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Recently, I bid on many state quarters. As an ebay seller I have found interest in state quarters...clad quarters...and silver quarters. To make the auction followup easier, I like to utilize the 'maximum bid' feature. So, to more quickly state my case I'll use an item #[protected] as one of a lot of fourteen. These were all clad state quarters and the amount I was willing to 'high-bid' was $10.00 each. Now, I have been buying product off of ebay for a good number of years. Rarely, I have found that it is rare to win an auction with my high-bid, either being over-bid...and taken out of the auction, or under-bid and end up paying less than the high-bid figure I originally submitted. I am not sure of the percentage of auctions that actually were committed to my original 'high-bid', however it is most assuredly low...probably in the single number percentile. In the sample I have provided...bidding on 14 items...I found I won each auction at my high-bid of $10.00. Statistically, this is impossible. How could each item mysteriously end up at just the amount I originally bid? Only one way...manipulation. How would this work? The selling vendor would have an accomplice...a secondary ebay account holder. When the vendor notices a high volume bidder, he/she would bid on a few of the items in that set. A few would be overbid, and sacrificed per se, to determine the buyers bidding amount. Then, for the remainders in the set, he/she would bid just south of the amount determined to be the high-bid amount, thus forcing the high-bid to become the successful bidder. Only problem is that it did not get there naturally...but via manipulation. While this theory is only speculation at this point, two factors arise. One, as previously mentioned, it is statistically impossible to sell a group of items at the high bid amount. Secondly, a bit of research into the actual bidder prior to the bid that won would be same on all/most of the other items in that grouping. This clearly inflates the buyers obligation and falsely inflates the sellers gross. I'd be interested in your thoughts and/or findings
Roger Jones
The complaint has been investigated and resolved to the customer’s satisfaction.
As we told Mr. Jones when he first made the accusation of shill bidding against us, we have never done anything like what he's described. We usually list more than 900 $.99 auctions per week and we offer $12 flat rate shipping for items won within 7 days. As a result, we have several buyers who bid on hundreds of items each week and a few of those bidders win around 30-150 items each week.
The item Mr. Jones offers as an example is a good example of what usually happens. The second place bidder for the item is one of our customers who wins around 130 items per week on average. He bid on the item twice- at $7.70 four hours before the item ended and $10 fourty nine minutes before the item ended. That's not what shill bidding looks like. Shill bidding would need to be incremental in order to determine the high bidder's maximum bid. Also, if the second place bidder were a shill for our company, we would be very bad at shill bidding. We'd be paying fees on 130 items per week, still have the coins to sell, and we'd be risking ebay shutting down our auction business that we've been running for more than 12 years.
Here's a good debate on whether or not we shill bid. People can read read both sides of the argument and judge for themselves :
http://www.cointalk.com/t210864/
- Roger
Ebay Sales & Website Manager
L&C Coins - www.lccoins.com