Ebay's Rigged

[Red Wind Ranger]

My dad discovered that ebay sellers has their friends/relatives or whatever, bid on items just to get the item up to 200 or so or 100 or less. The price they exactly want the item for.

[T-Bone]

Welcome to the day after the website opened......

[Shoebasket]

your just noticing this?

[Abaranger]

Old news.........Lol, just Kidding

Actually, this is the first time i've heard of this. None of my auctions really got rigged, but stuff like that jus really bites ass

[Nyranger]

...wow....

[hackerdiety03]

very clever though..... never knew you could do that. i'll just put a note about this in my ebay tips and tricks section. anyways, so how does ebay catch these cheaters?

[Red Wind Ranger]

very clever though. never knew you could do that. so how does ebay catch these cheaters?

They don't. If they catch the cheaters. They'll lose business.

[Pocket Rocket]

While I'm sure that happens sometimes, I doubt seriously if the vast majority of sellers employ this strategy. I sell on eBay and I've never done it.

[Red Wind Ranger]

While I'm sure that happens sometimes, I doubt seriously if the vast majority of sellers employ this strategy. I sell on eBay and I've never done it.

Well that's good. Though some people aren't that trustworthy. I guess everyone will just have to bid and find out the truth and until you can know if the seller is trustworthy or not.

[hackerdiety03]

i'm pretty sure this happens for items that are "very popular". like the nintendo ds.....pretty sure ppl do that.

[Zenoff64]

The funniest thing to do if you know the seller is doing that is to bid in small increments up till near the end, then let them win the auction.

[Outatime]

well stand back and think about it from the sellers point of view.. you want to sell your items for as much money as you possibly can, even if the item for sale is something that you really just want to get rid of. if the seller knows that there are people watching their items, they will have one of their friends bid on the item so that others will realize there are others who have an interest in the item. if they know this then the competition for the item will increase. a smart "cheating seller" would make sure that their friend who bids on the item doesn't constantly go back and bid because that might discourage the other buyers. however if their friend bidded maybe 2 or 3 times and only bid 5 bucks higher than the other buyers, then they'd sell the item for at least 10 -15 bucks more than they anticipated.

[Ray-Z]

I've done it

[Cryomancer]

It's called Shill Bidding, it's not a particularily cool thing to do in my opinion. I occasionally make "the other guy" I lose to pay a couple extra bucks as a bidder, but as an occasional seller I'm not gonna create false bids on my item. Most of the stuff I've sold went for the BIN price anyway, guess I should have aimed higher. oh well.

[bandai1983]

It's obvious you could do that. I just don't cause it's against the rules.

[Red Wind Ranger]

If they want a special price. I think they should place the amount they want and use buy it now on their item.

[Taquito Cigar]

They get their money either way, what do they care. The higher the price, the more dolla$!

[Cryomancer]

There is also such a thing as a reserve price.

[Peter]

While it's a reasonable enough way of making money (and as said, how are they gonna catch you or enforce the rule?), I think that it's very dishonourable and dishonest as a seller to do that. You're ripping people off. I've never done it, and I'm not about to start.

[Cryomancer]

They catch it by people reporting it, it's usually pretty obvious, when a new account bids on everything the guy is selling, etc. They enforce it by pulling accounts.

[Garo]

I did it for my friend and they did it for me.

[MICROmor]

it can go wrong, and having the fake bidder winning the auction. wich means paying to ebay the commision and the fees and NO ONE paying you. so watch out.