Do E-Bay Sellers Hire Bidders??

[Anonymous]

I have noticed during the past few weeks that I have bidded on and "won " a few
items of Lionel that the same bidders are all most there bidding--not all the time but a lot -- Are these people hireing people they know to basically raise the bid so they can get what they want--I am beginning to belive it- - ?? Or does e-bay have any control at all over this?? I know for SURE that in-person auctions that they do this, I have seen it happen!! Then again e-bay would not know anyway.
No offense to anyone, but some things sure seems suspicious.[:)][:)][:(]
[?]

[jwse30]

I'm pretty sure there are a few sellers that have a second account set up (either on their own, or through a spouse/ close friend/ ?) just for raising prices. I would say that if a seller repeatedly sells to the same buyer, and those items are repeatedly relisted (wow! that's a lot of words beginning in "re"), that I would tend to look elsewhere. Another area to look is the buyers and sellers feedback report. If feedback was left too soon by the buying party, or too close in time to each other on a regular basis, or if the same buyer and seller are swapping feedback on a regular, exclusive basis, it may be time to ignore said seller's auctions.

That's not to say that if a seller happens to sell to jwse30, or anyone else on a regular basis, that there is a "crime" being committed. There are a few services that allow you to place a "snipe" bid, and it places that bid for you within minutes, or seconds, from the auction's end. And that buyer could have the same interests as you, or close to the same, with a larger wallet.

I think that if a bidder was "hired", you would be able to view the feedback report of the buyer, and notice a string of purchases from the same seller, and little or no other activity otherwise.

If any of any this looks like what you've seen for a given a seller, I would likely stay clear of that seller.

Of course, if you follow the golden rule of ebay, you'll always do alright: Bid the highest amount you are willing to pay for the product. It doesn't cost anything to bid (yet).

This is coming from a guy who sells probably 3 items for every one bought on ebay. And no, I don't pay people to bid on my items (most end in buy it now, to move stuff quickly). Of course, my wife probably buys 10 items for every one I sell[:)]

If everyone followed ebay's "golden rule" listed above, it would not be beneficial to hire bidders. If some sellers try to capitalize on some bidder's desire to not be outbid, who really cares (as long as you're not that bidder, which you wouldn't be if you bid your max to start with)?

Just my $.02,

J White

[Big_Boy_4005]

Shill bidding is highly illegal, but very difficult to prove. I understand what you are talking about, because I have seen auctions where I suspected that something was going on. The only thing you can do is ask Ebay to investigate. They can check their records, but if there is no obvious connection, nothing will happen.

[Anonymous]

Good morning to all!
Thanks for your insight, so much stuff goes on today , but I do belive for the most part
the dealers are honest!
Thanks!

[Dave Farquhar]

You'll see the same names over and over again--frequently it's people who are interested in the same types of items you are. I've been buying on Ebay regularly for about a year; it takes some time to learn the ropes. On average I win about an item a week on Ebay, but I probably bid on an average of four or more. You'll lose more than you win.

I buy more Marx than Lionel, but I'm generally competing with the same half dozen or so people much of the time. In fact I've talked via e-mail with some of them, so I'm reasonably confident that they're real people.

What I see most frequently is the same bargain hunters bidding low early on in an auction, hoping to get an item for significantly less than book value. People who do that have to bid on a lot of items if they hope to win anything (they may only win one in 100, as opposed to my 1 in 5 ratio). That's probably what you're seeing.

I see some shady things on Ebay sometimes, but I don't know that I've ever seen shill bidding. Most auctions don't seem to need them. It seems to me that in a lot of cases you're better off listing an item at 99 cents with no reserve than starting the bidding at $25 or whatever. The bargain hunters will drive the price up to a fair value quickly enough. A lot of auctions with an opening bid close to book value don't seem to ever get any bids, but most low-opening-value auctions I've seen end up going for something approaching book value.

[3railguy]

One common practice on ebay is "sniping" that's when a buyer waits until the last few remaining seconds and ups the ante if he wants an item bad. Snipers upset a lot of people but they sometimes burn themselves when they overpay.

jwse 30 makes a good point. Proxy bid the highest amount you would pay for the item. If you're looking to get a bargain, you risk getting sniped. Just keep that and mind. If it's worth more to the next guy than it is to you, you loose.

I have seen on occasion, obvious schill bidding where a common, inexpensive piece is bid to the stratosphere. You punch up the bidders history and he has a wierd one or none at all.

[Anonymous]

I've been bidding a lot on e-bay for train items. I just won't pay above a certain price (shipping included) because I know that I can get it on-line for a certain price. I just seem to get outbid apparently by people that don't realize they can get it for less on-line.
Craig

[Frank53]

ebay is pretty slippery. I have bought and sold a fair amount on ebay - actually sold more than I bought - particularly in coins. E bay is very hesitant to do anything about anything, as they want to maintain their stance "we're just a conduit for these transactions",. If they get too heavily involved in regulation, they run the risk of being dragged into the middle if someone sues someone else.

