From: Steve Grammont (islander@midmaine.com)
Date: Wed Jul 21 2004 - 09:58:43 PDT
>Hi Steve
>How can you tell FOR SURE if a bid is a shill? I think that may have
>happened to me before. I wondered why the seller just didn't put a
>higher starting price in the first place. I was guessing it was but
>did not have any PROOF to give Ebay.
I manage a BBS with 15,000 members and we are very often able to tell
when people are posting with multiple accounts or are trying to come back
after being banned. You can bet your last dollar that eBay has even more
tools at their disposal than we have. They have access to all account
information. For example, if they check two accounts and find they use
the same credit card number, paypal account, deliverable address, etc.
that is enough right there. I;m sure there are more subtle signs as well.
In my case it was a Dutch Auction for 2 items. The value of these things
is about $100 each. I had bid on one and someone else had bid on the
other. Price was something like $65. Someone comes along and outbids us
by about $150. If you know how Dutch Auctions work this is a big tip off
right there. The bidder had only a few bids to his name and all were
WWII Russian stuff (the auction was for 1980s Hungarian). Then that one
was disallowed. Then right before the auction another bidder put in a
bid for $200 some odd dollars for BOTH of them. That means if the guy
was legit he just paid $400 for something that is at most worth $200
*and* it was roughly $280 more than the current bidding. Either he is
the biggest fool ever (possible), or he was a shill. Profile of the
successful bidder? A few bids to his name for WWII Russian stuff.
Gee... what a coincidence!
It is very hard to tell shills from real bidders. But this was so
blatant. And eBay never, ever responded. IIRC I even sent a follow up
email and got nothing back from that either. THEY JUST DON'T CARE
because that takes time, and time is money.
Steve
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