Recent High Priced Auctions

BG42EDGE

BG42EDGE

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Some here have observed that on a few recent auctions that were noted as going real high, there have been a number of low-feedback bidders driving the price up......which makes one wonder if these are shill bidders (identities used and then discarded after a few uses).

Out of curiosity, I checked a bunch of Knot2sharp's auctions and I don't see those low-feedback bidders going after his stuff even though they were the same types and categories of knives.
 
I'm not much of an ebay guy,to be honest I'm more of a knuckle dragger.I do look at ebay and saw a 532 with a bunch of bids and some time to go,it was up to $132!It was just a plain jane,seems like a lot of jack to me but as I'm not a collector I have no idea.I plain on joining BCCI soon.To me the Buck family is what America is all about,and still after over 100 years making high quality knives! God Bless America.
 
It could be new inexperienced bidders not realizing that there will be other chances to get what they want. For example, when an item listed as "rare" comes up for auction ten separate times in a few months, that isn't really rare, but a newbie may not realize that.
 
Being "the devil's advocate", there are definitely some sellers that arrange to have cohorts raise the bids.

I've bought many things off ebay going back about ten years. The "pay first" process is PERFECT for scammers.

Ebay DOES try to keep things legit, but there is only so much they can do, AND they make money from sellers, NOT buyers! So it is definitely BUYER BEWARE. That being said, it is a great place to find just about anything.

Peter
 
peterinct said:
Being "the devil's advocate", there are definitely some sellers that arrange to have cohorts raise the bids.

I've bought many things off ebay going back about ten years. The "pay first" process is PERFECT for scammers.

Ebay DOES try to keep things legit, but there is only so much they can do, AND they make money from sellers, NOT buyers! So it is definitely BUYER BEWARE. That being said, it is a great place to find just about anything.

Peter
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Well, if there weren't buyers there wouldn't be any sellers, therefore no money to be made by eBay, so Ebay does make the money off of the buyers. I'm strictly a buyer and have 1286 feedbacks at this point, so they've made alot off of me.

Buyer beware is a good policy, however, the number of real problems I've had with transactions is very small. Every dispute that I've ever had to file over not receiving an item or getting something not as described has been found in my favor. The majority of the cases where I was disappointed with the item, was because I didn't do enough research on the item or ask for better pictures, etc.
 
postfallsidaho said:
Just curious, but what does this prove or what point is trying to be made? Sorry, I am missing it ;)
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Yes, it may be unclear for those who don't do a lot of e-Bay.

It's just a comparison of a seller we know is trustworthy with some that we have been questioning. He has very, very few low-feedback bidders and some others have a significant number who seem to run the bidding to some pretty amazing levels.

There's quite a difference in the auction histories.

One explanation for the lack of those low-feedback bidders in Knot2sharp's history is that he's not using shill bidders. Whether others are doing it or not is impossible to tell, but I'm staying away from some sellers and I'm watching a couple of those questionable low-feedback bidders on knife auctions.

A NIB knife ended recently with one of those low-feedback bidders the winner......if he was a shill, that knife will show up again in a new auction because the attempt to shill didn't work and they still have to sell the knife.

I don't know if everybody is aware of it, but auctions are available for inspection even after they expire in "completed auctions." All you have to do is go to the seller's feedback and go through his old auctions and then examine the bidding history on the item.

It can reveal a lot.
 
BG42EDGE said:
Some here have observed that on a few recent auctions that were noted as going real high, there have been a number of low-feedback bidders driving the price up......which makes one wonder if these are shill bidders (identities used and then discarded after a few uses).

Out of curiosity, I checked a bunch of Knot2sharp's auctions and I don't see those low-feedback bidders going after his stuff even though they were the same types and categories of knives.
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BG42 I feel a lot like you I think there are some games being played on the bidding. Either the ole Brother-in-law is helping out or has a close friend helping out. I just womder how they are getting around the having to pay with Pay Pal situatuion?
 
You mean when they get stuck with the shill winning the auction, right?

I think the buyer just goes ahead and pays with Paypal as normal and then the seller reimburses the shill, who.....like you say, is probably an in-law or friend or associate or someone in their circle who can get a bidding ID.

Then they put the knife up for auction again after waiting a while.
 
BG42EDGE said:
You mean when they get stuck with the shill winning the auction, right?

I think the buyer just goes ahead and pays with Paypal as normal and then the seller reimburses the shill, who.....like you say, is probably an in-law or friend or associate or someone in their circle who can get a bidding ID.

