Shill Bidding on eBay

[lazzeri]

Seriously dude come on.

 

This pretty much sums it up.

 

 

Let them buy their own auctions.

 

DON'T bid in advance! Don't allow them to see your max bid. You honestly think a snipe program gives someone time to outbid you, then retract their bid in the last 5 seconds of an auction??

 

Everything you are saying is not correct. Most people don't bid $20 using a sniping program for an item that is only worth $11. Nobody can outbid you to find your max bid and then retract and bid you up in the last 5 seconds of the auction.

 

If you want to prevent shill bidding don't bid more than an item is worth! make them relist it.

You are right. If we were in the same room I'd buy you a cold beverage of your choice.

[Osgeld]

Is it shill bidding or cheap asses like me

 

See what happens is I'm looking for a console to clean mod and flip oh there's one place bid... increase bid .... increase bid... increase bid, oh to hell with it, its hit my price vs profit threshold moving on

 

Also if I feel that something is worth 20 bucks or whatever i don't feel "robbed" cause I feel entitled to get it cheaper, that was my choice, if I want it cheaper I put in a lower max bid, and if I don't win it ... there's plenty more

Edited August 13, 2016 by Osgeld

[thadsilverfox]

 

No you were fully clear. Normal auction sells for $11. I'm saying why in the hell are you willing to pay DOUBLE what it is worth. That shit's your own fault if you do that.

 

The difference here is you are assuming nobody else will bid higher than $11 and that may be true. However if the item Normally sells for $20 odds are not likely all the millions of people on ebay will just let that auction sell for $11. Realistically the ONLY way that auction is not getting bid over $11 is if the item is not worth over $11!

I understood the posters point. Forget the $11 or $20. The point is that you end up paying more in the end due to shill bidding.

[Osgeld]

but not more than you were willing to pay in the first place

[7800fan]

^^ this. If you're willing to pay max $20 and a shill bumps it to $19, it is still below your max limit. It may hurt since you paid more than what would have been non-shilled amount but still less than max.

 

If you despise shill, wait until the last few seconds of the auction, no time for shill to bump it high, retract, then rebid to just below your money.

[thadsilverfox]

but not more than you were willing to pay in the first place

Your logical fallacy is strawman.

[thadsilverfox]

^^ this. If you're willing to pay max $20 and a shill bumps it to $19, it is still below your max limit.

Another strawman argument.

[fiddlepaddle]

NOT a strawman argument; it is real:

 

If the item is worth $20 and the buyer gets it for $11, one might say the buyer has stolen $9 of the sellers product...buyers "good luck" happens to be the sellers "bad luck".

 

That shill bid merely ensured the seller didn't get taken advantage of by an aberration (another VALID way to look at this scenario).

[Osgeld]

It's not a strawman argument (not even sure you know what that really is)

 

The original argument is you agree with eBay that you are willing to pay x dollars for an item, while getting pissed off that you may have to pay the price YOU set for YOURSELF

 

To go back to the 11 vs 20 argument if you are willing to pay 20 and you yourself put that amount in and you win,wtf are you bitching about cause NOW you think you should have gotten it cheaper

 

If you want it cheaper don't agree to more than you are willing to pay, this whole shill bidding thing comes off as whining

 

Especially since I just told you I will see an item, hell even days out and make multiple nitpicky bids on it until it's out of my interest and move on never looking back, its not a shill bit I just got out priced for what I'm willing to spend

 

And I'll drive an auction from 99 cents on up 1 freaking minimum bid at a time just to see what the competition is thinking

 

I just did that on a game gear from 99 cents to 21$ 6 hours out and said fine you can have it to whoever was the other auto bidder in like 6 min flat and never looked back.

Edited August 16, 2016 by Osgeld

[+phoenixdownita]

Yep, never bid more than you're willing to pay, and if you win then be willing to pay it happily.

Yep, it is possible that sometimes someone would try to see "how high can you go", up to you to stay within your comfort zone.

If 20 is reasonable to you and you end up spending 20 I don't see the issue, if your comfort zone was 11 just set your bid to 11.

I understand that sometimes you wish you had it cheaper but that is different, set your own limits and stick to it.

[Keatah]

eBay isnt concerned with shill bidding. It results in higher prices and therefore higher fees.

[Osgeld]

eBay isnt concerned with shill bidding. It results in higher prices and therefore higher fees.

I would bet that most of the time it's people like me OK 8 dollars is my max, oh the other bidders put up 8.60 so I bid 9 I can live with 9 so on and so fourth till I hit a point where my "cheap fix n flip" is hitting the break even point and it's time to move on, 9 bids later lol

 

Shill!!! No the other bidders were willing to pay more and I didn't want to guess so I stuck my toe in till all of a sudden my plums got cold and it's time to leave the water ... happens a lot

 

Another thing that happens to me is I'll put in a max bid all of a sudden 99 cents turned into 45 dollars and that's my max... but not the other guys, I'm done sorry you wanted it for 99 cents but I wanted it for less than or equal to 45 tough shit to both of us

 

Shill!!!

