I've bought and sold on eBay for many years ... Cars, car parts, clothes, shoes, etc... and my 'Spidey-Sense' never rally started tingling... UNTIL I started ramping up my interest in collecting vintage watches and parts. Sure, I spied BS and evasiveness on seller descriptions of classic vehicles, but I never felt like something unethical was going on

Example -- I recently watched an item I was bidding on jump up past market value, to the top of my limit, pretty darn early in the auction... The other bidder had only 5 feedbacks... Seller had little history selling anything horological. All smelled fishy to me. Yet I checked the other bidders history and he had bid on watches before tho

Am I being paranoid? ("only the paranoid survive")

Is there a way to fairly definitively detect shill bidding?

Thanks for any advice -- happy to share more detail on the auction if it helps

 

Lets use this auction for example. You need to be on a laptop or desktop to see this. Mobile apps don't let you see beyond how many bids an auction has.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/122279535201?_trksid=p2055119.m1438.l2649&ssPageName=STRK:MEBIDX:ITPurchases made through these links may earn this site a commission from the eBay Partner Network

Its a Ranchero!


From South America



See the 49 bids? click on that, and you should see all the bids & bidders.



Who is that irritating bidder o***0? Every time you bid, he jumps right in & outbids you. Fairly new account, 9 feedback.. just click on him.

bid 23 times on 2 items, 91% of all his bids are with this seller.....

Some sellers use multiple accounts to bid themselves up, some use friends with multiple accounts. Main thing is, so long as you bid, so will they & they'll keep driving the price up. Bid late.

Hope that helps.

 

that is reasonable I have encountered sellers bidding on their own item fro ma different account

 

This is not evidence of shill bidding, and in most instances where people claim shill bidding, there's no evidence. Note that automatic bids are not shown. One way this sequence could occur is that joeblow put in a proxy bid of 950. o***0 starts it at 750 and joeblow's auto bid sends it to 760 (remember auto bidding is not shown here). o***0 is doing manual bidding, so puts in 770. joeblow's auto bid sends it to 780. And so forth. I'm not saying that's what happened here, and I'm not saying shill bidding doesn't occur. I'm saying (a) eBay has powerful algorithms in place to detect fraudulent bidding, and it happens far less than internet myth would suggest; (b) there's no evidence in this particular case of shill bidding.

 

Something wierd is going on with the 2 1971 speedies on the bay right now. Well one is weird and there is something going on with the second that you are not aware of.

Ones a bad franken asking 5100... http://www.ebay.com/itm/Omega-Speed...781984?hash=item4d4b897760:g:wSEAAOSwmLlX5R-0Purchases made through these links may earn this site a commission from the eBay Partner Network Let me list whats wrong with this one... meh who cares, this one lost its dial and hands no need to go further.

As your out of bidding on yours I'm going to post it.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/1971-Omega-...327804?hash=item41bb7bcffc:g:MQQAAOSw9GhYcBoTPurchases made through these links may earn this site a commission from the eBay Partner Network

Currently its at 5,300

Its not out of line yet...
What your not seeing is this is pretty close to collectors grade, but for that money I would want to see the side brusing, but the dial and lume look great, the bezel is in really good condition, edges look sharp and defined. Speedmaster101.com puts collector grade at 4,800.

"Wait!?!" you might be asking "as how can you say its not out of line and just below collectors grade and above speedmaster101!?!"

Simple looks what comes with it, that bracelet adds at least 1k to the value on that watch, if not more. I am not up on bracelet prices or grading, but that bracelet is in pretty good shape. My bet is that the watch and bracelet might set a new high for a -71 auction. They really do not get much better then that.

 

Given he has only bid on 2 items, effectively 50% percent of their bids are on this item, and he hasn't bid on any other items from this seller.

So, prob not shill on this occassion

 

One piece of advice is that you should NEVER put extra bids whilst you are already the current winner (unless right in the dying seconds).

Let’s say you are bidder 2, and you keep increasing your maximum bid early in the auction.
Maybe it would look like this:

If your bids were 1100, 1200, 1300, 1400, 1500 and 1600, and bidder 1 was in at 1000, then the seller would see this (assuming an increment of 10):

Bidder 1 1000
Bidder 2 1010 (current price)
Bidder 2 1010
Bidder 2 1010
Bidder 2 1010
Bidder 2 1010
Bidder 2 1010

As they know the increment they know that your max is at least 1060 (5 increments).
So they shill bid 1060 as bidder 3, and now it looks like this:

Bidder 1 1000
Bidder 3 1060
Bidder 2 1070 (current price)
Bidder 2 1070
Bidder 2 1070
Bidder 2 1070
Bidder 2 1070
Bidder 2 1070

So now they can repeat as they see none of your bids were exposed, and shill bid 1110. Now it would be:

Bidder 1 1000
Bidder 3 1060
Bidder 2 1100
Bidder 3 1110
Bidder 2 1120 (current price)
Bidder 2 1060
Bidder 2 1060
Bidder 2 1060
Bidder 2 1060

So they exposed one of bidder 2s bids, so now they are only safe to increase by four increments each time.
They can do this methodically until they break past your second lowest bid and stop there.
I have seen very high value items with only bids from one genuine bidder, but multiple bids from that bidder.