I have had teh most success with coins by posting what I am offering on teh Buy/Sell/Trade board of Coin Collecting Forums. I set a fair price and pay the shipping and for teh most part deal with folks I know - albeit electronically - but these communities are tight and after a while you know who you can trust and can't trust. I save the ebay fees - sell to knowledgeable buyers and always get paid.

A Buy/Sell/Trade foum here might be useful.

[ole1]

Being a sometimes e- Bay buyer I believe the old addage "buyer beware" really applies. It is necessary to do plenty of research including e-Bay, books and train shows to know what the value of an item really is, how "rare" it really is and then deciding how much you are willing to pay and sticking to it. Judging the condition by the pictures and description can be tricky and I usually trust it only to a certain point. For items I'm interested in I keep a notebook to track prices over several weeks,months or longer..

[Anonymous]

I do know of cases where sellers have shills driving up prices, this is bad if you are buying. I also have experienced a lock out, where an item is selling too cheap, and none of the bids placed a full 10 minutes before the end of an auction are processed. I have also seen disruptive bidders, that attack a particular seller or buyer's auction. Bewary using ebay. I have used with success the CTT classified ads, and a large train association buy sell boards.

-ck

[Anonymous]

Thanks for all your help and advice! I have had a couple of times
where the person came in and bidded the last few seconds--

[Anonymous]

Employing the use of a "stooge" at an auction is an age old trick. It is so obviously going on on ebay as I see many items relisted numerous times. There are also numerous buyers/sellers that conduct themselves with honesty and integrity. There is also a program called bidnapper that watches the items until the final seconds and then bids. It's called bid sniping but it really doesn't work as well as some would believe. I just place a bid for what I believe an items is worth and "let the chips fall where they will".

[Anonymous]

it happens alot! I will have that great lionel or plasticville buy all mine, then BAM! It was bid on the last minute. One time i really was tired of losing bids on a lionel barrel loader, so i watched it till the last 6 seconds....AND someone bid on it the last 2 seconds!! I guess some people have more money and really want it and they have ALOT of time to sit and watch items.... Ebay is shady, but it is great to find deals. Sometimes if i am looking for something special i type in the title mispelled, sometimes i will find an item all by itself, mispelled, and no one is seeing it! I know some people if they dont get bids they like, will ask friends to bid on it to raise it up.... it happens...

[lionelsoni]

There would be no advantage to sniping if all bidders put in their maximum bid in the first place.

[SPFan]

The obvious solution to all this is to place your maximum bid in the last few seconds. If the item has already gone over your maximum then don't bid. If it hasn't then place your bid. If another sniper wants it more than you do that so be it. The advantage of this strategy is you don't get sucked into a bidding war.

Pete

[Jim Duda]

You're exactly correct, Bob...early on, I did pretty good at "sniping", but after losing out several times in the last few seconds by a "sticky (slow) internet, and/or the unsychonization of my computer clock with the e-bay clock, I think I have done just as well entering my max bid early and letting the Proxy Bid mechanism handle it...

[Anonymous]

I research my prices. I find the maximum price you can get for the item at a hobby store. I learn about some of the "extras" on the item such as what kind of metal wheels etc. Once I reach a figure I wait until the end of the auction and put in that max bid. If it goes over then someone else would have paid too much. I dont rely on software. I treat auction closing dates and times as "Appointments"

Yes there are bidding wars and the worst kind is the person who bids so much money on the item out of the attitude is *I gots more $ than you do so beat it..." I have seen Athearn blue box kits go for 60- to 70- apeice.

The really important time to bid on the auction is within the last 5 minutes till closing. Anyone who bids 5 days before closing simply reveals thier interest and gives me time to research that person and his or her history to understand him or her better.

I think that the practice of sniping is very useful if done right. I have glimpsed potential problems with auctions for items being offered and get a feeling that there is a major problem with the item.

I ruthlessly take advantage of my fast connection. I can place a bid, load up that window ready to submit within 2 seconds. That is how much time I need to reload the ebay item status window. Dailup connections usually need about 20 seconds to get the same information. So unless their proxy bid is higher than mine I will win it.

Case: A laptop computer worth over 4000- was offered for sale. Open is .99. This was the last day of a 7 day auction. At 4 hours until close the bottom page counter indicated over 2000 people have viewed this item. At 3.5 hours till close the counter was up to 2400.. the average HO scale item may get 30-100 views in 7 days.

Now this auction was "stripped" by ebay security and removed from the service because the seller's account was potentially hijacked. I recieved information because I communicated to the seller questions regarding the item. Looking back on it the simple fact that no one was bidding on this super computer should have been a loud and clear alarm bell shouting "Problem!!"

