Last week I had a very strange experience with an item I was selling on the bay. I listed the item last Sunday, and at first, everything was proceeding normally. On the last day, however the bid price jumped from $200 to a closing price of $1925. While that's not unusual in itself (many bidders wait until the last few minutes or seconds to get their bid in), what is very unusual is that the item I listed (unlike a vintage watch) has a clearly defined value. You could walk into a store today and purchase one brand new for about $300, so why did my (gently) used one close at $1925?

All of the bids that occurred on the last day were from four different accounts, all less than a month old, and all but one with zero feedback (the one that did have feedback had four, all posted on the same day, and all from strange Chinese sellers that seem to carry everything).

I knew that I would never receive payment for the $1925 (although I would have happily accepted it!), so I did some digging, and found that this problem isn't unheard of. The bidders were indeed shill bidders, but I had nothing to do with it. It appears that some sellers will bid up similar items from other sellers in order to raise the perceived value of what they are selling. Clearly there was a glitch in the case of my auction, but the concept makes sense. If I'm selling a widget which is currently bid up to (and worth about) $100, and I raise the bid price of my competitors selling the same item up to $250, then someone would surely be willing to pay $200 for mine!

I thought this was an interesting occurrence, and I wouldn't be surprised if it didn't happen in watch auctions as well. Sometimes what we perceive as shill bidding on the part of a seller, may in fact be something slightly different. I'm all for calling out unscrupulous sellers, but I also want to give honest sellers a fair shake. I'm sure that if I were bidding on my item, and I looked at the bidding history, I'd assume shill bidding was at play.

 

Those Bastages! Fargin' Eye Soles!
Ok...Sorry for the outburst. Is there any way to block those bidders? Doesn't seem like it...

 

Interesting theory... I am not clear though whether this would actually benefit another seller. Overbidding, then not paying, doesn't IMO establish a higher marker price.

 

Maybe there just punks out to fk with people.

 

True that.

 

While I'm obviously not 100% certain this was the intent, it does make some sense. If I, as a buyer, notice that an item appears to be selling for $1000 (due to shill bidding), I would probably be inclined to bid $1000 myself. Another possible angle is to take some competition out of the market. If I'm selling an item, and I bid a bunch of others into the stratosphere, that increases the chances of mine selling, since real bidders will be ignoring the artificially inflated items.

In the end, we all choose to pay what we choose to pay in part, by what others are paying. The only reason we here are willing to pay $3000 for a watch that originally sold for $150 is because others already have.

As above, I could be wrong about the intent, but I don't see someone setting up an account on the bay with the sole intent of annoying sellers that they've never met.

 

Welcome to the world of eBay. Welcome to the world of trying to buy and sell watches. How many times have you heard some individual seller of a watch you would love to own say..."well I saw one sell on eBay for...."pick your absurd number. eBay is a plague.

JohnCote

 

Just one more reason I hate eBay.

 

And, at the end of the day, you should be free to choose whom you do business with, correct?



meaning: no Italy / tough noogies


Italians should stop thinking it's ok to demand 30% after sale discounts on ebay purchases because they didn't approve of the way you "packaged" the watch. It's just a game for them and they like it. don't play it .


Next: no UK: tough titties. I'm Anglo and other shit and I'm embarrassed at how "soft" and protected my long lost cousins have become in matters of trade and commerce. What happened to you guys????

England and the UK has like 7 thousand consumer protection agencies. Not 5 thousand. Not 6 thousand. 7 freaking thousand1!! Sellers seem to have no rights. When did that happen?? The very culture and people who literally civilized the modern and western world need a nanny and marm to protect them at every level of commerce. When did the Brits become such helpless retards? Seriously.

i see this mentality fast creeping into American commerce with regulatory compliance and NGO's for everything. Why not let the market control itself? The United States was literally, very literally, built on handshakes. Not any more.

as of today, my watch guy will no longer deal with the UK. for shame. he's an honest bloke and that's a fact. Sorry if I offended anyone but that's sort of the point. i think people today like being offended...gives them some abstract purpose?

Maybe I'll get banned…? Not my intent.

 

I can see your point, but I've only had one bad deal on eBay (I bought a fake after too much single malt ).

A due diligence process is now applied to all bids before I go Gixen on them while chanting my mantra ...................

"Caveat Emptor, Caveat Emptor, Caveat Emptor..................."

I haven't sold anything yet though so only feel half qualified to respond to this thread.

 

Banned here? Need to try harder!

 

We've all seen what unregulated markets can do, but IMV the real problem is anonymity. You can't trust a handshake these days because you can't see the person behind it, and even if you could, they could scarper to the other side of the world in a moment. A handshake is only as good as the reputation behind it.

BTW, the UK doesn't have 7,000 consumer agencies, just the same as the US isn't full of ignorant, backward, gun-toting people - even though we may sometimes get that impression.

 

I'm afraid there are many ignorant, backward, gun-toting people in this nation. There are also many enlightened, highly educated, gun toting people in this nation.

 

If it doesn't have a lot to
do with Ebay then why do you think someone else brought it up? Some would say the UK and Europe have a strange fascination with guns.

 

I just love it when a thread doesn't actually get hijacked, but evolves into a creature of its own.

There are probably millions of nutters in the US, millions of crooks and millions of shysters!

Just as there are the same equivalent ratios per population in Aus, Britain, Canada, Russia etc.

Probably more nutters in Russia though.

However, there are still millions of good, sound, salt of the Earth people in all countries (maybe less in Russia) that can give us hope that deals on eBay will be a fair balance of "seller wins/buyer wins".

I still have faith in my fellow man.

(Until I get stiffed that is!)

 

This bit is funny

Why not let the market control itself ?Three letters (GFC)

 

It's hard to tell what point you're making, exactly. eBay is a US company, and many of the problems you describe are typical of eBay, regardless of where the buyers/sellers are. It's anonymous, the structure of eBay has serious faults in it, lots of opportunities for fraud and dishonesty. But my own experience of buying from all over the world has been overwhelmingly positive. The consumer rights you describe are regulated in the case of eBay, by eBay, and in respect of local laws, US, UK or European. There are plenty of nutters everywhere, no monopoly in the UK or the US...