Shill bidders on GunBroker.com

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Any body out there ever have a problem with this?

I've had the problem on e-bay.... but never noticed it on GB b4.

I've watched a particular auction for several months....it keeps expiring with 0 bids, and then gets re listed. It's a no reserve auction, from a dealer/shop who seems to list NIB items with the opening bid at his cost & no reserve. I even read on one of his auctions, that GB got after him for listing his phone # and telling people to call for the reserve, because they thought he was using the auction to steer people to his shop and then selling to them direct, without paying GB fee.

The guys got over 900 sales with 100% positive feedback....

So I schmooze things over with my wife, to ensure marital harmony is secure and place the min. bid....

An hour later, someone else has bid on the auction.

Where the heck have they been for the last three months? Just to pop out of the woodwork an hour after I bid the auction, did they....

If he is shill bidding, or having someone else shill bid for him, I've got a mind to let him fall on his sword.

But he can probably claim "bid no pay" and skip out on the GB commission.

Anybody out there selling on GB that can explain the process from the sellers side?
 
Could it be that someone else is watching the same auction and does not want to lose out on something he really wants?
 
If he is shill bidding, or having someone else shill bid for him, I've got a mind to let him fall on his sword.
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Go with your gut.

It's possible that someone else wants the item too, or it's possible that he is shill bidding because he has an actual bid from an actual customer (you) and he is trying to wring it out.
 
You used to be able to check the feedback and history of the bidders on GB. A while back, they started obscuring the bidder info on active auctions, so now you cannot easily tell if you're being fleeced or not. (Shill bidders tend to have little-to-no history, since they're designed solely to drive up the bid value..)

My response has been to always put in a bid one dollar above the starting bid, just to see what happens. If nobody else jumps in, I win by default. If a 'shill' jumps in and I decide not to compete for the item, then the shill gets stuck 'buying' the item and the seller gets stuck paying the sales commission on the 'sale value'.
 
shill bidding, or having someone else shill bid for him
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Doesn't that require setting up a GB account (which would inevitably be revoked) by giving them personal information and allowing GB to charge $1 to a valid credit card? Doing this, having GB to close the account after the 'bid-no-pay' claim, and then start up another new GB account with different personal info and a different credit card, just to do more shilling, seems like it'd be so much of a hassle and loss of $1 at a time, to be worth the OCCASIONAL benefit that he'd get from a bidder like you biting and getting hooked into buying.
 
If the shill bidder is truly a shill, they're in cahoots with the seller and will never be reported.
 
shills

I'm pretty sure I had it happen a time or two, but another site I found that it happens frequently on is Auction arms, a while back I was on there hot and heavy, and it always seemed several of the vendors always has a hidden bidder, then when he won it came up for sale again sometime later, my guess is betting no one would notice, but I did and confronted them, now I am no longer over there, by their choice.
good luck with it, takes all the fun and honesty out of buying.
rj
 
I noticed this type of behaivour from an ebayer. A few years back when I lived in S. Texas, I use to bid on hog hunts. This ebayer cought my curiosity. He would usaully start out a hunt-item with $1 with no reserve. But a few hours before the bid ends, it jumps to a little less that the price that you will have to pay if you bought it as "buy it now". It happened on ALL of his hunts. Funny thing is he has a 100% feedback. I hunted in his ranch once and actually enjoyed it.
 
I think I had this happen to me recently. I was bidding on an AK type carrier {essentially a Galil carrier with a side mounted handle instead of a top mounted handle which if used with a rail will kill you knuckles}.

I watched it until the last hour then I bid. The bid was matched at the last minute then the auction went into the 15 minute rule, which is to say that the auction will last until no one bids for fifteen minutes.

Each time I bit my bid was immediately matched. I figured the other bidder had an automatic bid turned on so I started upping my bid by $50 just to see if that was the case........it was.

I then jumped it up to $100 bids to which the price got over $300 for a carrier that started out at $60, or so dollars. I stopped then, and was actually glad that I got outbid since I did not want to pay over $150 for the carrier as I can, and did buy an AK carrier, and just changed the piston to one for a Galil for about $60 total.............Either someone was shill bidding or paid {IMO} a ridiculous price for a carrier............
 
The way to tell is to watch and see if it gets re-listed.

I wouldn't be too paranoid though. In many cases there is a psychological effect of seeing a bid. I've been guilty of it myself. I watch some bit of eye candy for months debating about whether to get it, then some guy tosses a bid on there and I have to put up or shut up.
 
I can't speak for gunbroker, but ebay has VERY powerful tools to catch shill bidding. The system is capable of checking for geographical proximity between bidder and seller, IPs, email addresses, phone numbers, public records showing PREVIOUS numbers and addresses, old ebay accounts, repeated bids between buyer and seller on previous auctions, activity between buyer and seller on previous auctions which resulted in no sale, etc. In the case of ebay, it's not a question of knowing if it's shill bidding, it's a question of showing enough links between buyer and seller to prove it beyond reasonable doubt. Shill bidding is illegal, and they don't want to be held liable as an accomplice, particularly in widespread cases. Under ebay's terms of service, they can suspend or terminate your account for suspicion of shill bidding, even if it's say, a legitimate bid from a family member.

I don't know how intensive Gunbroker's scrutiny is, but it's not in their interests for there to be any public perception that they tolerate shill bidding.
 
You used to be able to check the feedback and history of the bidders on GB. A while back, they started obscuring the bidder info on active auctions, so now you cannot easily tell if you're being fleeced or not. (Shill bidders tend to have little-to-no history, since they're designed solely to drive up the bid value..)
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You know.... I thought they used to give the bidder details... but wasn't sure. It's been a year or so since I purchased on GB.

