Suspicion about an Ebay seller shill bidding on his auctions

[Darth Bane]

After seeing a few figures sell for over $100, I noticed that the same bidders bidded on a certain seller's auctions. Now I noticed again that another group of bidders bidded on all of the same seller's auctions. What is so suspicious even more is that the amount is a lot higher than what other auctions are going for even though it is the same item. Not only that, buy why bid only one sellers auctions? Are these bidders idiots? Is the seller lucky? or.......is the seller using other accounts to bid up his own stuff. If these bidders are real then I can only say that this seller is truly the "Actionfigureking". methinks though that the seller is cheating people out of money.

[Cubehead]

Nice detective work Bane. I am sorry to say but you are probably %100 correct about this schill bidding. I, too, have noticed patterns where it seems like the same person, or the same group of people, seem to be bidding on all of a certain dealers products.

Even worse, I know a scumbag dealer who admits to doing this.
It is VERY easy for them to get multiple E-bay accounts as both buyers and sellers. This jerk in particular has an e-mail address
at our local Library. This is how I found out what he was doing.
He talks to the librarian and OPENLY BRAGS about his nefarious activities. The lesson here is, DON'T BUY FROM "WE-PAY."

60 minutes had a peice about E-Bay and they said that E-Bay recieves over 3000 complaints of fraud every single day!

Also, have you ever noticed that E-Bay does not require the seller to list their location? This helps the schill bidders in their goals as well. The whole situation is ridiculous. E-Bay itself could care less, just so long as they get their peice of the action. It's almost as if they encourage fraud.

[sith_killer_99]

That's why I am always VERY cautious about buying from e-bay.

However, I also try to buy multiple figures from the same seller to reduce shipping costs.

There are techniques to help elimidate or reduce shill bidding difficulties.

For one thing people who place a minimum bid and the buy it now are generally (but not always) a bit more reputable. The problem with that is that they tend to be more expensive.

Any way you look at it you are taking a risk. The guy could be the most dependable seller on ebay, but that one item has problems (shipping, wrong item got listed, fig gets damaged before they can send, etc.)

Personally, I have been trading, buying, and ebaying for years and I have only been burned 4 times.

I ended up over bidding on an ebay auction once. That was my fault, i placed my bid too high.

Twice, I have worked out trades that went bad, they never sent my stuff.
Once, I worked out a trade for a MOMC figure (I sent 4 loose figs for 1 MOMC). Only to have the figure show up 5 weeks later looking like a reject from the discount bin. Talk about MAJOR shelf wear.

OK steppin down off of my soap box now.

[LTBasker]

The best thing to do is check out the seller's feedback and the auctions they've bought/sold and look at the feedback of the other buyers/sellers, also always make sure it has a picture and not a site picture but one that doesn't appear to be "professionaly" taken.

[Rollo Tomassi]

I only bid what I'm willing to spend on something and if the price goes over that amout I was not meant to win it. And the guy who bids on his own stuff and wins, he has to pay ebay the percentage fees and still has the product. So he loses money. Chump.

[Turbowars]

[i]Originally posted by Cubehead

Also, have you ever noticed that E-Bay does not require the seller to list their location?
[/B]

E-bay does require the seller to list their location. When you go into the sell option and fill out the form to make an auction the location line is required and you can not submit an auction with out it. E-bay is not a bad place, I have bought tons of stuff through the years and only been burned twice. Heck without ebay my collection wouldn't be what it is today. You don't always pay top dallor for figures, heck I just saw the Teebo wave go for 19.99. Checking the sellers Feedback is a must. I don't buy from anyone that has more than a couple negatives. Sure e-bay has their bad apples, but for the most part the auctions go well and I have met people over seas and become trading friends. You just have to be on the look out for to good to be turn auctions. I think it's still up there's a 25th vader from the fan club that a seller has it for 14.99 Buy IT NOW. Well if you read his description, it you buy it now for 14.99 you have to give him a loose vintage Yak Face and $50 on top of that, what a jerk! That just goes to show you that you should always read the desscription before you buy. This seller is trying to save money in all directons. If smeone does take the bate the seller only has to pay a % on the 14.99 not the $50.

[icatch9]

Ebay is a great place to fill hole in your collection. It's easy and very painless. Sure it takes a little faith, it's not like walking into Wal-Mart and buying something new. Still, you can't exactly walk into Wally World on buy a Out Rider or orange boxed AT ST anymore. So, it's good. It is just like any other business trasaction, you just have to be careful who you deal with. You may get burned, but you may get a great deal. I once got 20 MOMC FF figures in a lot for $25.00. In this lot I got a Captian Piett, who goes for $20.00 buy himself. So I got a great deal that no scalper, flea market, comic shop, or retail store could touch. Only on ebay will something like that come about.

[CrossWizard]

Yeah, from time to time you will stumble upon a decent seller whos just trying to get rid of something without charging exagerated prices to make 4x or 5x the profit, usually on Buy It Now. But the scalpers and scam artists outweight the honest sellers and good deals, still I use Ebay at least once of twice every 3 months.