Seller using shill bidding

I bid on this lot of coins, and was outbid. A little while later, I get a second chance offer with no message or anything. I wanted the coins so I purchased it. But then I was curious and checked the bid history. Only one other person bid on it (several times) and that person has a 100 percent bid history with the seller. It was extremely difficult to try to figure out how to report this to eBay, and I'm not sure I did it correctly, but I did send a message to the seller. Check it out. Hopefully you can see what I mean from this page.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/161142698716?ssPageName=STRK:MEDWX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1435.l2649

 

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i hate to say it but i don't think you can report it the issue is thier is no proof to say that this guy with 15 feedback dosent just like what this seller sell and bids on everything he sees for example their are a few seller that most of the coins they list up i have my hand in bidding because they sell good things and good prices and 90 percent of the time i lose but i still get nice things sometimes you never know this guy could be one of thoose guys who always backs out !!

 

Well, I am convinced it was shill bidding. No one has 100 percent of their bids with the same seller. The seller wrote back and said the buyer backed out because one of the coins may have been cleaned (which was noted in the description). It wasn't much of a defense in my book.

If you dig in the eBay help they have a section about shill bidding and say you can report it, but then you try and there is nothing among their options that says "shill bidding." When you finally get to the section where you can enter text, there is a small character limit.

 

It's shill bidding alright. No doubt about it. Any explanation to the contrary is excremental!

 

We collectors call it "shill bidding" eBay calls it "business as usual"

 

It seems like how when you send something buyer says it is not as it should be damaged or ect. they get their refund and then you never get your item ebay is the home of the thiefs that happened to me twice over the summer !! The issue is you really have no way to prove the buyer, bidder or liar !! and nobody want to get the police involved over such a cheap item !!

 

The proof may be in the IP addresses, if eBay cared to investigate they might discover that it is coming from the same computer/router/internet account or not.

 

If they did do anything about it, eBay would lose out on some extra revenue from fees by the prices being slightly driven upward. Damn you eBay, it's a love/hate relationship

 

If true, that's a lot of nonsense and hassle to bump a sale to a measly $4.

 

I also came across a seller using clear shill bidding after I was bidding in a few auctions from the same seller. I happened to win one but lost all the others and the bids on some got pretty high for what the items were. So curious about this I clicked on the bidding history of all the auctions and found the same two Id's (even though they try to hide them) were doing all the 'bumping' of the bids. Still I wasn't sure really maybe coincidence so I began to check all the sellers auctions that were up and close to ending and on every single one with roughly a day left I found these same two id's had been bidding prolifically. At this point I thought there's no way that someone would be bidding on every item this seller has especially because the items were so varied. One Id had around a 70% bid rate and the other 60 something. To confirm even further I went though the sellers history and found items that the seller had left feedback on either of these id's. When I went through the sellers feedback to find if these people had left the seller feedback there was not one instance of either id doing so. Even though they won many auctions going back 4/5 months. At that point I was convinced it was indeed shill bidding and like OP I couldn't find what to do after searching for quite some time on Ebay. All I could do was report any current ongoing auctions for listing violations 'shill bidding' or whatever it was exactly. Apparently Ebay doesn't care because they didn't take down one listing. I have decided though that I'm going to return the items that I won because I just think 'shill bidding' is unethical and I won't support a seller who does it.

 

eBay completely monitors the IP addresses - really. And the OP may well have suspicions, but he has no proof.

 

I agree that it looks suspicious enough to warrant a report and let ebay get to the bottom of it. From past experiences reporting such I can say that ebay does take shill bidding quite seriously.
The proper way to report it is:

Listing practices > Fraudulent listing activities > Seller is using other accounts to inflate item price

 

Exactly what I was thinking.

 

I didn't see that option but I will look later.

I know it's only a few dollars but it just makes me feel cheated. Granted, I got the item for an amount I was willing to pay, but I probably could have paid less without the shill bidding. It's not much money but it's about the principle. This is the first time I've ever noticed something like this on an item I've bid on, and I wonder how many other times it may have happened to me.

 

There's an Albanian seller peddling Italian occupation coins. I've purchased several from him, though I know he shill bidding. Nevertheless, I continue to purchase coins from him because the price is still below market value, shipping is low and it's hard to find them in XF condition.

 

Shill bidding is one of the reasons I use bidnapper. I set my bid at what I'm willing to spend. If it exceeds that, "Oh well!" They can't shill a bid that doesn't exist until the last few seconds of the auction.

 

I don't see the logic in paying extra to bid on an auction. I could wait until the last minute and bid for free if I really wanted to. I used to do that but at some point I just gave up. If I win, I win. If I don't, I don't. I see your point though.

 

It's not an issue of logic, but of convenience.

 

I don't pay any extra for bidding either, but I use a sniper program. GavelSnipe works and it is free. I set the bid days in advance and, like you say, if I win, I win.