posted 11-30-2005 07:10 AM               

Every single time you win an auction on eBay you should check the bidding history. In fact you should so this before the auction ends too, or even before you bid.

Crude shill bidding usually involves the seller using a buyer with either (0) or (1) feedback, but any low number is worth checking out. Some sellers use multiple shill bidder accounts. The key thing is to look for any bidders with low feedback.

For each of these bidders, first look at their actual feedback. If most or all of the feedbacks they have are from this seller you're almost certainly looking at a case of shill bidding.

Next use the Advanced Search facility to check the bidding history of the user, being sure to include closed items even if the bidder was not the high bidder. Again, if the user is always bidding on sales by the same seller you're likely looking at shill bidding. To confirm it take a look at the bidding history of any lots listed and see how the user placed their bids.

There are other giveaways such as a bid being placed minutes after the listing is placed (this is shill bidding as a form of reserve), often on every item a particular seller lists, and of course always from the same low-feedback 'buyer'.

When you've identified what looks like a case of shill bidding report it immediately to eBay: http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/seller-shill-bidding.html
Just give the seller and bidder ids, and a few example items where the shill bidding has taken place.

Believe me, they do actually investigate, and they have access to the complete history of all user transactions (probably with IP addresses used etc).

In my experience both user accounts will usually be "no longer a registered user" within a day or so. Of course the crook will probably re-register a short while later but at least you'll have slowed them down a bit.

posted 11-30-2005 10:26 AM               

A 'genuine' Neil Armstrong autograph currently listed on eBay: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=6584277948

The item has 1 bid from 0374agi (1).

Checking the bidding history we can see that 0374agi was extremely keen to bid on this lovely autograph as his bid was placed at Nov-29-05 12:45:11 PST, less than 3 minutes after the item was listed at 12:42:17 PST.

Now let's see who gave 0374agi his (1) feedback: http://feedback.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewFeedback&userid=0374agi

Funnily-enough all the feedback comes from the seller of this item!

Because this particular user is regsitered in Germany it's not possible to check his bidding history but my guess is you'd see he had only bid on items from the same seller.

Now checking the same seller's feedback we can look at one of his closed auctions: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=6221695747

Looking at the bidding history who do we see bidding? Yep, it's our old friend 0374agi. Once again he placed the first bid at 45 Euros, although this time it was a little after the auction started.

You can see that the shill bidding on this item forced the eventual buyer to pay 68 Euros for the item when the highest bid by a genuine bidder was actually 35.01 Euros. It's the same sad story with most of the other items listed by the seller.

posted 11-30-2005 11:54 AM               

quote:

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Believe me, they do actually investigate

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posted 11-30-2005 12:33 PM               

Hi,
I agree, poor Armstrong the signature would have put me off from the start rather than the idea of shill bidding.However your post certainly gives food for thought.Thanks,
Nick.