Fishy ebay bidding?

Common shady practice on there. Don't pay it unless you really want it at that price.

 

It seems a little fishy to me. You could report the shill bidding I believe.

 

Its called Shill Bidding

 

Report it, you have nothing to lose on the buyer end by disputing it. Cant get bad feedback anyway.

 

Get a feel of what it would have been priced at on other forums and then decide..

 

It's interesting (sarcasm) that the seller has been a "Member since: Jan-10-08 in United States" and only has one feedback... and that is as a buyer.

Another bass of the same model sold for $265 shipped the day before. It was listed as coming from a "smoking home" with some wear.

Yours was listed as "Its in beautiful condition no wear and tear here! Ready to go to the next bass master player!"

It'll be enlightening to hear how the seller responds.

 

Wow. I never even thought about this.

 

Been there, done that. When it happened to me, I reported it immediately, and the seller was banned from eBay for 90 days and warned that another offense would make the ban permanent.

 

I'm sure I've been shilled before, but in each case, the shill bidder has gone right up to within a few dollars of my limit wihout exceeding it. They didn't retract, so it wasn't anything I could report. On a couple of other cases, I've lost items where the shill overshot and won.

What are the conditions under which a bidder can retract a bid? I've never had to retract one, but I always figured that eBay would make it insanely difficult to do precisely to stop shills.

Bid retraction really ought not be allowed during an auction. That's why software programs include "confirm" pages and "are you sure?" prompts. If that isn't good enough, the buyer ought to be responsible for his/her bids. A better but more tedious solution is for eBay to note the intent to retract and notify the new high bidder. If both eBay and the new High bidder can agree that there's evidence of a bunch of incremental bids leading up to the overshoot, then s/he ought to have the option of retracting.

 

ebay should have the option, in a situation such as this, (where the pattern of shill bidding is pretty obvious...and was obviously done in order to discover what the actual bidder's maximum bid was in order to sell him the bass at his maximum price), to declare the actual bidder the winner. and the price he will pay, is the price of his bid before all the shill/shady bidding started.

in this case, he should get the bass for 225.00 as he said.

if the seller refuses, then he should get a lifetime ban.

 

Was your max bid $280? If it was, suck it up, buttercup. You bid the amount maximum you were willing to pay.

 

What if you get outbid, buy your item from someone else and then the high bidder retracts. Are you still obligated to buy?

 

so you think it's alright for a seller to shill bid in order to discover your maximum bid and then hold you to it? just asking




ps- edit- BTW... this is just one more reason for not bidding until the last minute or few seconds....1) you can see if there is a pattern of fishy bidding on an item and not bid at all if you don't like what you see & 2) by waiting until the very end, you deprive the seller of the time necessary to do this

 

Not at all, I think shill bidding sucks big time.

With that being said, refer to your second paragraph. An eBay bidder is required to enter the maximum amount they are willing to pay for the item for sale. The bidder is then directed to a second screen to confirm that amount before placing that bid. From what I've read here, OP was willing to pay $280.

 

If the seller was, in fact, shill bidding I wouldn't trust them with any other aspects of a transaction.

 

but the question is not what he was willing to pay, the question is what he should have had to pay if the auction had been on the up-and-up, and ended without shill bidding, with him as the winner at 225.00.

if i go to a live auction and see an item i want, i may be willing to pay X for it, but if, after legitimate bidding, i am the winner at x-100.00, the seller doesn't get to come to me and demand that i pay the full amount i was willing to pay.

that is all i am saying. here, the OP got screwed by the seller bidding and retracting until he found the OP's max. and then retracted the final bid, leaving the op to buy it at his max.

i think we can both agree, that was not a legitimate auction.

 

Yeah I have to agree with steamthief, always look at your max bid as just that, the most you'd be willing to pay for an item. It will help you sleep at night and not worry about things you can't control.
I find used prices to be personal and subjective. When I lose an auction I think to myself that the other person paid way more than I thought it was worth.
It's the old heartburn of watching last minute snipping, that can drive you crazy too.

And lastly, the way the software works with a retraction is your bid was run up to the max, the shill bid and won, then retracted, the bid stays at your max, they can't magically revert to your original lower bid.

Also unless you can tie an IP address to the shill, it could have just been some stupid bidder that has no clue.

Good luck,
Dirk