It’s crazy. A dodgy seller can bid it over your second highest bid with absolutely no risk.
In this case they could take it up to over 1500.

 

I never understand why you would bid early. Snipe in the last few seconds with your max price. Gixen.com makes it easy. This way, you do your best but don't have to stress about it. You win or you don't.

 

I always check the related/similar listings that are sometimes shown at the bottom of the page.

I saw auction go from $50 to $400 as two "new" private bidders began to bid.

I clicked on the relevant links of similar item auctions and noticed the same pattern of two new bidders and the price jumping to $400.

I then checked the sold listings and saw the same wall clocks being "sold" for $400 dollars.

Pretty certain the seller has multiple accounts and is trying to bait some people I to high bids.

So my only advice is to look around at their history and similar posts.


Here's the examples I'm talking about(I didn't bid on these but just did a quick search):
Live auctions:

Sold auctions:

Bidding list:

 

Here's the whole shooting match -- I've edited some of it, to be specific, below $3,600.00 as this all looked legit, both from a price/value standpoint and the bidders themselves (all had hundreds of feedback)

IMO it gets sketchy when o***l (5) jumps in. Note that 80% of his bidding activity is on this item / auction. Details are below

Full disclosure I bid early at my reservation price -- If it goes above my reservation price then so be it.

______________________________________________________________________________________

Bidder Bid Amount Bid Time

pearsom( 475) US $5,300.00 Jan-07-17 16:28:46 PST
o***lPurchases made through these links may earn this site a commission from the eBay Partner Network( 5) US $5,200.00 Jan-10-17 07:11:21 PST
o***l( 5) US $5,100.00 Jan-10-17 07:11:18 PST
o***lPurchases made through these links may earn this site a commission from the eBay Partner Network( 5) US $5,000.00 Jan-10-17 07:11:15 PST
o***lPurchases made through these links may earn this site a commission from the eBay Partner Network( 5) US $4,900.00 Jan-10-17 07:11:12 PST
o***lPurchases made through these links may earn this site a commission from the eBay Partner Network( 5) US $4,800.00 Jan-10-17 07:11:09 PST
o***lPurchases made through these links may earn this site a commission from the eBay Partner Network( 5) US $4,700.00 Jan-10-17 07:11:06 PST
o***lPurchases made through these links may earn this site a commission from the eBay Partner Network( 5) US $4,600.00 Jan-10-17 07:11:03 PST

pearsom( 475) US $4,567.89
Jan-07-17 11:05:42 PST


o***lPurchases made through these links may earn this site a commission from the eBay Partner Network( 5) US $4,500.00 Jan-10-17 07:10:55 PST
o***lPurchases made through these links may earn this site a commission from the eBay Partner Network( 5) US $4,400.00 Jan-10-17 07:10:52 PST
o***lPurchases made through these links may earn this site a commission from the eBay Partner Network( 5) US $4,300.00 Jan-10-17 07:10:49 PST
o***lPurchases made through these links may earn this site a commission from the eBay Partner Network( 5) US $4,200.00 Jan-10-17 07:10:46 PST
o***lPurchases made through these links may earn this site a commission from the eBay Partner Network( 5) US $4,100.00 Jan-10-17 07:10:42 PST
o***lPurchases made through these links may earn this site a commission from the eBay Partner Network ( 5) US $4,000.00 Jan-10-17 07:10:39 PST
o***lPurchases made through these links may earn this site a commission from the eBay Partner Network( 5) US $3,900.00 Jan-10-17 07:10:35 PST
o***lPurchases made through these links may earn this site a commission from the eBay Partner Network ( 5) US $3,800.00 Jan-10-17 07:10:31 PST
o***lPurchases made through these links may earn this site a commission from the eBay Partner Network( 5) US $3,700.00 Jan-10-17 07:10:28 PST
o***lPurchases made through these links may earn this site a commission from the eBay Partner Network( 5) US $3,600.00 Jan-10-17 07:10:25 PST

Starting Price US $0.99 Jan-07-17 09:57:21 PST
____________________________________________________________________________________________

 

And for completeness, here's is my man o***l 's bidding history

Bidder Information
Bidder: o***l( 1971 Omega Speedmaster Cal 861Purchases made through these links may earn this site a commission from the eBay Partner Network)
Bids on this item: 16

30-Day Summary
Total bids: 20
Items bid on: 4
Bid activity (%) with this seller: 80%
Bid retractions: 0
Bid retractions (6 months): 0



30-Day Bid History

Category No. of Bids Seller Last Bid

Jewelry & Watches > Wristwatches 1 Seller 1 7h
Jewelry & Watches > Wristwatches 16 Seller 2 4d 2h
Jewelry & Watches > Wristwatches 2 Seller 3 2d 16h
Bijoux, montres > Montres classiques 1 Seller 4 10h

____________________________________________________________________________________________________

Thanks again for all the advice!

