Word of Caution on eBay and "private bidders"

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**Ketara**

Xenomancers wrote:
Winning bids on ebay is easy...no sniping required. Just set the max price you are willing to pay and walk away. If they win the bid they paid more than you were willing.
.

The idea behind sniping is that even if they were willing to pay more, they don't have the chance to get that higher bid in if you bid in the last ten seconds.

**Orlanth**

TheMeanDM wrote:
Providing a word of caution....

I was searching for Forge World Tau suits on eBay, and came across a couple that I wasn't sure were 100% legit.

The color in the pic was a bit off when you compare it to the FW site. I thought "well, maybe it's the camera...it can do things to color".

But then...the starting bid price of $29.99 was another FLAG.

I thought maybe I would give it a try, not too serious a try though, to be honest. Not wanting to waste a bunch of $ on something that turns out to be garbage.
So I bid like $31.

Instead of the price showing $29.99...it immediately showed a bid of $30 by "private bidder" and then I got the high bid.

I hadn't ever seen a "private bidder" before, so started investigating.

Sure enough, there are *SOME* sellers that apparently hide their bidders info, and...come to find out...there are actually automatic bidding bot programs.

I was curious to see what would happen....so I bid again...and sure enough...within a very short amount of time....there was our "private bidder".

I started investigating more and read that unethical sellers will also do one of the following: Offer you a "second chance" if their bot wins the bid (2) relist the item in a few days/weeks or (3) sell it under the bot account.
I let the "private bidder" win the auction...and within 5 minutes, I got a "Second chance offer" from the seller for *slightly less* than the winning bid.

So....

If you use eBay and see "private bidders" on an auction you are interested in or bidding on....that is a flag. If you lose and get a "second offer" very quickly....that's a BIG FLAG.

Anyway...hope this helps someone avoid a scam in the future.

That is shill bidding, its illegal and you should report it......

On the other hand I had a case of shill bidding on a fraudulent auction lot that was not what was advertised.
When I showed the evidence all I got was a series of macro replies asking me to negotiste with the seller.
Only when I contacted the police and gave ebay thr crime report number did they do anything,.

Ebay is interested in two things.
1. Getting the auction fees.
2. losing disputes with minimum of effort.

They will ask you to negotiate with the seller, and in my case continued to do so even after I refused to share my email address with a conman. They only dropped that line after I asked the police their opinion and fully knowing what that would be told ebay that the pol;ice advised me to make no contact.

This was prior to full anonimity of bidding history. Now it is harder to find shills, I think that ebay removed the histories to remove evidence of fraud and make life easier for them.

I dont like eBay, and would mind a jot if they faced a large amount of heavy handed legislation.