Shill bidders on GunBroker.com

[rogertc1]

Never had any problems on Gun Broaker or even E-Bay 810 score getting closer to thr Red Star!!!

 

[Guns and more]

Problem with shill bidding is if the shill wins, the seller has to pay GB.

So let's say a seller is working with a shill.
9 out of 10 times the shill drives up the price but gets out in time. Seller has more profit.
1 out of 10 times, the seller gets stuck with the GB fee.
He's still way ahead.

I always suspected E-Bay when I would put in my max bid (and it's an oddball number so I don't get beat by a penny) let's say $42.76. Shortly after another bidder (without knowing my max bid) bids $42.77. I say something smells.
Now on E-Bay I only bid in the last 10 sec. There are actually web sites that allow you to snipe a bid automatically. "Snipe.com" I believe.
I don't buy much on GB, but I set a max and if I get overbid, I let it go. There's always another one.

 

[SSN Vet]

basically what you're trying to do is snag an expensive item for a ridiculously low price

No... that's basically NOT what I'm trying to do and that's definitely not the kind of person I am...

The beginning bid is $500. I can buy the rifle all day long for $600. The guy has stated in previous auctions that he lists at his cost, with no reserve and will let the rifle go at that in order to get his volumes up...

I'll keep my cards close and see what happens at the "midnight hour".... and yes, I should have done that to start with

My suspicions only have to do with the timing....

Perhaps I'm in error to think there's a shill bidder, but the "coincidence" has me wondering.

 

[Brian Dale]

I've had to learn not to get fixated on one listing or one seller. I decide what it's worth to me, then buy it if I can. As is obvious to you, some of the times when I've missed out, the piece ended up going for more than I'd have been willing to pay. Also, I once missed out on a great deal on a very good item, moped about it for a bit, and then bought a better one (better, according to my own tastes) about three weeks later.

The cardinal rule, for me, is that there will always be another one available sooner or later from somebody else.

 

[foob]

I always suspected E-Bay when I would put in my max bid (and it's an oddball number so I don't get beat by a penny) let's say $42.76. Shortly after another bidder (without knowing my max bid) bids $42.77. I say something smells.

This makes utterly no sense.
1. Seller does not know your max bid.
2. Ebay automatically puts in the next minimum bid no matter how high the other bidder bid. So even if the bidder bid $5000 the number ebay is showing is the $42.77
3. The minimum incremental bid for something that's $40+ is not $0.01.

So, no this is not shill bidding if your bid goes up by $0.01 or by the minimum incremental bid.

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.

This is normal ebay behavior. People will bid up to but never over the buy it now price. People prefer to bid near the end of the auction. There is no evidence of fraud here.

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.

Ebay cares about shill bidding trust me.

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.

Again Ebay cares about shill bidders. How do I know? My friend used my account to sell a multi-thousand dollar camera because I have great feedback. That dumbass then used his own account to bid on the auction because he was scared the price would be too low.

I got suspended for shill bidding.

Shill bidding gets easier and easier to detect the more often it is done. The problem is whether gunbroker has a system to detect it. Ebay does because they are rich. They have incentive to detect shill bidding because providing a fair system in the long run gets more customers. Just like why online poker websites publish their random algorithms and try and provide a fair place to gamble.

 

[mljdeckard]

^^precisely.

 

[rocinante]

I think so. I was bidding on a vaquero and there was an identical pistol from the same seller with zero bids right under my auction. Someone bumped up my bid 20 bucks instead of bidding on the lesser zero bid auction. Seemed fishy to me.

 

[Sport45]

Any more, if I want something, I put in my max bid 10 seconds before the auction closes.

That's the way I bid too except I don't always cut it that close. That way I don't risk bidding more than I want to pay just because "it's only a couple bucks", etc. It also keeps someone else from outbidding me for the same reason.

 

[MAKster]

The easy way to tell if the other bid was fake is to do nothing until the auction ends. If the item is relisted or if you get an email from the seller saying the high bidder backed out and he is generously offering it to you now then you know the other bid was fake.

 

[edrice]

All payments for ebay items must now go through ebay, paypal or whatever, so now they can track and see if an item was actually paid for. No more money orders or checks. That may reduce shill bidding somewhat, but a shill bidder could obviously get his money back from the seller in the event a true bidder did not bite. But it is a way of tracking who has paid, which protects the seller from non-payers.

 

[TCOV]

I haven't used Gunbroker much but buy and sell on Ebay a lot. I suspect one case where a seller used a shill bid to run up a bid but the shill ended up with winning bid. This was something for the grandson, not hi dollar. After the auction closed I get a message from the seller that the winning bidder had backed out and I could have the item for my hi bid as I was second hi bidder. This smelled like amateur scam as I was the only other bidder and should have won with opening bid. I looked through the feedback of both parties ( ID wasn't hidden then) and saw that they had several deals between them. I declined offer. I have had second chance offers where winning bidder backed out and the seller adjusted the price as if winning bidder had not been involved. This is legit.