Interesting bidding

[Protium]

[url="http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/330589885677"]http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/330589885677[/url]

[Mr. Foxen]

Some people can't grasp the concept of set your max bid. They must get very frustrated.

[Ou7shined]

[quote name='Johnston' post='1311837' date='Jul 21 2011, 06:01 PM']Give them a break they are obviously new (0) feedback. Nothing untoward going on there I'm sure.[/quote]
To my mind 0 feedback and oddness = shill.

[Ou7shined]

[quote name='Johnston' post='1311960' date='Jul 21 2011, 07:43 PM']Me too I was being sarcastic.

I failed [/quote]
No mate I failed.
I was in two minds whether to high-five your sarcasm or do the smart-arse answer. I choosed bad.

[warwickhunt]

Oddly enough I've got my Estate car on ebay at the moment and a bidder has come along and bid the car up in the silliest small increments possible and as of today I have something like 80 bids with 95% of the bids coming from this one guy! I know for a fact that to the wary buyer this will look like shill bidding and I am wondering whether the bidder has deliberately/strategically done this to put others off by making it appear like shill bidding... I've hence contacted the guy and asked if he wants to view the car to be sure it is worth further bids ( ), however he has said that he lives in Birmingham and he's happy to wait till the auction ends before driving to Northumberland for the car!

[Roland Rock]

Maybe you could offer to explain the concept of Max Bid to him? Like Mr Foxen says, it's a concept some people can't seem to grasp. I'm sick of trying to explain it to Mrs Rock

Edited July 22, 2011 by Roland Rock

[Ou7shined]

[quote name='warwickhunt' post='1312520' date='Jul 22 2011, 11:21 AM']Oddly enough I've got my Estate car on ebay at the moment and a bidder has come along and bid the car up in the silliest small increments possible and as of today I have something like 80 bids with 95% of the bids coming from this one guy! I know for a fact that to the wary buyer this will look like shill bidding and I am wondering whether the bidder has deliberately/strategically done this to put others off by making it appear like shill bidding... I've hence contacted the guy and asked if he wants to view the car to be sure it is worth further bids ( ), however he has said that he lives in Birmingham and he's happy to wait till the auction ends before driving to Northumberland for the car! [/quote]
I sense he may let you down if he's the winning bid.

[warwickhunt]

[quote name='Ou7shined' post='1312728' date='Jul 22 2011, 01:54 PM']I sense he may let you down if he's the winning bid. [/quote]
I agree!

[spinynorman]

I don't understand the shill bidding detection algorithm you're all using. Why is bidding up in small increments any better than putting in one bid for the minimum amount you're prepared to accept? Especially as it just draws attention to what you're doing, if you are a shill.

[warwickhunt]

[quote name='spinynorman' post='1313017' date='Jul 22 2011, 05:42 PM']I don't understand the shill bidding detection algorithm you're all using. Why is bidding up in small increments any better than putting in one bid for the minimum amount you're prepared to accept? Especially as it just draws attention to what you're doing, if you are a shill.[/quote]
Basically a shill bidder doesn't want to win the auction so they'll regularly just stick bids in of small increments hoping to goad more bids from other interested parties. As to sticking in one bid; a shill bid can be done this way especially if the seller has an absolute minimum they want for an item and aren't prepared to gamble with selling it cheap. The little and often shill is intended to draw in regular bids from other ebay users who don't do the one set bid in the last seconds/minutes!

[Jean-Luc Pickguard]

I think it looks like this

[mcnach]

[quote name='warwickhunt' post='1312520' date='Jul 22 2011, 11:21 AM']Oddly enough I've got my Estate car on ebay at the moment and a bidder has come along and bid the car up in the silliest small increments possible and as of today I have something like 80 bids with 95% of the bids coming from this one guy! I know for a fact that to the wary buyer this will look like shill bidding and I am wondering whether the bidder has deliberately/strategically done this to put others off by making it appear like shill bidding... I've hence contacted the guy and asked if he wants to view the car to be sure it is worth further bids ( ), however he has said that he lives in Birmingham and he's happy to wait till the auction ends before driving to Northumberland for the car! [/quote]


if there are other bidders... I'd feel very tempted to cancel his bids and block him from bidding. His behaviour says "I'm a difficult buyer" to me...

[warwickhunt]

[quote name='mcnach' post='1317866' date='Jul 27 2011, 01:10 AM']if there are other bidders... I'd feel very tempted to cancel his bids and block him from bidding. His behaviour says "I'm a difficult buyer" to me...[/quote]
I was contemplating that but in the end I sold the car locally and ended the listing.

[tauzero]

[quote name='Ou7shined' post='1311945' date='Jul 21 2011, 07:32 PM']To my mind 0 feedback and oddness = shill.[/quote]
Why? If someone inexperienced is bidding, they might not understand the concept of someone else having put in a large bid. To them, it will appear that they're in a bidding war as the other person's bid keeps increasing.

I find it perhaps excessively cynical that every time an odd bidding pattern occurs, the immediate response is that it must be shilling. Why, if someone were to sell two identical items using the same photo, one after the other, I suspect there would be some who would be cynical enough to start crying foul.

[Ou7shined]

[quote name='tauzero' post='1321573' date='Jul 30 2011, 06:46 PM']Why? If someone inexperienced is bidding, they might not understand the concept of someone else having put in a large bid. To them, it will appear that they're in a bidding war as the other person's bid keeps increasing.

I find it perhaps excessively cynical that every time an odd bidding pattern occurs, the immediate response is that it must be shilling. Why, if someone were to sell two identical items using the same photo, one after the other, I suspect there would be some who would be cynical enough to start crying foul.[/quote]
Because [b]A )[/b] most of these cheats aren't very bright and with great regularity open up new accounts to scam people with. And [b]B ) [/b]You can never be too careful where money's concerned, so a little suspicion posted in an ebay related subforum is fine, if only to get others Spidie senses tingling. I'm not claiming to be clairvoyant just prudent.