eBay shill bidding 101
This YouTube video illustrates how recent eBay changes “protecting bidder’s privacy” affect you as a buyer when you decide to participate in bidding on eBay items. eBay touted that they are removing transparency from bidding process to protect you. I have a different opinion. eBay prefers to let shill bidding rampant on their site and now you cannot detect it because you have no way of knowing whom you bid against. When sellers shill their items, you as a buyer pay more and eBay makes more money. Simple.
Watch this YouTube eye opener!
And check out other awesome videos by the eBayPirate.
Remember: S.A.F.E. = Stay Away From Ebay
I have been a critic of ebay for many years. I reported obvious shilling many years ago and got no response.
Using shills for any purpose is a felony in licensed auctions in almost every state. Many states are seriously looking at applying their auctioneer licensing laws to ebay and ebay sellers in their states because of various abuses that ebay has let proliferate. In North Carolina they already have legal opinions that say their current auctioneer laws apply to ebay sellers. All they have to do is decide to apply the law. They will probably create a special class of on-line auctioneer license before doing so.
Let problems fester and they do nothing except get worse.
Comment by ebay critic — July 24, 2008 @ 12:17 pm
For anyone interested, a detailed case study of a classic, blatant shill bidder on eBay, and a comment on eBay’s attitude thereto, at http://www.auctionbytes.com/forum/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=24033
Comment by Philip Cohen — June 1, 2009 @ 4:38 am
Good news that the trading standards made it’s first conviction against Paul Barrett for shill bidding on ebay and to think it only took them 12 years so you never know they might just manage one fraud conviction this year and this makes you ask just what are we paying taxes when the trading standards is allowed to provide such a poor level of service.
eBuster has been asked to find members of the public that live in the UK who would like to take part in a live debate with ebay about shill bidding and can be contacted on the ‘Contact us’ page on eBuster,co,uk
Comment by ebuster — May 12, 2010 @ 6:32 am