eBay Sellers Admit to Phony Bids

[ceya]

Latest word about Ebay.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmp..._phony_bidding


Be CAREFUL.
S/F,
CEYA!
Ceya Knife Designz

[MokoShang]

Right now with all that I've been hearing I would not use ebay....to many restrictions and scams going on.

[Senate]

for good bargains on spyderco it still worth it...

[Ray.Hood]

That goes back to what I said about greed. It's always around somewhere.
People will do anything for crack.

[fret]

Even with the Spydercos the bidding gets ridiculously high. I have suspected that the false bidding was happening all along. It won't stop the false bidders. They'll do anything to get the price up. I've seen some knives go for more than what they can be bought at a store. Bidding can get addictive. I set my limit and then I won't go over it. Check the price of the items at other places before bidding. Be careful of poor photos too. I got one knife that was supposed to be in excellent condition and it must have been ground on with an electric grinder. Deploreable condition. Not even worth the price for parts. I returned it and got a full refund. It should never have been put on the auction at all tho.

[UK KEN]

Hello All!

Reading a story like this it is easy to tar all sellers with the same brush. There are some great traders out there who are very honest and extremely reliable. Some highly respected members of this forum regularly sell Spydies and wouldn't dream of "shill bidding".

I would offer a word of advice where buying from eBay is concerned; take a good look at the vendors feedback. Avoid any seller with a dubious record!

Lastly, decide what the item is worth to you having made some comparative searches. Place your bid and don't bother even looking at the listing until the auction is over. In this way you will avoid being drawn into a bidding battle.

Regards Ken

[J Smith]

This goes on alot.Thats why I will not put in but just enough to become high bider.It happened to me on the first Luminox watch I tried to get off ebay.I placed a bid and was quikly outbid.The seller contacted me a few hours before the auction ended and said he had more than one and if I wanted one I could have it at the price I bid.I belive he had someone try to bid it up higher so he could get more out of me.I never responded to his mail.

[AllenETreat]

evilBay is just another take on the old time "auction house" -

It worked something like this : People who had good's ( mostly livestock
and farm equipment ) back in the 1800's called an auction, and hosted
an "auctioneer" who would try to drive up the price as back in those days
people just didn't "buy" - they haggled, the auction was the solution to
"getting one's price".

The "trapdoor" was the auctioneer had about 10-20 professional "bidders"
that were out in the crowd to start moving the bidding if it stalled.

Illegal? Back then, nobody gave a rat's @$$, nowadays it seem's they don't
either

Lesson over.

AET

[JD Spydo]

I have had some very interesting experiences on Ebay here of late in the Spyderco arena. For about the last month I will be bidding on a Spydie and be winning with no competition at all and then at the last 30 seconds they play a strange game. What they do is they will bid up to my "highest bid price" like within 5 cents to 7 cents. I have even had them go with 2 cents on one occasion. Last summer I did some knife trading with a German gal from Canada. She told me that over in Germany she knew a guy who had software that could tell you someone's highest bid. That way you could eclipse them by as little as a dime. I am quite certain now that hackers can find out what your high bid is. From now on if I want a Spydie I will just wait until the last 2 minutes to get it. I am convinced you do not have the security that Ebay claims you have. For about 6 of my knife auctions to come within just pennies I don't buy it. Nobody is that lucky and nobody is that good unless they are getting info by hacking.

[AllenETreat]

More misleading shenanigans by the good folks at evilBay.

Myself I never went out that far on a limb looking for a "bargain",
and never would, knowing how auctions houses of old worked - why
go back for seconds?

Better to cruise cyber-space for those rare 's

AET

[spyderknut]

Now I've heard it all. How can someone make money on outbidding you on a here and there? Ebay has protection for buyer's called a Reserve Price. If you are a seller and set your reserve price too high your item does not sell and you lose the listing fee.
Ebay is free market in the purest sense. It is Econ 101. Supply and demand. If you get burned it is your own fault. You either did not do your homework or were too eager for a given item. Don't bid on something unless you know what it is worth to you and bid no more. Last second bidding is your best bet. If you lose, you lose no money. If you bid too low someone else wins. It is just that simple. If you can use technology like programs to blce last second bids for you, more power to you.
No one has to figure out your highest bid, all they have to do is bid more. If you dont want to pay more than $60 for a given knife, decide how much more you are willing to risk for opportunity loss, say $3 and bid a little more like $63.10 just in case someone max bids and even $63. If they get the knife for $64.10 you have no one to blame but yourself. Same goes for buying a car or house or any negotiation or bidding situation. Decide what price you are willing to walk away from before you sit down at the table.

[JD Spydo]

Spyderknut you do indeed make some good common sense points. However I think you misunderstood the point I was trying to make. I wasn't complaining about being taken out of the auction by a few cents. What I was trying to illustrate was the fact that they get under me by anywhere between a dime to 2 cents. What I am trying to get across is that they make up all the ground they can to get you to pay almost to the penny of what you bid. Unless they have some way of knowing exactly what you bid I don't see how they can get that lucky unless they know exactly what your highest bid was.
Ebay on the other hand tries to assure us that no one else but Ebay knows your maximum bid. I say that is not true because in the last 2 months I have had it happen to me about 7 times now. I can take it on the chin when it is my fault! NO Problem there. But when they are out and out cheating in high tech fashion ( which I am convinced they are) that is a different picture. In other words the bidders that are right underneath me have no desire at all for the knife, they are just helping the seller get all of the money they can. They know what they are doing and it is rotten to the core. It really peeves me because I am an honest person and I don't do folks that way.

