Shill Bidding Example?

Here's another possible tip: check their feedback score!

http://myworld.ebay.com/catfood978928

**Ah, now I realise someone beat me to it - well spotted Para!

Without getting into tit-for-tat about whether or not it is proof...

I'll just say shill bidding is extremely unethical. Not only does it blatantly violate ebay rules, it's a form of stealing. You can't have it both ways. That is; begin your auction at $1 no reserve to create a bidding frenzy AND secretly bid it up to maximize profits.

I do agree with those who said people should be more accepting of auctions with reserves. I don't know why so many people avoid reserve auctions. But that still doesn't excuse shill bidding. My very first auction I sold an MS-67 FB merc dime for half of market value. I didn't like it but I'm the one who made the auction, and I had a responsibility follow through with my commitment.

The solution: FAIR buy-it-now prices. My last auction I sold a $135 cent that way and it sold quickly. I don't know why more sellers don't use this feature to get fair prices. If you look through the BIN items you'll see 99% of them are asking too much, and usually WAY too much. There's a few 1909-S VDBs that are STILL up for sale from when I first started considering one. And we're talking a few months ago.

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The rest of us would be a little hypocritical.

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I could use that same argument to about judgment about anyone for anything. Have I ever stolen? Well, off the top of my head I can remember stealing a pack of cigarettes when I was 14. When I was 17 my buddy worked at Togos and twice made me a sandwich that I didn't pay for. Both cases are wrong and are stealing. And I'm sure there's other cases that I don't recall.

But that's a far cry from being a grown adult that deliberately runs a business in a crooked way. Take person A who has many thousands of feedback, and shill bids as a common business practice. You really think someone is in the wrong to call him or her a crook?

Having bid for so long on his listings, you would have thought they would have at some point got together and sought things out. Also, just because you can't prove anything for certain, doesn't mean you can't recourse to probability - what do you think the likelihood is of this not being shill-bidding?
You can't prove anything, does this make it 50-50?

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You can't prove anything, does this make it 50-50?

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No, but it makes it libel to state it as fact, which can land you in jail or cost you a ton of money to keep you out of it.

Everyone do yourselves a favor and do some research on the Accugrade libel case. See how much money could have been saved by forum members like I see here, if they just used 3 simple words.... "In My Opinion". Is that too hard? Too Unmacho? You dying to give money away? I just don't get it.

As I said before, if the police knock on my door with a subpoena, I'm giving out all the information that's written on it. I won't lose a minutes sleep over it. I'm not going to jail over someone elses' stubbornness.

One more thing, Bobby I don't mean to leave the impression that I'm poking fun at you... or that I don't appreciate you trying to keep people out of trouble. I'm just doing more and more shopping on ebay, and when people do shady things it really makes me hot under the collar and I would LIKE to expose them whenever possible. But I'll take your advise and be careful to accentuate the fact that I'm merely stating my personal perception.

It is also my opinion. I don't like the idea of having to keep my mouth shut just because of a potential threat however so I will state my opinion whenever I feel that I must.