From: JEFF HAIN-MATSON (flmv@flmv.net)
Date: Sun Nov 21 2004 - 06:29:42 PST
Your still missing the point, collusion, between 2 or more people (whether it
is to keep the price low, or run the price up) no matter how many potential
bidder there are is illegal!! By the way this is part of U.S. Anti Trust law.
That is why it takes a large dollar value to get the government attention to
prosecute.
There is however no wiggle room according to the law. It is illegal!!
In the end you can believe what you want, pretend to be ignorant of the law
and learn an expensive lesson some day if you are un lucky!!
I, on the other hand saw what happened in the mid 90's to honest surplus
dealers, and how much it cost them to prove they were honest. From this I
have learned a valuable lesson.
jeff
Steve Grammont wrote:
> Dan,
>
> > I rarely see more than a dozen
> >bids for any one item.
>
> And how many of them know each other and, more importantly, are working
> in collusion? Near zero. And as far as the chances of bidders ensuring
> that this is the case, absolute zero.
>
> >And if those dozen are working together, it
> >isn't an auction any more.
>
> On eBay, at least, this is simply not possible. Even when only ONE
> person appears to be bidding on an item, the bidder has no idea who else
> might be looking to place a bid. Some bidders always wait until the
> final couple of seconds to place a bid for exactly this reason.
> Therefore, if the ones colluding REALLY want the item they had better put
> in a serious bid or they have a very big chance of losing because they
> CAN NOT CONTROL THE BIDDING.
>
> As I outlined in an earlier email, collusion between friends can actually
> be beneficial to the seller or at least have no effect. For a real life
> example:
>
> I found something I wanted but the high bidder was a friend of mine. We
> had no preexisting agreement (collusion), so I did not place a bid.
> Instead I emailed him and asked if he was serious about bidding. He said
> no and that he was fine with me outbidding him. That is collusion. His
> top bid was 30 Euros, I put in a bid for 100 Euros. The bid indexed up
> to 31 Euros, 11 Euros higher than before. Now... if nobody else bid the
> seller would have walked away with 11 more Euros than if I hadn't bid at
> all (which I would not have if my friend hadn't "colluded" with me). As
> it turned out someone in the last hour bid over me and then someone bid
> over him, ending in a bloodbath exchange during the final seconds. Final
> price was 156 Euros. Did our collusion hurt the seller? No. Could it
> have helped him? Sure. Did it preserve a friendship between two people?
> Yes. So what is wrong with that?
>
> Collusion on eBay of the sort I outlined above is harmless to the seller,
> therefore not ethically questionable. Shlling, on the other hand, is a
> totally different matter.
>
> Steve
>
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-- JEFF HAIN-MATSON FRONT LINE MILITARY VEHICLES WEB SITE: http://www.flmv.net/ WRIGHTSVILLE PA 717-252-4489 VOICE 717-252-4499 FAX flmv@flmv.net E-MAIL MVPA #1833 IMPS #1726 MVT #9362
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