I inadvertantly had both a buyer and seller's accounts suspended when I reported what I thought was shill bidding. The seller was an online aquaintance of mine and I was bidding on their item in good faith. When I saw a relative of this person outbid me and bid on several of the seller's other auctions I questioned the seller. The seller didn't reply to my question so I reported it to ebay. Within an hour of reporting it to ebay I received an email from them saying both accounts had been suspended for suspicion of shill bidding. I felt bad because I have a good relationship with the seller. I did it because I felt I was outbid only to raise the price of the item. The seller ended up sending me the item for free (it was a handmade item) so they didn't have any hard feelings against me I guess. They were a brand new seller and didn't pursue reactivating their account.
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In fact this is a great reason to use our site, it leaves them little if any time to shill bid.
I don't understand how sniping gives shill bidders little or no time to bid. Since shill bidding is done throughout the duration of the auction and sniping is done in the last few seconds, how can this be? I would think shill bidders would make it so a sniper wouldn't even bother with the auction if the price has been driven up. Can someone explain how sniping helps prevent shill bidding?
[This message was edited by coralbelle on November 30, 2003 at 06:22 AM.]
