Another Ebay Moan

[mister c]

Why do people get thier mates to bump up the price of thier wares with only seconds to go & then email you with a "Second Chance" offer?
I have bid on 2 Race Cans today, been outbid - twice & had 2 emails saying "If you would like to make me an offer.............Blah Blah"
Stuff em, I can wait, you never know, something else might come along cheaper :)

[StreetHawk]

I hate that. It's so obvious when you get the second chance offer a minute after the auction ended. That happened to me with an Alpinestars jacket. Seller emailed me within a minute of auction ending saying the winning bidder has withdrawn their bid..

[mister c]

Ha Ha, one of them has sent me 3 emails now, he can get stuffed & pay again to put it back on Fleabay :D:p

[DanDare]

I am selling some Alpinestars trousers on ebay and had a message from saying they felt they were too expensive would I lower the price.

The cheek of it! :smt103

[Viney]

Just offer them, you max bid minus a couple of quid.

[Ceri JC]

It's called shill bidding and it's illegal (in UK law, not just in contravention of fleabay's 'rules'). Report them to ebay.

[blueto]

It's called shill bidding and it's illegal (in UK law, not just in contravention of fleabay's 'rules'). Report them to ebay.

but how could you p[rove it?

[Ceri JC]

but how could you p[rove it?

Proving it in online bidding is fairly tricky if you actually wanted a prosecution. If you just want them banned from ebay (or even just given a slap on the wrist) drop ebay an email voiceing your suspicions, being sure to include the username of the suspected shill (person making the fake bids). They will be able to (whether they actually bother is another matter) keep an eye on the chap, see if he is winning lots of items from the seller which are mysteriously relisted shortly afterwards/see if there are messages being sent with the item being offered to the second highest bidder.

It's possible to shill bid very subtley which is almost impossible to detect, using a wide variety of other genuine accounts belonging to other people, but most places aren't that patient or cautious and instead tend to use the same account over and over to do it (as well as making schoolboy mistakes like the seller and shill bidding accounts both connecting from the same IP address range etc.)