The Ebay Scam with No Name?

[TheDutyPaid]

A number of times I have seen this going on on ebay, but I can not find any other reference to it on the web and has happen to me a number of times.

As you may know, on ebay you can bid and "Buy It Now" on items. This post is to do with bidding.

Say you are looking for a item, lets call it a watch. You look on ebay and you see the watch you like and it has a starting price of 99p
Now you know a thing or too about watches and you know it is worth £10, but you would hate to be outbid. So you you place a maximum of £12, the two pound extra just to cover it.

OK as it stands the current bid is 99p with your reserve of £12 waiting in the wings.

So the next person to see the watch who is, how shall we. Less of a sporting gent as you are. He sees that it is only 1 bid and up for 99p with still days to go.
He could wait till the last few seconds and bid £10 to try to beat you, but your £12 will automatically outbid him. They could bid £20 that would beat your bid of £12 but if you had bid £19 they would end up paying twice the price for the watch.

On ebay they say your maximum bid will not be revealed.

But! All the less then sporting chap has to do, is bid a crazy price like £10,000 and they will become the highest bidder at £12.50 Then they do a bid retraction "entered the wrong amount" them crazy fingers.

They then can think to them self, 50p more wont break the bank and snipe you at the last moment. It works as well if you had bid £19 they would know the maximum and walk away as the price is too high for them.

On a side note when they do walk away they often rebid just below your maximum. Which is a bit like a shill bid but they are unrelated to the person selling said item. Probably done to troll.

And 99.9% of times will out bid or snip you at the last moment, so it is in there interest to keep the price low.

My advice is to only bid your maximum in the last few seconds, which is not always possible.

Hope this was clear, any questions or input?

[Mucka]

Its been like this for a long time

[kalniel]

Just put in the maximum you want to bid from the start. If you mind someone beating you by 50p then it wasn't really your maximum.

[Splash]

As someone who only really uses eBay to pick up random bits that I can't easily source elsewhere I'm possibly missing something here, but from what I understood a bid retraction wasn't a trivial thing to do - surely they monitor this kind of behaviour and are within their rights to refuse a retraction request?

Either way it's probably another reason why I don't drunk eBay any more...

[jim]

I agree with Kal.

I know there are some people out there who love sniping an item for 10% below what it's worth, or whatever.

But ultimately the only question that matters is "what is the most that you're happy to pay". And if you're worried about being sniped, you can even add 5-10% to that figure. That way, if it does go 50p over the top, then you know it's gone for more than you wanted to pay and so it doesn't matter.

To my mind the point of hidden maximum bids is that if you're willing to pay £100, you can just type that in and leave it to run, knowing that if no-one else wants it, you'll get it for £10. If you just immediately bid whatever you typed in, then you would have to keep returning to eBay all the time to add more bids, or just immediately pay the higher price. I don't think hiding information from other bidders is really one of the benefits.

[Spreadie]

Bid retractions are monitored and, as Splash suggested, they aren't trivial things to do.

Bid your maximum and you're done. Griping about being sniped suggests you were hoping to get it cheaper and didn't bid the max you were willing to pay. Take the emotion out of the process - life's too short.

[abaxas]

Ebay is dodgy, end of.

As above, remove yourself of any emotional connection and snipe your final price in the last few seconds.

Job done.

[Lucio]

Yup, I buy on ebay for things that are hard to find elsewhere, but never bid more than I'd be willing to pay in a shop. Just leave it running and if I win, I win, if I don't, ah well

[TheDutyPaid]

Just put in the maximum you want to bid from the start. If you mind someone beating you by 50p then it wasn't really your maximum.

But the point is they will always know what you are will to spend and can use it to bid you up to your maximum price.

I agree with Kal.

I know there are some people out there who love sniping an item for 10% below what it's worth, or whatever.

But ultimately the only question that matters is "what is the most that you're happy to pay". And if you're worried about being sniped, you can even add 5-10% to that figure. That way, if it does go 50p over the top, then you know it's gone for more than you wanted to pay and so it doesn't matter.

