strange bidding on ebay

[darren01]

Hi

Bit of a strange going on with some bidding on EBay, I placed a bid and was out bid, OK no problem.

When looking at the bidding it came up with private bidder, I placed a bid of £65.00 and was out bid, with a bid of £63.00?.

Every time I placed a new bid I was out bid again with a lower bid, from the same person, also I noticed that he has been putting bid on against himself

I can not understand how you can be out bide with lower bids? .

Also the item started at 0.99p , then the private bidder place a bid in at £15.00 ,then two minutes later place another bid at £25.00, then £35.00 twice ,then £36.00 and so on , until I came in at £40.00.

This person is the only other bidder for this item, no one else has come into the bid. 

I am getting the feeling that this is the person selling the item and is pushing the price up on me?.

 

Hi

I  put this up the other day about something i was biding on,the person i was bidding agents was a private bidder , who kept pushing up the price.

In the end i dropped out as it was only me and him/her doing the bidding, they won the bid, but as soon as the bid was finished i was offered the item at the last bid price,just seem to me the person who had put it on eBay was the one who was pushing the bid up,why win then realist it straight after with an offer?

is this allowed on eBay?

I did report this to eBay but they have never got back to me about this!

Darren

[backofanenvelope]

Self up-bidding is definitely not allowed Darren

 

http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/seller-shill-bidding.html

[Ian Abel]

Darren,

  Not sure about the particular event you participated in, quite does sound like someone "assisting" the seller push the price.

 

In general terms as far as I recall, and eBay does have slightly difference terms depending on the country, at least here in the US there is a so-called "second chance" option/offer, whereby if the winning bidder renegs or otherwise bails out of the purchase the seller can offer it to the second highest bidder. I think it's optional for the seller to do that, and I HAVE only once, had that offer extended to me. Unfortunately for the seller, I'd already secured another similar item so was no longer interested...

[RFS]

I did report this to eBay but they have never got back to me about this!

 

They won't come back to you, but this doesn't mean it's not investigated.

 

"However, our User Privacy Notice prevents us from disclosing the details of our investigation to other members, including the person who reported the issue."

[EddieB]

All the more reason to use a "snipe" program.  That way you conceal your hand from the seller and other bidders until its too late for them to react to your bid.  Also stops you from chasing an item beyond what you're prepared to pay for it.

[pH]

When looking at the bidding it came up with private bidder, I placed a bid of £65.00 and was out bid, with a bid of £63.00?.

Every time I placed a new bid I was out bid again with a lower bid, from the same person.

Darren

I understand the 'shill' bidding, leading to the offer to Darren to buy at his last bid. However, does anyone have an explanation for this part of Darren's OP - being outbid by a lower bid?

[darren01]

Hi

Thanks guys for the info on this one, In the end I did not bother with said item, as it had gone far higher than I wanted to go, But I have reported it  eBay, so will wait and see what happens.

Once again thanks

Darren 

[Thane of Fife]

I don't use a snipe program, but decide the maximum I'm prepared to pay for the item and enter the bid shortly before the closure time.

I think there are people who use friends to hike up the bidding.

I hope that they get banned.

If everybody refused the so called second chance offers, then the vendor would get stuck with the items.

 

Thane of Fife

[Chris Chewter]

"If everybody refused the so called second chance offers, then the vendor would get stuck with the items."

 

Sorry but no.  The seller pretends to sell it to his mate, and then relists the item again.  Stuck with the item for a few more days or weeks and the inconvenience of double final value fees perhaps.  ​Unfortunately this is the problem with the auction process. Where there is an auction, shill bidding will occur.

 

I'm more interested by being outbid by £2 less than your submitted price.  However without a screen shot, or further information, I think that one will remain a mystery!

[Thane of Fife]

Thanks Captainalbino for the information.

 

I am obviously not devious enough to think ways to con people with dodgy bidding.

 

Thane of fife

[34theletterbetweenB&D]

"If everybody refused the so called second chance offers, then the vendor would get stuck with the items."

 

Sorry but no.  The seller pretends to sell it to his mate, and then relists the item again.  Stuck with the item for a few more days or weeks and the inconvenience of double final value fees perhaps.  ​Unfortunately this is the problem with the auction process. Where there is an auction, shill bidding will occur....

But it is the 'second chance' principle that makes shill bidding worthwhile on ebay, and thereby effectively embeds it in the process. The simple presence of a shill participating in an auction will act to raise prices. Nothing beats rerunning the auction from the original starting price with the failed bidder excluded.

 

In a real auction, a shill has to stump up the cash and auctioneer's fee whenever they accidentally 'win'; if someone were to win a lot at an auction, then the auctioneer offers the lot to the underbidder immediately at their final bid, the smell of rat would be rank and apparent to all, collusion between auctioneer and shill. What has to happen if the auctioneer is to sell the item is to restart the auction at the original starting value, with the failed (shill) bidder excluded. Then a fair price is obtained.

[PaulCheffus]

I don't use a snipe program, but decide the maximum I'm prepared to pay for the item and enter the bid shortly before the closure time.

I think there are people who use friends to hike up the bidding.

I hope that they get banned.

If everybody refused the so called second chance offers, then the vendor would get stuck with the items.

 

Thane of Fife

Hi

 

However I was selling something a few years ago and clearly stated I wouldn't accept Paypal (this was before it was mandatory) and the winning bidder then refused to pay unless I would accept paypal. I sold it to the second highest bidder and had I not had this option then I would have had to go through the whole process again.

 

Cheers

 

Paul

[boc]

It may not be as bad as you suggest, although that is a possibility.

 

It is possible that a bidder can put a bid on, say £15 and then decide he wants to top up to £25, then £35 etc. this may account for the same bidder showing as bidding again etc. Just to clarify, this isn't bidding against oneself, and is suggested by ebay. I have noticed it showing like this, when I have bid early on items and then decided to up my maximum later. Of course, if the buying user was the same as the one selling, that would be wrong, but I doubt you'd see this with the anonymised user names.

 

I'm not sure about the lower bid than yours problem, but I think it might come from the incremental bids that ebay uses. It may be that although your maximum bid is higher than the figure the previous higher bidder had submitted, it is not above the threshold for the next bid once all of the counter bids between you and the previous highest bidder have been calculated. This is particularly noticeable when the bidder uses something like 1p more than the increment.

 

I may be wrong but hope this helps.