Looks like shill bidding. care to inform me why they are so high?

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a**a (173 past transactions) dived in, in the closing seconds of the auction, with the current price already over $700, and put his $810+ maximum bid in. If he is the winner and paid that much against a shill, doesn't he only have himself to blame?

 

Winning bidder does not appear to be a shill, but who knows. Why it ended so high is unclear to me. No rationale reason I can think of.

 

I think it is unfair to assume they are shills. Both the low feedback bidders have bid for items across a very large number of sellers.

 

I think one or two bidders are shiller and someone fell into it

 

I loathe the practice, but the fact is someone will almost always pay just a bit more. Perhaps a collector, or perhaps a regular Joe/Jane who just likes the watch, and has the means to throw a few more bucks to get it and stop looking for one. And there will always be unscrupulous sellers there to take advantage of the unsuspecting.

 

This doesn't mean anything. Power sellers often share shill bidding accounts to avoid detection. In this case, the bidder "8***1" had only three past transactions but placed more than 160 bids in the past month, suspiciously all for watches. Yes, across a number of sellers, but they could be sharing shill accounts.

Shill bidding is rampant on eBay, the reasons are simple. It's simple to do, impossible to get caught it you do it right (use multiple shills shared across multiple sellers), and easy money. Unfortunately certain classes of products -- watches are a good example -- bring out the more dishonest sellers and thus have a high shill factor.

 

You are spot on- I am the regular Jane who loved the watch and and was willing to spend more to stop looking for one. I love the watch and although it would have been great to get it at a much better price, I have no regrets- it is in good mechanical condition (as confirmed by my watch repairer) and love the way it looks on my wrist. I think another dynamic at work here is that watches recommended on the forum have had much more vigorous bidding activity than similar watches. Thanks to all who have shared their knowledge about these beautiful watches.

 

I posted it in the recommended thread 12 days ago. Shill bidding or not, the end price was not unexpected for a jumbo bumper and a waffle dial - they're pretty elusive. Personally I'd want one which hadn't been so heavily polished, but they don't come up every day and so the interest doesn't surprise me.

 

I wouldn't worry about spending a little more than average for a watch if you like it. We've all done it. They say you don't overpay for nice vintage watches, you just buy them too early at that price.

 

Congrats regular Jane on a nice watch. Doesn't matter if you paid a little more than market for a watch you really wanted. It will soon be forgotten while you wear it proudly.