We'd probably pay half for all the auctions There are many auctions where I battle only one other person and pay 100's more, there's this one auction where I've been increasing the price from $80 to $300 - and at this point I just gave up and let the guy have it, if I wasn't in the mix, he was going to get it for $80 ... I don't enjoy being on either side There are also times where I forget to join, the item sells for a very low amount, similarly, sometimes no one challenges my bids and I get something for a low amount and be happy (or miserable, as sometimes you wish someone saves you from the commitment : ) I mean it's a just system and all but ... it seems to me that a handful of people are actually joining these auctions, a coalition would benefit us all
Seems like it would not benefit you if you were a seller... That is collusion, and it is illegal for businesses to do in a lot of places.
I think that’s called “ringing”... a group of buyers at an auction (= public sale) who make an illegal agreement not to compete against one another to buy things, in order to keep the pricelow. They then sell what they have bought at a higherprice and share the profits.
Having observed at least one on Reddit's watchexchange, it's definitely icky - they are more like fifth columns there as they support each other too and create sales between each other But I think for online auctions, ethics and legality is debatable - for actual auctions, I assume there are explicit rules against private agreements I honestly wouldn't want to go into ethics, it's most probably not ethical even though I didn't think it through with logical statements, but with a similar hasty assumption, for online auctions, it should be legal