Bad Ebay Users - The Official Warning Thread

Le fjump · Post by **Le fjump** » Thu May 19, 2011 8:05 pm

Why is bid retractions even allowed? It opens up for shill bidders and exposes peoples highest bid.

gigadeth · Post by **gigadeth** » Fri May 20, 2011 3:38 pm

Le fjump wrote:Why is bid retractions even allowed? It opens up for shill bidders and exposes peoples highest bid.

http://pages.ebay.com/help/buy/question ... t-bid.html

unlike the general rule, buyers can retract his bid without any problem because ebay or seller can't prove if the bidder is honest or not.

gigadeth · Post by **gigadeth** » Fri May 20, 2011 5:23 pm

but there is an excetional case. assume that the average price of any CD is $50, and you have 2 ebay accounts. you bid on it for $99.99 and $100 each using the 2 accounts. then the current bid is $100. most buyers who wanted to buy the CD, will give up bidding because the price is already so high. and then you cancel your bids when the remaining time is several hours, and bid on it again for low price. even if somebody found the current price get lower, most buyer don't bid on it because the auction is strange. and when the remaining time of any auction is 12 hours or less, seller can't end the auction. all the seller can do is to cancel the bid. but worse situation for the seller.

this is real story. i found such auction and reported it to ebay. and promptly ebay kicked the accounts out.

Dark Stranger · Post by **Dark Stranger** » Sun May 22, 2011 12:45 am

Yep - it's called "bid shielding", very sneaky.

CloudsOfMetal · Post by **CloudsOfMetal** » Mon May 23, 2011 6:12 am

gigadeth wrote:but there is an excetional case. assume that the average price of any CD is $50, and you have 2 ebay accounts. you bid on it for $99.99 and $100 each using the 2 accounts. then the current bid is $100. most buyers who wanted to buy the CD, will give up bidding because the price is already so high. and then you cancel your bids when the remaining time is several hours, and bid on it again for low price. even if somebody found the current price get lower, most buyer don't bid on it because the auction is strange. and when the remaining time of any auction is 12 hours or less, seller can't end the auction. all the seller can do is to cancel the bid. but worse situation for the seller.

this is real story. i found such auction and reported it to ebay. and promptly ebay kicked the accounts out.

Wow, that's really a tactic of bastards..

humus · Post by **humus** » Sat Jun 18, 2011 8:49 am

http://feedback.benl.ebay.be/ws/eBayISA ... llFeedback

Seems like Laurent Piette has played his favourite game again: sell loads and loads of items then sell one last batch and dissapear from the face of the planet. This is the third or fourth time he has done this over the years.

nabel · Post by **nabel** » Sat Jun 18, 2011 4:25 pm

humus wrote:http://feedback.benl.ebay.be/ws/eBayISA ... llFeedback

Seems like Laurent Piette has played his favourite game again: sell loads and loads of items then sell one last batch and dissapear from the face of the planet. This is the third or fourth time he has done this over the years.

Got my fingers burned...

gigadeth · Post by **gigadeth** » Sat Jul 23, 2011 11:48 am

this seller is already ripping off some poor people

u***j (4977) is his friend, momojirou

http://offer.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll? ... 0230528435

http://offer.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll? ... 0634538911

http://offer.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll? ... 0230490288

and many others

momojirou is bidding on drgoon's 33 items at the moment :

http://offer.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll? ... e_ViewLink

another known account for rip-off is norzy as like this :

z***r (private) is norzy

http://offer.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll? ... 0634276138

http://offer.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll? ... 0230378189

norzy is bidding on drgoon's 38 items at the moment :

http://offer.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll? ... HuyA%3D%3D

Helstar · Post by **Helstar** » Sat Jul 23, 2011 12:26 pm

There's really nothing new, the actions of these people are already known...

If you want to buy a cd on eBay most of the times you have to pay what the seller wants, this is the reality ^^

Although I don't understand why they don't put directly that sum as starting price, makes no sense to put 9$ and then shill bid to 50$, unless there's still a huge difference in eBay starting price fees ?

Heathen · Post by **Heathen** » Sat Jul 23, 2011 4:20 pm

its psychology. If you see a CD listed for 50$ you think "it is not worth that much" but if you see someone actually offer 50$ then you think "it looks like it is worth that much!", and bid.

Dark Stranger · Post by **Dark Stranger** » Sun Jul 24, 2011 12:15 am

Yeah, it's the desire for a bargain. You won't bid $50 for an LP, but if you start bidding for it at $1, you'll happily bid up to $60 because it was originally "worth" $1.

Stormspell · Post by **Stormspell** » Sun Jul 24, 2011 1:06 am

Dark Stranger wrote:Yeah, it's the desire for a bargain. You won't bid $50 for an LP, but if you start bidding for it at $1, you'll happily bid up to $60 because it was originally "worth" $1.

Well, I'd rather bid $1 on $60 item than fork $60 for item worth one dollar, but that's only me I guess

Dark Stranger · Post by **Dark Stranger** » Sun Jul 24, 2011 10:23 pm

Haha, you know what I mean man, if two sellers put a $60 LP up for sale, one at $1 and one at $60, nobody will bid on the $60 LP, but people will bid the $1 up to and beyond the $60 value of it - because they think it's a bargain, as it started at only a dollar. Seen it so many times as a seller!

I recall selling a Cloven Hoof "Fighting Back" LP at £0.99, and it went for £53, yet there was one for £20 that nobody bid on, because mine was seen as a "bargain" at 99p. Despite the fact the other bidder at war with the winner should have just cut out and bought the cheaper one!

It's the psychology of wanting to beat the other guy, I'm guilty of it myself, I've often bid a certain "top price" and then, after being outbid, tagging a few more quid on the price, just to get it.

mega_lodon · Post by **mega_lodon** » Mon Jul 25, 2011 9:12 am

Shill bidding is about maximizing the profit in auctions. Sellers who use shill bidding can gain higher profit because of the low listing fees. They also want to make their investments worthwhile as some rare items they acquired are not cheap in the first place.

Shill bidding also makes people believe there’s a “demand” in the particular item and that can invite bidding war on the auction.
And here comes a bigger problem: since shill bidding can result in high end-prices of the auction items, those insane prices will then become a reference – a price guide so to speak – for other sellers who want to sell the same items at fixed prices on ebay or outside ebay.

By the way, gigadeth has been playing great ebay police for quite a while but it seems like not many people here thank the guy for his effort. I guess everyone has a little skeleton in his closet?

gigadeth · Post by **gigadeth** » Mon Jul 25, 2011 11:15 am

mega_lodon wrote:By the way, gigadeth has been playing great ebay police for quite a while but it seems like not many people here thank the guy for his effort. I guess everyone has a little skeleton in his closet?

no, i didn't make any effort to find such dirty activities. i just have some friends in japan and korea, and got their secret information from there.

i guess many sellers in usa and europe are also doing shill bidding, but i can't know who is definitely doing shill bidding. when i started this topic, i hoped some people in usa and europe do same thing. but unfortunately.... it looks like only the sellers of japan and korea are doing shill bidding. but that is not what i wanted. most people here are also doing shill bidding as seller??