On that section of ebay broken laptops and company lease computers were being fought for and sold for a few hundereds of dollars as fast as Ebay can keep up with the exploding demand from college kids and here this big laptop was not getting any bids.

But the best business you can do is to support your LHS with the item in question. There you can examine it and test it on the track and the LHS will help you if a problem is detected. Alot of the items that fill ebay are also availible at online stores or in the LHS.

[AlanRail]

Shill bidding as said is illegal; Manys time Isee some guy bid the minium like a dollar 20 times in a row. It looks like a shill but usually isn't just a guy who wants to bid the minimum

As to Snipers, well the way eBay is set up it encourages snipe bidding. What eBay should do is keep the auction open as long as someone is bidding. That way you can't snipe. Snipe bids also hurts the seller because it doesn't garner the highest price if bidders can't bid fast enough as someone who bids at the last second.

As has been said BUYER BEWARE!!


Alan

[Anonymous]

i have sold alot on ebay and never hired a bidder, or cheated in any way...

I have used the auotmated snipers and it works great, especially for an item that ends at midnight....

I got a great deal on a laptop that way...

one sniping site also will follow others that have like interests, you tell it who and it will show all the items they are bidding on...

the key is whether you snipe or not if someone else is willing to pay and posts a higher bid, they will beat you everytime...

and of course many of the folks that like one item you like may like and bid on other items you like...

also there are professionals that buy to resell and to the penny they know what they are going to spend and one day I was outbit by the same guy on 4-5 items...

[jimhaleyscomet]

When the polar express sets were selling I wondered about many bidders (shills?) with zero feedback.

I happened to have a G gauge Polar express set that I sold. Sure enough some of the bidders had zero feedback.

What I thought was Shill bidding was actually a result of many new people being brought to ebay to find a polar express. The funny thing is, I purchased my O gauge Polar Express mail order at retail (after tipped off by this forum to the link) at the same time people were paying $500 for the same set on Ebay.

I have got a VERY few VERY good deals on ebay. I have purchased quite a bit of other stuff and usually realize it is all at about market value. I find I get much better deals at a train show than on Ebay. Ebay may be a tad better priced than my local hobby shop but mail order usually beats both.

On Ebay we have to remember. When buying it is VERY easy to overpay when making your first bid on a given item. Use the watch figure, see what the prices are for similar items. Use Google to check for mail order deals on the same item. Only then would I bid (and as a result almost never win). I find Ebay is a great place to determine market value and a lousy place to get deals.

Jim H

[daan]

The bid's coming up a few seconds before closure is something very normal on a bidding site. Since the items are listed 5 or 7 or more day's, the end of the action is allways visible. If I want an item, I always use the bidding machine attatched to ebay. It keeps snipers away as long as they don't bid more then the maximum bid I preset in the bidding machine. If they do bid more, then it's not a big thing.
Since I don't have much to choose from at local shops in Holland, e-bay is an excellent place (probably more expensive then your hobbyshops) to get items I can't buy here.
I might be one of the persons who would bid more then market value sometimes, simply because I don't have shops to go to.
But since January the tax raised on items from the usa gets close to 50%, it's not an option anymore to buy from the usa ('till the tax drops oneday, it's due to some convention which causes the EU to ask extra tax on anything entering the EU from the USA, it will not hold forever..)
If you search on a type of engine you like, you might find one on another area which is not obvious for others to look for it, it can give a nice machine for a small amount of money.. (I got my sd28 that way, it was listed in a toy part of ebay..)

[Anonymous]

I think this was certainly a good well rounded conversation, Just ordered a new
Greenburg Lionel book from Amazon to get a little more insight at least for
Lionel anyway.

[Anonymous]

I have bought alot on e-bay, usually by sniping or maximam bid process, I never get dissappointed about losing an Item, If I lose I figure it wasn't for me & I move on. Regards Steve

[Anonymous]

WELL i guese I am the one to blame for not bidding enough to start with, but these people
that haven't even put in a bid at all then at the last few seconds with there software or
whatever to bid I think are real snipes and cut throats- Glad I don't have to be that type of
person even if I do loose.
But guese that is what makes the E-bay go round. Will have to keep trying the old
fashion way--
Maybe E-bay should have a pre-sign up like the private bids---then there would not be
any questions as to who wins and best to the winner!
I am reminded though that this a free nation--so to speak--
Maybe I should just "over-bid" the value like the majority I have seen-NOT!
Best of luck to all regardles.

[Anonymous]

Ebay has recently started a "best offer" system I think would work rather well.

I almost got sniped on a item tonight but the bidder submitted his bid in the last 8 seconds and did not make my secret high bid. That is ok by me, I think that Best Offers auctions will take off as a defense against snipers and give sellers a chance to choose the best payer for the item.