 

As far as I can tell, -71s still don't get that kind of play, even with a 1039. There could be some excitement about the box, but I have to wonder if something's up with the bidding on that one.

 

I've done Ebay since 1998. Shill bidding is simply a part of all auctions, online or otherwise. It is probably more pervasive than any of us really knows. What makes me more sad is that actual auctions on Ebay are nearly gone. It has become a BIN marketplace with a handful of no reserve auctions, which is not what auctions are about and will not help to determine actual market values. I hope Ebay modifies its structure to get back to auctions vs BIN (retail sales). As for shill bids, we all have the right to not bid on an item, and shill bids or not, we should bid the most we are comfortable with. One of the more obvious signs of shill bidding is when you get a second chance offer soon after an auction. These are usually shills who bid too high and ended up buying their own items.

 

True - it's quite exciting to see a no-reserve, $1 start aucion on eBay these days. And for the truly desirable watches, seeing it go all the way to the end without the seller ending the listing early is doubly so!

 

I too attempted ebay bidding (as a noob) on my first Omega 3572.50 last week. Tried early bidding and wondered what was the point of that - all I'm doing is helping to bid up the price. Waited until the last 60 seconds to add my automatic bidding only to see it get away from me at a price higher than I was willing to pay. I came out of it disappointed and realized that there are probably pros behind the bidding and this wasn't the place for me.
I'll find a direct purchase rather than "play the game".

 

I still have no idea why anyone bids on anything before the final 10 to 20 seconds, and/or without the help of a tool like auctionsniper, or similar. What good does it do to drive the price up earlier with a bid you know will be exceeded?

 

Its bloody hard to detect unless your a detective.. and ebay dont give a damn because it makes them more money I have snipe bid a bunch of times one was on this one very odd very particular seller that used to use pictures of famous people to sell watches NOT just reference them just use their picture as main listing like this


MAIN PHOTO


other 12...





and thats it like all 12 of his photos were of steve jobs not a two button front LCD watch THAT was in his listing

Basically he did this with LOADS of nice watches...
Longines 12ZN (or whatever lets say...)


MAIN PHOTO




then it would be something like "YOU WONT GET THE SAME watch but you will get one similar"

like this (in listing)


And this is clearly a SHIT way to sell watches needless to say i bid to win ALL of them BUT was outbid on ALL watches
by t****t

then i recieve emails offering to sell me ALL 12 or so watches for like $12000 or something mental! (all 12 were worth maybe $1200 tops i was outbid at approx $100 on each all GREAT watches ALL somehow tenuously related to presidents or famous people..

SO i reported the C**t

ebay dutifully took the t**t down after i rang them and was like "WOW this is WELL out of order (and he was US) so i was like like THIS IS FEDERAL OFFENCE! blah blah outrage outrage... this is blatant guys like take this guy out PERMANENTLY... "
..
.
.
HE WAS GONE !
..
.
.

Then back a week later! with the same stupid listings.


eBay really REALLY dont care! basically its up to us to Report THAT'S IT. and now that they have made "allow buyers to remain anonymous" its hards for you to spot...

I could say shit like try to go with sellers that dont let buyers remain anonymous...

yea like me!?.... NO NOT LIKE ME.. i do (Mostly) when i remember to BUT this is one of the only tickable boxes that A) is a pain in the arse to find and B) always resets back to YES on every listing even if it was NO on its template listing..

OH thanks eBay.. why?

And im sure we have ALL bought many watches on ebay but how many have been inundated with, what?... Offers?.. Threats? .. Proposals?
What does "allow buyers to remain anonymous do!? bar make it hard to find shill bidding!

Stupid Stupid STUPID STUPID

 

Well that is the smart thing to do. But sometimes, the adrenaline rush kicks in and you're emotionally attached to a piece. When you find something you've looked long and hard for, sometimes that one extra bid is well worth it. Just have to be judicious on which pieces justify an "overpay."

As a buyer, I actually prefer the anonymity. I can already imagine how one can track the winning bidder of a high value item, figure out their address, and so on...

 

No.... c'mon.. i dont think so.. go after a seller maybe.. a buyer tho its just mad unlikely..

 

Sniping is still the way to go. Put in your max bid and then try to forget about it... rather than watch the auction and try to guess, just snipe wi