Steve,

Good test case for you - refer them to the site owner and ask their opinion.

Neil

Guess what - got an eMail this morning "bid retracted". Which leaves me as the highest bidder at my first bid (not auto-incremented to my limit), so that's OK. It's a good one to flag to eBay though.

What I don't understand is how the retracting bidder (?!) was able to bid 1p more than my hghest auto bid, when the bid increments are £2 on this one.

Steve

Hi There

Bidders can bid what they like.

I expect he placed a bid that just happened to be 1p over your top bid and Ebay would have accepted it if the bid increment was more than the minimum.

I would thing that the cancelled bidder may well just try to outbid you right at the last minute now he knows your maximum bid.

regards David

Now the seller has withdrawn the item !

Steve

<Now the seller has withdrawn the item !>

Steve, chances are that the bidder who retracted placed the higher bid to find your top proxy bid, then made an 'off eBay' offer direct with to seller, this happens a lot with the sweetener of no fees to pay!

John

Here's another cute little eBay trick.

The listed Buy-It-Now price is one thing but as soon as you select a "style" (colour), the price flips up to another (higher) price.

(Unless you choose the "correct" one. See if you can guess which one).

Edited By Sid Herbage on 06/03/2013 23:00:28

Sid

I see nothing wrong in this ... different colours in this case are different prices. (They want to clear the pink ones)

A lot of shops on the high street do the same thing .. so not only ebay. How many times have you seen a price advertized in a shop window, only to find when you go in, that price is only for a odd size/colour and all the others are more expensive.

It is often used for different lengths of a product 1m, 2m etc or different thread sizes 1/8, 1/4, 1/2 etc.

Dave

Edited By Steambuff on 06/03/2013 23:10:21

Well ... actually ... never that I can recall. Different rules in different places I guess but here (Canada) that wouldn't be legal unless the the sign in the window explicitly stated that there were exceptions. (It might be in rather small print but it would be there.)

In this case, in the main listings, the picture shows samples in all colours with the single (and lower) BIN price. No exceptions. I think that's deceptive (and deliberately so) and I think eBay should stomp on it before it becomes the thin end of a wedge..... I guess we'll have to agree to differ.

Well if that happens to me I say to the sales person that is what it is advertised for shrug my shoulders and say have a nice day and start to walk out you will be amazed at the response most times.
They do not like loosing a sale, and are usually paid pennies and work on commision.
As far as Ebay is concerned if I am bidding for a item and it gets over my price I pull out, you will mostly see it turn up again.

Bob

Sid

I think the example you gave us is not a deliberate trick. The only thing wrong with the listing is that it does not say 'From' with the pricing. I would happily accept that in the seller just forgot to put the word.

It is always worth while looking at the feedback ratings. If it not 100% it does not mean the seller is a rougue. I have looked at the last 500 feedbacks for this one and the negatives that are there are ALL from inexperienced buyers.

When I first started buying and selling on eBay I put on some brand new Jeans that were given to my wife. I gave a full and proper description and then got a Negative, which at the time I found very depressing.

The reason given.... 'Because they did not fit'!!!!

Every retailer and seller in the world highlights or promotes the lowest price, nothing new in this case.

Ian

Finally, I won the auction. In the interin I did swap notes with the seller. He told me he was sick and tired of complaints about how he had described the item...GIven I won the re-listed item at almost £10 less than my previous top bid, the seller at least was genuine.

Anyone else see the irony in the email you get from Ebay.

"Congratulations, you have won the auction "

No I haven't won it you cretin, it's just that I have bid more than the next guy, just as I haven't won a pound of apples at Asda, I have just paid what it says on the tin.

I usually buy apples in bags, not tins

Regards,

Tony