Edited August 16, 2016 by Osgeld

[icemanxp300]

I just bought an item last night for $255 plus S/H that had a $93 bid until the last 12 minutes then it rose to $133 in the last minute. I waited and so did another person to the last 5 seconds. I bid $275, he bid $251. I was hoping to win at under $200 but I was ready to pay up to $275.

 

Had I put in $275 early the person who bid $251 might have second guessed his bid and been like oh I could probably do $10 or $20 or $30 more. I could have ended up paying my max or even lost it.

 

Ebay smart or don't bitch about the outcome.

[Video]

See no reason shilling bidding be frowned on while sniping isn't. Put a bid of what your willing to pay and don't hitch if you win.

 

The vast majority of people wait till the last few minutes to bid anyways so it can look like crape is going on even if its not. That's the nature of auctions real or ebay.

[Opry99er]

I understand the logic, and it is how I usually do my eBay bidding. Put an early low bid in, and when there is an hour or so left, make incremental increases until I either win or become uncomfortable. I bid on a TI-99 cartridge last year... A rare and valuable one. My initial bid was $10 and I remianed the high bidder for 3 days... On the last day of the auction, the players got incolved. I raised my bid up to $30. Outbid. $45. Outbid. $75. Outbid. That's where I stopped.

 

The auction ended at like $125 or something like that. Anyway, I wanted the cart at $75. I didn't want it at $76, and certainly not at $125.

 

I.don't know how the winner felt about the price in the end, but I felt okay, knowing it went for $50 more than I was willing to pay.

[teh_lurv]

NOT a strawman argument; it is real:

 

If the item is worth $20 and the buyer gets it for $11, one might say the buyer has stolen $9 of the sellers product...buyers "good luck" happens to be the sellers "bad luck".

 

That shill bid merely ensured the seller didn't get taken advantage of by an aberration (another VALID way to look at this scenario).

 

If the seller is concerned about an item going less than the market rate, they should list it as a BIN. If you list an item as an auction, you should be prepared for the potential of the item selling for less than the market rate.

 

Sellers who shill bid are trying to have their cake and eat it too. They want the urgency and potential for higher-than-market bid ups auctions provide, but don't want to deal with the risk of an auction ending at a low price. Shady practices like this only serve to inflate the retro-game market prices as shill bids introduce false demand for products. I certainly won't do business with sellers who are caught shill bidding. If they're cheating at their auctions, what other corners are they cutting?

[Opry99er]

Isnt that the same as a regular auction with a 'reserve' though? Have your cake and eat it too?

 

If the item sells for $20, then it was worth $20. Plain and simple, if there is a demand and a supply, a fair price will be paid for that item. It is the nature of supply-side economics.

 

If you want to pay $11, bid $11.

[Mayhem]

Indeed. If an item is worth $20 but only sells for $11, whose fault is it? Not the winner, that's for sure.

[icemanxp300]

Don't worry about me shill bidding guys I only list high priced bins LOL.

[teh_lurv]

Isnt that the same as a regular auction with a 'reserve' though? Have your cake and eat it too?

 

If the item sells for $20, then it was worth $20. Plain and simple, if there is a demand and a supply, a fair price will be paid for that item. It is the nature of supply-side economics.

 

If you want to pay $11, bid $11.

 

Not at all. A reserve auction is up front about a minimum value the seller will accept. It also does not create an illusion of demand like shill bidding does.

 

Shill bidding distorts the demand side of the "supply and demand" and keeps items artificially high. Using that $20 item example, if I max-bid $20 and the seller shill bids me up to my max, that's not necessarily a fair price. For all we know, the market for the item could be soft at the moment or it's so obscure I could've won the auction for $5 or $10. Because of the shill bid, I've been cheated out of $10 and the market for that item stays or continues to climb past $20.

[icemanxp300]

 

Using that $20 item example, if I max-bid $20 and the seller shill bids me up to my max, that's not necessarily a fair price.

 

LOL then why the hell bid so high???? You guys are killing me. If it is only worth $X to you then only bid $X, DUH!

[ls650]

Only bid what it's worth to you and no more.

 

Seriously, take a look at esnipe and similar services. They submit your bid in the last several seconds. This avoids all the emotional bullshit of 'only a little more, only a little more...'

The scumbag shillers don't see your bid until it's too late for them to screw you over.

Honestly, esnipe has saved me some significant coin over the years - I can't recommend it highly enough.

[Gentlegamer]

Bid your max in the last 3 seconds.

 

It's the only way to bid.

[teh_lurv]

 

LOL then why the hell bid so high???? You guys are killing me. If it is only worth $X to you then only bid $X, DUH!

 

Where'd this notion come into this thread that people are max-bidding over the worth of an item?

[icemanxp300]

 

Where'd this notion come into this thread that people are max-bidding over the worth of an item?

 

Item is only worth $11 but I'm going to bid $20.

 

What do you call that? That's like going into a store that sells a gallon of milk for $3 and saying I'll pay $6 in case someone wants this exact gallon of milk in my cart instead of going and getting another one that sells for $3.