[spyderknut]

JD
Thanks for the clarification. Indeed, if the seller knows the max bids and falsifies other bids, that is dastardly indeed. I have not had anything like this happen to me. Lucky so far I guess. Still, Ebay and seller can't make you bid more than you are willing to pay.
If schemes like you suggest exist, they will either put Ebay out of the market or the perpetrators will be found out. I suggest you leave positive feedback but note in your comment "$.01 under max bid" or something similar. Merchants who repeatedly engage in shenanigans like this need to be pointed out!

[The Deacon]

Interesting article, makes me feel good when the agency I work for does something I can support, so many of their positions just leave me shaking my head. But, as Ken said, this does need to be put in a bit of perspective. While its easy to focus on the fact that these shenanigans took place on eBay, bid rigging, shill bidding, and outright fraud in auctions predate eBay by millennia. Beyond that, certain categories of goods seem to traditionally attract more than their fair share of shady vendors. Art, antiques and collectibles, coins, stamps, watches and used cars come most readily to mind. It does pay to remember that no venue is immune to abuse, that shady operators will manage to find their way into any marketplace, even knife related forums. Note too that none of the auctions referred to in the article were for knives of any kind, although auctions for high end customs and collectible production knives are certainly at above average risk for it.

One bright spot is that the most popular format for eBay auctions allow anyone to avoid the worst of these issues if they use it to their advantage. The "time limited" format makes possible to bid once and to enter that bid in the final few seconds of the auction. This tactic is called "sniping" and is the single most powerful tool the buyers has at their disposal. The way eBay processes those bids insures that you will never pay more that one increment more that the second highest bidder, regardless of your actual bid. This is the key! The duration of most eBay auctions allows plenty of time for research. In most case you have a week to determine how much that SpyderWidget sells for or last sold for. From that you can decide exactly how much it is worth to you and, if necessary compare that with what you can actually afford to bid. You get to do this calmly and dispassionately, at your convenience, then place your bid seconds before the auction ends.

Another plus for buyers is that the sheer volume of auctions on eBay makes it possible to keep your own little database of the selling prices for things that interest you. If the last five sold for more than what you are willing to pay, and the prices have been increasing, you know you will need heavy helping of luck to win. On the other hand, if the price trend is down, your chances are somewhat better even if the lowest to date is above your limit. No matter what, if early bidding push the price over your limit you can just take a pass on this one. No law saying you have to bid,tomorrow is another day.

Assuming you've spotted the auction early in the listing, "ask the seller a question" allows you to get clarification if something is unclear to you. If you don't get an answer, or get one that's evasive or that trips your BS sensor, then don't bid, simple as that. If the shipping and handling charges seem excessive to you, don't bid, simple as that. I personally don't mind a seller tacking on a couple bucks above postal cost for handling, but there's a limit. If the auction listing shows "bidder ID kept private", then unless you know and trust the seller, don't bid, as this is the a very popular way to mask shill bidding.

Final point, I'm strictly a buyer, but have been assured by a couple sellers who I trust that they cannot see the proxy amount, only the current bid amount seen by other bidders. I'm comfortable with that because my common sense tells me there would be just too many people involved for a "bombshell" like that to remain secret for long. I also figure that since it would be very easy for government "sting" to determine that it was true, and a major publicity coup for the agency that did it. Even if the seller did have access to that information, placing your first and only bid in the last few seconds of the auction makes it nearly impossible for them to use it.

[Spike]

I know GlobalBidding.com is new but I would like to see if anyone here would try it with me! Thanks
GlobalBidding.com

[UK KEN]

I know GlobalBidding.com is new but I would like to see if anyone here would try it with me! Thanks
GlobalBidding.com

Spike

Welcome to Spyderworld!

I have just had a look at the site. It seems fine and I have registered, but there are no knives listed for sale!

I know that it is in it's infancy but I feel that it will be some time before it will be worthwhile either listing or looking for items for sale.

Call me a suspicious old sod, but this is a strange post for your first. It would be a good idea for someone involved with promoting Globalbidding to visit as many sites as they could trying to get new people interested.

Regards, Ken

[The Deacon]

Call me a suspicious old sod, but this is a strange post for your first. It would be a good idea for someone involved with promoting Globalbidding to visit as many sites as they could trying to get new people interested.

Whew, that's a relief Ken, thought I was the only S.O.S. around here.

[UK KEN]

Paul

I always try to look for the good in people but as I get older I tend to find it less often. Does this mean that my eyes aren't as good as they used to be, people aren't as good as the used to be, or is it a combination of the two?

Whatever, these days I tend to err on the side of caution! As far as clichés go, I try to avoid them like the plague!

Ken

[Remag1234]

Hi all,
ebay in itself is fine. It's the sellers who have shill bidders [phantom/ghost bidders]. They bid up the item until seller gets his price. I recently wrote to ebay and all they gave me was gobbley gook BS. There is no question that ebay knows what's going on but don't really care. Remember they get a commission based on the selling price. So if the item does not sell they still get the ad fee. Chances are that the seller relists the item. I bid on an item and lost, 3 days later the same item was listed and the same guy who won the first item is bidding on the second item. I bid on that also and you guessed it, I lost. Now it's 3 days later and there is the same item listed again
and the same winner is bidding......This is a lot of 6 items, when I checked the sellers other items they don't show up.
In closing, check your prices [you can sometimes find it cheaper elsewhere] and always place a limit on your bidding.

[samosaurus]

Interesting note.. I once bidded for a toy car. Uncontested and won the bid. The seller wants USD$40 to ship the toy worth US$17.50 via USPS Global Priority.. So, no deal. I just ignored the transaction.. But speaking of good deals, I've purchased a coupla stuff from Ebay from some honest sellers.. Haven't bought a knife from the auctions though..

Sam