Thread: Shill bidders on Ebay?

I searched the forum but couldn't find any reference. This has happened to me a few times with different sellers. I place my maximum bid for a item, then someone bids up past my max bid. They then retract their last bid so that my max bid is whats left. It seems like the seller has either someone else bid up the item, or they have a second account. In one case the bidder had been a ebay member for 2 years but had never bought or sold anything. I make a point of not doing business with sellers that I suspect of using a shill, but I can't prove it, and ebay is useless. I won't post the sellers names as I don't want to accuse someone without proof, and it was what I was willing to pay. Has anyone else experienced this?

Its happened to me before, but like you said, how do you prove it. At least at a real auction you can witness it and then protect yourself by leaving.

Any bid retraction means that you only have to pay the lowest amount of yer bid....
Let me attempt to explain
I bid $40
you bid $50
Shill bids $55
no other bids are made....
Shill retracts bid
You are expected to pay $41 not $50
If the seller is honest, then you simply explain that you are willing to pay the amount that you were obligated to pay before the bid "retraction" ie: $41 that it took you to beat my high bid... At this point in time the seller can either accept that, or re-list the item.....
If they try and make you pay more, then they were using a shill, and then just explain that you will send a report to E-bay, thus E-bay will explain to the seller that you only have to pay the $41 and they will have a seller watch notice from E-bay placed on their account.... I have done this 3 times so far, twice I believe it was a honest mistake, the third time I filed a shill bidder report to E-bay and the seller pulled the razor....
I bought the other 2 for $1 higher than the last legitimate bid, just as if the retracted bid had never happened.....

I hope that all made some sense....

Originally Posted by gssixgun

Any bid retraction means that you only have to pay the lowest amount of yer bid....
Let me attempt to explain
I bid $40
you bid $50
Shill bids $55
no other bids are made....
Shill retracts bid
You are expected to pay $41 not $50
If the seller is honest, then you simply explain that you are willing to pay the amount that you were obligated to pay before the bid "retraction" ie: $41 that it took you to beat my high bid... At this point in time the seller can either accept that, or re-list the item.....
If they try and make you pay more, then they were using a shill, and then just explain that you will send a report to E-bay, thus E-bay will explain to the seller that you only have to pay the $41 and they will have a seller watch notice from E-bay placed on their account.... I have done this 3 times so far, twice I believe it was a honest mistake, the third time I filed a shill bidder report to E-bay and the seller pulled the razor....
I bought the other 2 for $1 higher than the last legitimate bid, just as if the retracted bid had never happened.....

I hope that all made some sense....

Yes, that's true. When a bidder retract a bid it erases all that bidders earlier bids, unless, as in 3 cases I've experienced, the "shill" bidder rebids up to my maximum bid. I've reported it to Ebay and never received any response. Like I said, Ebay is useless.

I had this happen with a bike I bought years ago. I noticed that the same bidder was bidding and retracting on several auctions only by one seller. Seller wanted me to pay my bid beyond the retracted shill bid. I told him sell it based on the last legitimate bid or I would report him to ebay. He agreed to the legitimate price. I got the bike. I reported him to ebay.

I think the take home lesson is to always check the bid history for any auction you win.

It happens all the time and with their new policy of not showing the full user I.D its even harder to prove its happening.

u could tell the seller that since the other bidder retracted his bids that u are only going to pay what you had bid before the schill bidder came along, and if he doesnt like it then report him as having something fishy about his auctions

Originally Posted by wopmanfixit

Yes, that's true. When a bidder retract a bid it erases all that bidders earlier bids, unless, as in 3 cases I've experienced, the "shill" bidder rebids up to my maximum bid. I've reported it to Ebay and never received any response. Like I said, Ebay is useless.

I had a bidder bid up, retract the bid, and then bid up to my max once. I reported it to Ebay and surprisingly they were very responsive. They exchanged a few emails with me, "investigated" it for two days, and then told me that there was no evidence of shill bidding. But, it's hard to say whether they really did look into it or not.