I caught a guy selling small engines on e-bay, doing this.... the same couple of e-bay user names (each with 0 transactions and some silly "123" kind of name that no one would pick for themselves) was bidding on several of his auctions at the same (just how many $500 Honda engines does a guy really need). I turned him into e-bay, but I doubt they did anything, as sellers are their source of income.

Could it be that someone else is watching the same auction and does not want to lose out on something he really wants?
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possible... yes
probable... I doubt it

it came up for sale again sometime later
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that's what I'll be watching for....

If the shill bidder is truly a shill, they're in cahoots with the seller and will never be reported.
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That's what I'm curious about... if the guy doesn't file a "bid no pay" report... he'll have to pay GB commission.

Does anyone know how much that is?

Doing this, having GB to close the account after the 'bid-no-pay' claim, and then start up another new GB account with different personal info and a different credit card, just to do more shilling, seems like it'd be so much of a hassle and loss of $1 at a time, to be worth the OCCASIONAL benefit that he'd get from a bidder like you biting and getting hooked into buying.
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I agree... but I need to know a couple things...

1. if you get a bid-no-pay report filed against you, do they actually give you the boot? or can you weasle out of it, with a simple "the item description was in error" reply?

2. Do they really check the user info. that carefully? cross-referencing CC numbers and addresses and names? Or, does simply registering under A. Smith the first time and Adam Smith the second time throw them off.

I'd say a risking $1 on the very remote chance that anybody out there is paying attention, would easilly be offset by the potential to drive up the bids ~$10 or so on every auction.
 
The best thing ever invented for auctions are snipe tools like hammersnipe.com. I know what I would be willing to pay, I use the snipe program (it's free), and it bids in the last 15 seconds or so of the auction. If I don't get it, that means it sold for more than I wanted to give anyway. I will at times, put in a minium bid on the item so the seller can't pull it later. Don't know if it will stop shill bidders, but it does keep me from getting caught up in the auction and spending more than I originally intended.
 
I have never understood it, but many bidders do not like to go first. Not sure why, but some will let an auction close with no bids rather than bid first. Often another bid is posted within minutes of mine (the 1st). I think shill bidding on GB is actually fairly rare.

Only one month to go on double secret probation.

I am very excited.
 
I've been on ebay since the beginning, and have gotten some sweet deals on both ebay and gunbroker.

To be honest, the best peace of mind I get is determining the cost of shipping, factoring that into the highest total price I'm willing to pay, and bidding $1.17 (or some other <$2.00 random number) more than that total. I then bid that amount. If I win, I win. If I lose, I lose--but only because it went higher than I was willing to pay. The trick is to determine what the highest amount you're willing to pay. If you think a weapon is worth $400 to you, then bid the $400.

I bid the extra random amount because in the past, I've often found that at the end of the auction, when somebody's sniping program outbid me by a dollar, I'd be upset because it turns out that I would have actually paid that price. For example, if I lose that $400 gun to someone else at $401, I'd be upset because I probably would have paid that.

The best way for me is to determine total price (including shipping), bid the extra random number <$2.00, and forget about it.

What is really making you mad is that you feel you are being screwed out of a great deal: You're hoping to find someone that is willing to sell a $1000 firearm on a no reserve, starts-for-a-penny auction, and be that one lucky, solitary bidder that gets it for $40. When this doesn't happen, you're upset. It would be great if this happened all the time, but it doesn't...and when it doesn't, don't be upset that "your" deal got "screwed". That's kinda greedy. Pay a fair price, or what you think is fair. If it goes over that, then no big deal, and no hard feelings.

If you're "fishing" for great deals, then basically what you're trying to do is snag an expensive item for a ridiculously low price, praying that--through the luck of the draw--nobody else bids a fair price. That's playing the rules by the game, but it's sort of a legal scam in it's own way. Don't be upset when someone else offers a fair price--or fairer than what you've offered--whether they be a shill bidder or not.

Also: Gunbroker auction timers, when it goes down to the wire, will reset the timer to 15 minutes at the end of the auction if someone attempts to "snipe" you, allowing you enough time to enter a higher bid, if you so wish. I really like that feature!

Just my two cents! And I've met some great folks on Gunbroker. Good luck!
 
zoom6zoom said:
You can't snipe on gunbroker. Bids in the last 15 minutes automatically extend the auction time.
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I believe the 15 minute rule is decided by the seller they can sell without it. Most use the 15 minute rule in hopes of driving the price higher.
 
I've been known to wait for the other bidder. I think it gives me a better position.

Tom
 
Ebay is crawling with shill bidders, more now that it's impossible to get a handle on other bidders. Ebay doesn't give a hoot about it, because it brings them more money.

The only good thing is they don't have a 15-minute rule, which makes it super easy for shills to clean you out. Any more, if I want something, I put in my max bid 10 seconds before the auction closes.
 
Problem with shill bidding is if the shill wins, the seller has to pay GB.

The best tactic to take with GB auctions is to pick the price you're willing to pay, bid that and don't check on the auction until after its over.

Its when you watch the bidding closely that you can get tricked into doing something foolish.
 
If he's shill bidding, he'll end up having to pay GB the fees. It could be a coincidence. Keep an eye out and if the item shows up again, contact GB and complain.
 
Snipe....do it just outside the 15min window if you want.

The rules for a snipe is "bid your final price, and bid at the last possible second"

My ebay snipes tend to be with 2-3 seconds remaining....and I usually get what I'm going after. That 15min rule on GB may be annoying, but it's worth trying anyways.
 
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