What's with all the under-10 bidders?

[Greg2600]

(EBAY) This has probably been discussed before, but I don't know really how to phrase it for the search engine. I've noticed that often, I'll put a bid in at say $20, and the starting bid is $5. I'm the first one. Then shortly before the auction ends, somebody with 1 or 2 only in feedback, bids the price up to $19 or $20, but somehow doesn't go over. What is the deal here? Is this the seller opening a second fake account and purposely driving the price up? Are these the spammers I often glance at posts talking about? I've never really seen this before until lately on ebay.

[ryborg]

It's possible. With ebay's new commitment to bidder anonymity, shilling as a seller has never been easier because smart buyers can't prove shill patterns that would have been obvious before. This is why I *only* snipe for auction-style listings.

[Greg2600]

In the past, I would always forget to bid. Several times I've missed out on a good steal by 2 minutes because I was busy getting a snack. So, nowadays I just bid a dollar or two over the minimum, in case nobody else bids. If I get outbid, I'll see about sneaking one in at the end, at my price. If I lose, so be it. Now with this stuff, I'm going to stick with never putting anything higher than a buck or two over the minimum. I was very surprised, because in the past, it was actually fairly difficult to set up an ebay account. It wasn't like Yahoo or Hotmail email accounts or something. You had to prove your address, checking account in some cases. I guess ebay doesn't bother to check anymore?

[ryborg]

Nope, all you need is an email address to register as a buyer in most cases. You need a bank account/CC if you use hotmail/yahoo/something free+common, but there are plenty of domains that ebay accepts at face value. I believe they auto-accept any email registered with an internet provider (AOL, roadrunner, etc)

[Greg2600]

ah-right, well now I know, and knowing is half the battle.

[Frankie_Says_Relax]

It's possible. With ebay's new commitment to bidder anonymity, shilling as a seller has never been easier because smart buyers can't prove shill patterns that would have been obvious before. This is why I *only* snipe for auction-style listings.

So...eBay no longer checks IPs/account activity for shill bidders???

[ryborg]

So...eBay no longer checks IPs/account activity for shill bidders???

They may, but for years, the only time it seemed ebay would investigate shilling is when people would report the seller with proof. Remember, it's not in ebay's best interest to suspend sellers who shill because they make money on the higher final bid price.

[megasdkirby]

It would be neat if it was possible to garner evidence that shows that Ebay does little to stop shilling.

Then slam them with a $100 million lawsuit.

MUAHAHAHAHA!!!!

Hey, I can only dream :)

[mobiusclimber]

I use a program to snipe for me, so I usually don't miss out and don't have to sit around waiting for an auction to end. I use JBidwatcher, not sure if that's the best or not, it's just the only one I've tried and don't have too many complaints about it.

As for shilling bidding, it might seem like whomever is bidding is just doing it to drive the price up, but it's also possible it's someone like me w/ a sniping program that just has it set to bid a certain amount, in the case of your example, under $20. Or that's just what someone is doing. I mean, shill bidding is usually obvious when there are a lot of small bids at the end and the price goes up in small increments. Even the dealer has no idea what your max bid is. The other sign of chicaneery is when you are outbid but before the auction ends the dealer cancels that bid so you're the winner (again, there would be a lot of small bids leading up to that one so that when they cancel the winning bid, you have to pay your max bid). I don't think either of these are disguised simply by anonymity tho it's a little harder to prove (for you, not for Ebay).

[stuffedmonkey]

Yeah I love jbidwatcher. It works well and it's free. They have a version for Mac PC and Linux.