Seller Guilty of 'Shill Bidding'
By newtalent
@newtalent (1112)
United States
April 22, 2010 6:41am CST
Seller is accused of shill bidding which is against eBay's policy to encourage higher bidding when you are actually bidding against yourself.
Shill bidding for those that do not know is when a seller is bidding on the same merchandise that he is selling to increase bids on his items. In this case he also went further to leave feedback for himself.
His defense is that eBay allowed him to open a second account with the same information. He apparently did not read the guidelines very well. Ignorance of proper procedure is not an excuse--READ or DO NOT SELL!
I personally would like higher bids on my stuff, but I am not going to bid against myself, geez, some people make it so much harder for others.
Do you this is fair or do you think a warning letter should of happened first? What are your thoughts?
http://www.auctiva.com/edu/entry.aspx?id=Seller-Guilty-of-Shill-Bidding
4 responses
@benny128 (3615)
•
22 Apr 10
yeah i heard about this guy am sure he lived in my neck of the woods as well.
To be honest it is fraud, when anyone buys or bids on ebay they have actually entered into a legal contract to buy the item if they win it and can actually be prosecuted if they don't go through with the purchase.
So shill bidding is very naughty and it is by the letter of the law gaining by deception. Or fraud so nope I totally agree with the prosecution and why should he get a warning if you done that in any other situation you would be prosecuted no questions asked.
@standbymeforever (887)
• Australia
22 Apr 10
Well I guess the question would be is how do you know that the person is himself first off? Also is he/she still doing this or has the account been suspended or closed?
I agree with you though. I too am also a seller but I do not think this is very good way to go about your business.
@newtalent (1112)
• United States
22 Apr 10
He had 2 separate accounts and leaving feedback on himself from the other account he had of how great the transaction was and all . It is a simple cross reference and I am sure the system picked it up. I mean he was not really hiding what he did, he was trying to inflate the selling price which is against the rules.
@standbymeforever (887)
• Australia
22 Apr 10
I see what you mean. Well I hope for everyones sake that is got caught and has been banned from ebay. Its too bad people really have to stoop that low as to do this.
@Hatley (163776)
• Garden Grove, California
23 Apr 10
hi newtalent my thoughts are the seller who did the shill bidding deserved whatever Ebay decides to do to him. He should have read Ebays guidelines first before attempting to sell anything.no wonder I quit
using Ebay as for one thing whatever I saved on a item I lost on the
blasted postage. why should the person need a warning letter if he had read the guidelines? oh well some do not read mylot guidelines either so I suppose a warning letter might help. A person doing shill bidding is probably a person who has done crooked things before.
@dorannmwin (36392)
• United States
24 Apr 10
This is wrong and it is especially wrong that the man had two accounts with all of the same information. That isn't good at all. Now, I know that things similar to this happen all the time on ebay where person A is selling and item and they get their friends to bid on the items to run up the price to a certain degree so that they can make more money, but the cases that I know of is not truly the same person bidding on the item as the person that is selling the item.