[Anonymous]

Ebay is a sellers game on popular things like Lionel trains. Many dealers will come in and buy to flip or sell them again at a higher price so there are very few deals. I would think some shill bidding is going on but not too much in Lionel as there are lots of us buyers. I have never gotten a deal or below market price on Lionel like I can at train shows where I am the one buyer if I am there first and have the item in my hand. It is between me and the seller to bicker on the price.

I have gotten a few good deals on Buy it Now . This happens when I have a Favorite listed and I am notified of an item being listed. If the buyer just wants to get his price fast and does not know the market very well you can do ok. BUY it Now is a poor choice for Lionel.
I have about given up on buying Lionel on ebay.

Charlie

[GPJ68]

Well it's obvious from a few comments that some out there are just whiney ***ed sore losers looking to blame someone else for their inability to comprehend the simple rules established by the online auction community.

If you place your highest acceptable bid - the most you're willing to pay for an item - when you bid, REGARDLESS OF THE TIME OF YOUR BID, then you have nothing to whine about if and when you lose, BECAUSE YOU ALREADY BID THE MAX YOU WERE WILLING TO PAY!!! Someone else just wanted it more than you!! If you're not bidding the max amount and getting beaten in the closing seconds, then IT'S YOUR OWN **** FAULT for not placing your max bid in the first place!! Whether you bid 10 minutes after a seven day auction starts or 10 seconds before it ends, if you don't bid the maximum amount you're willing to pay, then it's your - and your's alone - fault that you lost the auction, PERIOD!! It's not the alleged "sniper's" fault, it's not a mystery shill bidder jacking up the end price for the seller, it's not an evil conspiracy - YOU LOST!!! GET OVER IT AND MOVE ON TO THE NEXT LISTING!!

Sorry to yell, but I'm about fed up with whining crybabies boohooing about how they were "cheated" out of a good buy on ebay in the closing seconds by some "lowlife sniper" that won't play "fair". I got news for ya - the auction ain't over till the fat lady sings; and on ebay auctions everyone that can read knows EXACTLY when she's gonna light up her pipes, right down to the second. ANY bid placed between the opening and closing times of the auction is absolutely FAIR, regardless of the timing. And if you're crying cause you lost an auction in the closing seconds, then all I can say is - I HOPE IT WAS MY BID THAT BEAT YA!!! Because, unlike you, I did place the max amount the particular item was worth to me, and it just happened to be higher than your bid.

Speaking as a well practiced ebay marksman, "sniping" is "one shot, one kill" or in auction terms "one bid, one win (or loss)". It's not "stealing", or "cheating", or "unfair" in any sense. The benefits are several - keeps me from falling into any bidding wars early in the auction, prevents me (usually) from re-bidding on an item and going above my pre-determined max amount to try and "win at any cost", allows me to sometimes get a decent buy on an item over someone else who didn't "follow the rules" by placing a max bid of their own, keeps me from establishing a detailed bid history on similar items that anyone can research, prevents me from placing too many bids on too many auctions at one time and losing track of what I'm winning, losing, and spending. And just like a live auction, if the item is really worthwhile enough for me to bid my hard-earned money on, then I gotta be there to bid on it right to the end. I will at times place bids earlier in an auction, but mostly only when I know I can't be around at the time it sells.

There are also a few risks - my incredibly lousy internet connection has potentially cost me a number of good buys, and my memory ain't what it should be - meaning I tend to forget about ending times for some items and miss out completely. But that's ok, I'm not gonna whine, because if I miss bidding and winning an auction, it's MY OWN FAULT and nobody elses.

Sorry again for yelling, several who have replied cleary have a very good understanding of online auction practices and proceedures. It's the whiners (and not just the few from this thread, but others from previous threads I didn't reply to) that finally managed to get under my skin and hit my tripwire. I'll go find some of my medi-medi-medication now and go put the pink elephants flying past my head to bed........

[Anonymous]

I guess I am a "sniper" - if I really want an item, I determine the max I will pay and wait until the last 20 seconds to bid my max....if I lose, oh well... fortunately I am retired and a night owl, so I can bid at any hour if necessary.

[Anonymous]

Of course there are dishonest people out there.

But if we were bidding on the same trains at a public auction, have you ever noticed the auctioneers have people bid against you on certain items if the price is not what they intend it to be?

[Anonymous]

I have purchased a fair amount of stuff on Ebay, and have not really noticed this. I did however, overhear a conversation at a train show in Greenwood where two guys were talking about what they would charge for items, and one said that if he didn't get what he wanted for an item at the train show, he would list it on Ebay, and his friends would bid it up for him. After hearing that conversation, I have been more careful in Ebay bidding. I am sure that kind of thing goes on, but I don't know how widespread it is. Like the others in this posting, I always steer clear of people that have relisted items on a regular basis. After a while, you can notice who those people are.