To my mind the point of hidden maximum bids is that if you're willing to pay £100, you can just type that in and leave it to run, knowing that if no-one else wants it, you'll get it for £10. If you just immediately bid whatever you typed in, then you would have to keep returning to eBay all the time to add more bids, or just immediately pay the higher price. I don't think hiding information from other bidders is really one of the benefits.

If no one wants it sure you can get it for £10 but if you had bid £100 then I could say use the scam to ether beat you by £2 or rise you up to your maximum by bidding £98.

It is not a case off adding 5-10% on to cover snipping as the other person will always know my limit.

Say you are bidding on a car. You put in a max of £3000 you win it for £2250 You are happy.
Now lets say, You are bidding on a car. You put in a max of £3000 you win it for £3000 because the other person has has checked your limit and dropped you at your max. This is kind of a shill bid but if the other person does not know the seller then it is not flagged by ebay.

Bid retractions are monitored and, as Splash suggested, they aren't trivial things to do.

Bid your maximum and you're done. Griping about being sniped suggests you were hoping to get it cheaper and didn't bid the max you were willing to pay. Take the emotion out of the process - life's too short.

I am making a file up and the people I have found have 30 to 60 Bid retractions on record. Where do ebay step in?
You would not play a game like Blackjack where the dealer knows what the next card out is and knows how much money you was willing to spend.

[Splash]

http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/...etraction.html

Looks like what you're suggesting is a clear violation of eBay's bidding policy. Make a complaint to them.


Or do what I did (and countless others have done) and just don't get involved. Nothing tells eBay that you don't like the way that the game is played like not taking part.

[abaxas]

Ebay don't care, they just want their coin.

[kalniel]

But the point is they will always know what you are will to spend and can use it to bid you up to your maximum price.

IE shill bidding. Against the terms of use and Ebay do crack down on that as it's easy to spot.

But on a personal level it won't affect me because I would be willing to pay my maximum price, or I wouldn't have bid it.

[TheDutyPaid]

IE shill bidding. Against the terms of use and Ebay do crack down on that as it's easy to spot.

But on a personal level it won't affect me because I would be willing to pay my maximum price, or I wouldn't have bid it.

This is not shill bidding If you are happy to pay your maximum price, then you must be happy with the scammer knowing it and then beating it by 50p or a pound?

[TheDutyPaid]

My post was not about shill bidding or being sniped, it was about putting in a maximum bid that ebay says it will not reveal. But due to this loophole any one can see your maximum.

[kalniel]

This is not shill bidding If you are happy to pay your maximum price, then you must be happy with the scammer knowing it and then beating it by 50p or a pound?

Yes, I'm absolutely happy with my maximum being beaten by 50p. If I wasn't, then it wouldn't have been my maximum.

But what I was describing was your scenario of them bidding close to my maximum in order to drive up sale price with no intention of buying the item. That's called shill bidding.

[jim]

If no one wants it sure you can get it for £10 but if you had bid £100 then I could say use the scam to ether beat you by £2 or rise you up to your maximum by bidding £98.

Which is fine, because I don't want to pay more than £100. So if I get it for £98 I'm happy, if you get it for £102 I'm happy.

It is not a case off adding 5-10% on to cover snipping as the other person will always know my limit.

That wasn't my point. What I was saying is that if you're only prepared to pay £100, but you would hate being beaten by 50p, you're free to bid £105. That way, if you get beaten by 50p, it's £5.50 more than you wanted to pay which should be easier to deal with. It's false logic, but might help some people in terms of their immediate emotional reaction.

Say you are bidding on a car. You put in a max of £3000 you win it for £2250 You are happy.
Now lets say, You are bidding on a car. You put in a max of £3000 you win it for £3000 because the other person has has checked your limit and dropped you at your max. This is kind of a shill bid but if the other person does not know the seller then it is not flagged by ebay.

Again, if I didn't want to win it for £3000 I shouldn't have bid £3000. Or if I was that bothered, I should have bid £3000 in the last ten seconds to prevent this from happening.