Then they put the knife up for auction again after waiting a while.
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I doubt that they would do that too many times. If the price gets way up there, the final value fees (it did sell), listing fees (they will have to pay to list it again) and PayPal (they have to pay a percentage of the selling price)fees are soon going to wipe out their profits.

They are basicly selling to themselves and having to pay all those costs for nothing.:thumbup:
 
That's what happens when they get too greedy, though.

:)

They try hard to avoid it, of course.

The time we would notice it is when an item sells for a more normal price after they've been going real high.

That means us suckers quit taking the bait and left them holding the bag.......er, knife.
 
Plumberdv said:
Well, if there weren't buyers there wouldn't be any sellers, therefore no money to be made by eBay, so Ebay does make the money off of the buyers. I'm strictly a buyer and have 1286 feedbacks at this point, so they've made alot off of me.
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It took a while, but I think ebay FINALLY figured that out. They have changed a LOT in the last few years mostly in favor OF buyers.

I was outright defrauded and furnished all the necessary documentation to ebay and they did NOTHING! The seller re-listed the item I returned for a refund, kept my money, and sold it again!

The few times I was ripped off, the seller simply lied about it, gave me "retaliatory" negative feedback (supposedly against ebay rules) and they did NOTHING about that either. I always tried to work it out before leaving NEGATIVE feedback, but was not always successful.

Now sellers no longer have that capability. Also, they encode buyer ID's so you can't communicate unless you are the seller. Members used to be able to contact one another by requesting contact info.

PayPal became so profitable....ebay bought it a while back. That is why EVERY auction has to offer it.

bucksforus said:
BG42 I feel a lot like you I think there are some games being played on the bidding. Either the ole Brother-in-law is helping out or has a close friend helping out. I just womder how they are getting around the having to pay with Pay Pal situatuion?
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Sellers, if using someone to raise the bid price, will NOT hold the bidder to buy, should they have high bid. They eat the listing fees or possibly get a re-list from ebay.

Another thing ebay did was to "refresh" ratings because so many sellers were less than 100% it was hurting sales!

I've only been a "buyer" myself, so I don't know all the latest changes they have made affecting sellers. Some long time sellers i've known were quite upset by some of them.
 
It's damned tough on sellers now. They are pretty much at the mercy of the buyer who wants to nail them.....this is good for the rest of us buyers because they have to treat us pretty darn good if they want to stay in business......and they can't even neg us.

The down side is that a lot of these sellers actually try to make a living at e-Bay......and it's tough. That's why we may be seeing more of these shill bidding scams. They are honestly desperate.......well, DIShonestly desperate, to be more precise.
 
Although Ebay requires a seller to accept PayPal (or another approved online payment), they can still accept checks or money orders if the buyer asks them to, so Ebay wouldn't know that there was no payment made. They just can't do that constantly, because Ebay will penalize them if they do it too much. They don't want to get beat out of their PayPal fees.
 
BG42EDGE said:
It's damned tough on sellers now. They are pretty much at the mercy of the buyer who wants to nail them.....this is good for the rest of us buyers because they have to treat us pretty darn good if they want to stay in business......and they can't even neg us.

The down side is that a lot of these sellers actually try to make a living at e-Bay......and it's tough. That's why we may be seeing more of these shill bidding scams. They are honestly desperate.......well, DIShonestly desperate, to be more precise.
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I agree. I know quite a few sellers that make their primary income from ebay, and they are having a much tougher time of it.

Not sure if they straightened it out, but sellers were getting long delays in transferring their money OUT of PayPal. Seems they were making $$$ from the "float", getting that little bit more interest on the funds by keeping it more time!

Another BIG change on the horizon, is ebay reporting sales to IRS to eliminate the option of NOT declaring the income. I've heard rumors that it is coming in the next few years. Se la vie, I guess.
 
Another thing some here may not know is that you can go to the bid history on an auction.....oh, say the recent Three-Dotter that's been discussed here, for example........click on a bidder.....oh, say "0***9 (1) for example......and find that he has bid ONLY on items from that ONE seller--nobody else.
 
BG42EDGE said:
Another thing some here may not know is that you can go to the bid history on an auction.....oh, say the recent Three-Dotter that's been discussed here, for example........click on a bidder.....oh, say "0***9 (1) for example......and find that he has bid ONLY on items from that ONE seller--nobody else.
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That's interesting. How do you know that? The (1) only means that they have one feedback. He could have "bid on" but not won, hundreds of items and there would not be any way to know that. :confused:
 
When you click on the 0***9 (1) you get a readout on his bid history......which in this case is only with one seller.
 
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