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Shill Bidders on ePay

matteos

matteos

StereoType
Subscriber
I'm currently in a bidding war on a speaker.. Price is not high, might win it unless I get sniped at the very last second... But there's one account that's made a few bids, brand new account.. Only bid 3 time and all of it was on this item... I've reported it because eBay can check IPs.. Seems like a shill (It's possible it could just be a brand new account..But let's face it, probably not)

Never ran into this problem before.. Have any of you? What's the best thing to do in these situations?
 
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If an Item has a buy it now then do so if you really want it. Other than that, just decide what you're willing to pay ahead of time and stick to it. If neither of these work for you, you could just attempt to snipe the item yourself next time.

Martin
 
Well, maybe it was a noobie as they didn't bid again.

beat out two snipers in the last 5 seconds, very happy about that.. Got a KEF Q600c for $200 shipped.. VERY happy about that!!
 
I never get involved in bidding wars. I just decide what I want to pay and bid within the last 10 seconds if the price is still low enough. If I don't win, there's really not time for me to increase my bid anyways. Call it sniping if you like, but there's not much point in bidding early except to drive the price up.
 
so_ein_pech said:
I never get involved in bidding wars. I just decide what I want to pay and bid within the last 10 seconds if the price is still low enough. If I don't win, there's really not time for me to increase my bid anyways. Call it sniping if you like, but there's not much point in bidding early except to drive the price up.
Click to expand...

Pretty much what I do.
If it's a workday I'll check the current price before going to work and if still "affordable" I'll make it a point to be at my computer when the auction ends.

I NEVER bid early on in an auction. Why drive up the price early.
Although I *think* some folks bid early just to make sure the auction isn't pulled early for no bids.

I will do BIN deals if I feel the price is fair.
Just a few days ago I did my first "make an offer" deal, noticed the seller had good feedback, free shipping, and a tendency to accept best offers. I offered what I felt was a fair price (about 70% of the BIN), and my bid was accepted.

Lots of ways to make purchases on ebay.
 
The only time I bid early is if I don't plan to be awake (or I'm at work, etc) when the auction is scheduled to end. When I do, if I am the only bidder, I always bid twice, raising my first bid by a small amount. That way, potential bidders see two bids from the same person, figure I'm in it to win it, and perhaps don't bid themselves because what's the point? That's my notion anyway. Probably not true, but what the heck.
 
Looks like the other bidder has a higher reserve than OP is willing to bid. OP will get topped each time and then comes the WTF.
 
Shill bidding used to be a big problem before BIN became common. I seldom use the auction sites so, not sure how bad it is now. The Site is geared more to businesses than the original market, individuals who had some things to sell.

I still hate/laugh when a seller with 99,999 sales is still emptying his father's closet and now sell the 4,200 amp, receiver, etc.
 
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