From: Steve Grammont (islander@midmaine.com)
Date: Sat Nov 20 2004 - 09:07:25 PST
>One of ebays biggest problems that they try to keep a lid on is
>collusive bidding with shill bidders running up items. If they
>don't keep a lid on it, be sure that government will do it for them, and
>kill ebay in the process.
Shills are a whole nother ball of wax. This is the practice of
purposefully manipulating the price upwards or to resecure something that
otherwise would be sold at a low price. There is real harm here because
the action always inflates the price to the benefit of the seller at the
expense of the buyer. With collusion bidding, as I've described, this is
not always the case and is often beneficial to the seller. At least how
it works with me.
I've had friends offer to bid up items I'm selling on eBay when the
bidding is sparse... I always refuse. It is not only illegal but, IMHO,
immoral. I'm the type that doesn't play a game if it can't be played
fairly. I've been hit by shillers for sure on at least 2 occasions and I
HATE IT. eBay did nothing about either one, even though the case was as
clear as day (i.e. snipe bidding at the last minute for 4x the value
using a eBay profile with 8 wins in 12 months that had nothing to do with
the item's category).
Steve
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