EBay seller to be fined for shill bidding!
- Thread starter Ersk
- Start date
Mr Barrett said he did not realise he was breaking the law. ''eBay let me open the second account and I gave all my personal details and home address to do so.
What's the saying.. assumptions are the mother of all F*** Ups
Its part of their policy and in the user agreement that its illegal, granted 99.99% of people wouldnt read the thing.
What's the saying.. assumptions are the mother of all F*** Ups
Its part of their policy and in the user agreement that its illegal, granted 99.99% of people wouldnt read the thing.
It's like saying....nobpody told me I was not allowed to kill someone, so I did not know it was illegal. Doesn't matter. Or I was not told I was not allowed to drive with a child on my lap and without my seat belt on.
If you do something, you are responsible to know the rules and laws around doing those things. You cannot claim ignorance as an offence.
As to EBay rules saying it is illegal.......for their rules, it is just rules to control what you do on their sites, so you can be barred from their site.
This actually goes further. It is Law in the UK, not just site policies and agreements. So EBay will not prosecute you, the courts will. So much heavier (an dmore significant) than just EBay rules.
Ersk
Crazy stuff!!!
Can someone give me some signs of how to spot it before or when it's actually happening, (if there are any ways to spot it)
I think it happened to me a couple weeks ago but only realized the day after....
I was bidding on a MJ dunk n go nuts card was back and forth in the lead and then I held off as the price got higher and it never changed, about 10 seconds to go I put a autobid of $145 (which I thought would be way over asking price) I lost to a $146 bid...within 24 hours I had a request saying the seller had a duplicate...I emailed and said I'll give you 120 delivered and he accepted. Then I thought about it and thought I quite possibly might of just screwed myself!!!
Does that sound legit? I didn't really know what shill bidding was till I asked a member and he sort if explained it, but I wouldn't really know if it was happening or not
Can someone give me some signs of how to spot it before or when it's actually happening, (if there are any ways to spot it)
I think it happened to me a couple weeks ago but only realized the day after....
I was bidding on a MJ dunk n go nuts card was back and forth in the lead and then I held off as the price got higher and it never changed, about 10 seconds to go I put a autobid of $145 (which I thought would be way over asking price) I lost to a $146 bid...within 24 hours I had a request saying the seller had a duplicate...I emailed and said I'll give you 120 delivered and he accepted. Then I thought about it and thought I quite possibly might of just screwed myself!!!
Does that sound legit? I didn't really know what shill bidding was till I asked a member and he sort if explained it, but I wouldn't really know if it was happening or not
Shill bidding......
You put something up for sale
People look and bid on it
You use another account (your 2nd account, a friends account, etc) to bid on it
Basically in real estate terms - dummy bidding
You do that to get it up to a price you want.
This can be achieved without shilling by just putting a reserve price or just putting the opening bid high. But the disadvantages of these are - with high opening bid is people may not see how much interest there is on the card and so may not want to bid on it. Also there is not that adrenalin pushing you on to bid a little higher and a little higher and so pushing the price up. Some people also do not like reserve auctions.
How can you tell?
Click on the bid history, and see the bids. Then click on the people making the bids and seeing what proportions of their bids are with this one seller. There is no sure way but what I look for are:
- Bidders with 0 feedback and are new
- bidders with a high proportion of bids with this one seller.
- bidding on the item keeps going up by a set amount by one bidder until it just reaches over the previous high bidder. (eg Bidder A has 10 then 20 then 30 then 40 then 46, and bidder B has bid of 45, and all of bidder A's bid have come after bidder B's bid.......Bidder A is the shiller and gues what his bid is?????? - $50).
I don't know if that is how others people try figure it out but that is my way.
There is apparently one website, and you put in 2 different EBay IDs, then they tell you if it is a shiller. I think it cross references the seller and the bidder and see how many bids they do together.
Ersk
You put something up for sale
People look and bid on it
You use another account (your 2nd account, a friends account, etc) to bid on it
Basically in real estate terms - dummy bidding
You do that to get it up to a price you want.
This can be achieved without shilling by just putting a reserve price or just putting the opening bid high. But the disadvantages of these are - with high opening bid is people may not see how much interest there is on the card and so may not want to bid on it. Also there is not that adrenalin pushing you on to bid a little higher and a little higher and so pushing the price up. Some people also do not like reserve auctions.
How can you tell?
