LIVE AUCTION Fair???????

It certainly looks like a shill to me!

I don't see this as shill bidding.

The point of shill bidding is to raise the price and have you still win. You didn't.

Nibbling, yes (very common at a live auction)... Shill, I don't think so.
You just got outbid.

The identical item might raise some eyebrows, but the seller *could* have more than one of these. If it were me, I would use the same description a second time rather than do all that work over.

I can't see it as shill bidding. Looks like normal nibbling (if nibbling can be considered normal).

I disagree! I think the person is bidding on his own auction in the hopes of driving the price up and stops at the 130 point. Is this a common pen? If so, why would you pay so much for it?

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Originally posted by Mrs.M:
I disagree!

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Maybe it's time for a poll?

I received what I consider a lame excuse from the live auction "seller" which sounded like he was trying to avoid me reporting his action, and I paraphrase: "It is the perogative of our sellers to not accept the high bid and to relist the item." There was certainly no mention of a reserve price, and the opening bid was $80 in both cases. And the "floor" bids were made in $10 increments until my bid was exceeded by $10, or $130. And to answer a previus question, yes this was a relatively rare dip pen, which I collect.

Hmmmm, with the evidence at hand, I am gonna back DPM and Mrs M on this one.

I frequent live horse auctions and the auctioneer that I know personally has 3 *shills* on the floor.

I witnessed the auctioneer's shill-er and the seller's sister bid the price of a horse up to a ridiculous amount and then the sister won the horse.

When she disputed the sale, the auctioneer got very irrate, to which I pointed out to him was quite hypocritical.

With that lame excuse it would seem like shill bidding to me. Now if the seller had given the excuse he had two of them I would have to favor the sellers point of view as I have seen it happen before.

I just had a buyer go ballistic on me the other day after I sent him a second chance offer. He was saying he was going to report me for shill bidding - when I had two of that item. It is not my fault that eBay offers the item at the next increment below the winning bid in the second chance instead of the amount the winning bid would have been if the winning bidder had not have bid.

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I just had a buyer go ballistic on me the other day after I sent him a second chance offer. He was saying he was going to report me for shill bidding - when I had two of that item.

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Wow! I haven't had that response to a 2nd chance offer, but have had limited success w/2nd chances. I'd estimate only less than a quarter of the 2nd chance offers I have extended have resulted in a sale. If I were to have bidder go ballistic like that, I think I'd be tempted to withdraw the offer immediately and put him on the blocked bidder list!

Some see shill bidding on every auction they look at. Don't make SCOs often, but when I do, I figure I make a sale about half the time.

I wonder if ending the offer would confirm (in their mind) the suspicion? That's what I call stuck between a rock and a hard place.

If I suspected shill bidding, I'd let eBay decide. I would NEVER accuse the seller myself.

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I just had a buyer go ballistic on me the other day after I sent him a second chance offer.

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Was it a new or inexperienced buyer? Odd way for someone to react to a feature the ebay supports.

I think shill-bidding fears are a little more intensified when someone has been on ebay for a shorter period of time, but that may have just been my own hang-up.

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If I suspected shill bidding, I'd let eBay decide. I would NEVER accuse the seller myself.

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There are so many ways to hide it that it is very hard to prove. Anyway, if you snipe the amount you are willing to pay, why worry about it?

Potential shill-bidding is one of the reasons late sniping is so useful - They have no target to nibble away at and just have to put in a one-off guess at what is effectively their reserve price.

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Originally posted by Rick:
Was it a new or inexperienced buyer?

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The buyer was still kinda new, with only a 71 rating. I just let the 3 days pass on the offer, then listed it in my storefront and so far sold two more of them to other people that had no problem paying that amount

I think the SCO option would be greatly improved if you could check off WHY you are making the offer, and provide a clear link to a page explaining second chance offers and how they work. (But eBay never explains anything well anyways..)

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I think the SCO option would be greatly improved if you could check off WHY you are making the offer, and provide a clear link to a page explaining second chance offers and how they work.

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Excellent ideas! I agree!

Hi,

Just to add a comment on the live auctions on Ebay. IF you read the fine print on most of those auctions, they basically state that they have the right to have an undisclosed reserve which is not the same amount as sthe opening bid. The opening bid is NOT always the the "reserve" or the least amount to buy the item. It is just the lowest bid they will take to start the auction.
The actual reserve is not disclosed and if the bidding does not reach the reserve the seler"buys" it back in and it is not sold.

READ WHAT YOU ARE SIGNING UP FOR. Not everything is the same. Just because the live auctions are on the Ebay site does not mean that they run the same. On regular Ebay auctions, the price listed as the opening bid wil buy the item - if there is nothing said about a reserve. That is not always true of the live auction site - nor is it true at real auctions, although most auctioneers to save time tell the crowd what the minimum RESERVE bid is.

So DipPenMan...based on your description and on the response from the seller...it sounds like neither you nor the bidder who bid up against you in the closing minutes to reach $130 (at which point there were no other competing bidders to drive the price higher) actually won the item. Have you considered that perhaps there was not a successful bidder--just as the seller has said? The pen's price simply failed to reach the seller's reserve.

What your gripe (and perhaps the other bidder's gripe) should be is why were you not made aware that there was a reserve price on the item? However, contrary to what "Owned by A Kuvasz" said, my experience is that most reserve prices are not made public, only the auctioneer and the seller know the underlying reserve price.