Click on the bid history, and see the bids. Then click on the people making the bids and seeing what proportions of their bids are with this one seller. There is no sure way but what I look for are:
- Bidders with 0 feedback and are new
- bidders with a high proportion of bids with this one seller.
- bidding on the item keeps going up by a set amount by one bidder until it just reaches over the previous high bidder. (eg Bidder A has 10 then 20 then 30 then 40 then 46, and bidder B has bid of 45, and all of bidder A's bid have come after bidder B's bid.......Bidder A is the shiller and gues what his bid is?????? - $50).
I don't know if that is how others people try figure it out but that is my way.
There is apparently one website, and you put in 2 different EBay IDs, then they tell you if it is a shiller. I think it cross references the seller and the bidder and see how many bids they do together.
Ersk
hairyangryfella
Tag Team Quads 93/94
That's a good analysis, though it's not just 0 feedback - generally anyone with low (say, under 20) with a high percentage of bids with the same seller is a suspect. Just don't immediately assume anyone with a high percentage is a shiller, as some sellers have regular repeat buyers (Attyball for example). My most recent example of shilling against me was an auction where the bidder had 100% activity with the seller, and had placed 30-odd bids on 20-odd items of the same seller.
As well as those mentioned above, you also look for withdrawn bids, especially if they have made several bids and only withdraw after they take the lead - the most obvious cases of shill bidding.
Most people tend to avoid shilled auctions, as the item may be made available for sale again shortly afterwards, or just as a matter of principle.
What a load of SH*T!!!
That is one of the worst laws i have heard. $5,000 for doing it once! Who the F*ck cares about this sort of thing. If we are going to start picking people up on this why not bother prosecuting everyone who records a program off TV with out written consent to do so? Or anyone who downloads something off the internet illegally? Its just ridiculous that someone could get in serious trouble for this rubbish!!!
That is one of the worst laws i have heard. $5,000 for doing it once! Who the F*ck cares about this sort of thing. If we are going to start picking people up on this why not bother prosecuting everyone who records a program off TV with out written consent to do so? Or anyone who downloads something off the internet illegally? Its just ridiculous that someone could get in serious trouble for this rubbish!!!
hairyangryfella
Tag Team Quads 93/94
Are you serious? Shill bidding is a menace. It is ripping off regular people by making them have to pay more than they should, because the seller has upped the price by doing something that is clearly stated as being against the rules.
hairyangryfella
Tag Team Quads 93/94
Not at all! I got shilled on a snipe recently... he shilled up to $150 and though my snipe was set for about $180, had he not shilled I would have gotten it for just over $100. No rashness there, just ripped off.
I understand how you feel, I feel ****ty as well when you know if the other person didnt bid, you would have got a great bargain. I get shilled all the time but I stop bidding when it reaches my budget. It all comes down to how badly you need the card, you can always wait for another one to show up. We are out to get bargains, they are out to stop people like us from bargain hunting. Not the right way to do business but it happens. I think it's a bit harsh to fine the guy 5000 for doing it. They might as well ban real estate auctions altogether, and what's that crap called the "Vendor's bid". That's a shill bid up the seller's sleeve.
GarnettFan4Life
OZCT Supporter
haven't watched the news much have you? see how many cases there are trying to get IP's to send warning letters and pass on people's info who illegally download movies etc. massive amounts of coverage.
i agree, they should go after someone who has had warnings or multiple offences, not a first timer, looks like they will just make an example of anyone
---------- Post added 23-04-2010 at 12:29 PM ----------
probably is mate, i'd be more worried if it was a way rarer card, although $120 in no chump change. i have bought a couple of cards where i was outbid then received a second chance offer, i asked how the response could be so quick and he said he had multiple of the item. it was only a few bucks so i bought it and received it ok. some sellers do this to avoid the ridiculous ebay fees but it creates doubt and confusion i think, and not sure how it affects their feedback, it would be as if they are receiving feedback twice for one item.
i feel your pain brother. its annoying because a lot of times we have "no choice" (well we always do but for passion of the hobby...) and have to fork out 2x or even 3x as much to get what we want
i have knowingly paid up to 3x times what i know the card is regularly worth to get a card... and when you go for expensive sets its a lot of money
Its not ripping anyone off. Its your choice to buy it or not! If the price goes too high its simple JUST DONT BUY! It is there item to start with after all so if you dont get a bargain just get over it and stop b*tching! There are far worse things that can happen than that.
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