Ebay - Sellers Can Bid Their Own Coins?

ijn1944 is right on the money. It's called shill bidding and is expressly forbidden under ebay's seller and buyer policies and guidelines. They have systems in place that looks for just such activity all the time.

I've seen apparent shill bidding occasionally on ebay. I must admit I don't participate in a large number of ebay auctions, but when I do and if I'm getting close to the maximum I'm willing to bid, I'll take a look at the other(s) I'm bidding against. If I see an account that has a very high percentage of bids with that one dealer and also a large number of bid retractions, I stop bidding.

Twice when that's happened, I've later got a message from the dealer that the winning bidder could not complete the purchase, and offering me the coin at my final bid. That's in no way proof that it's shill bidding, but just appears a bit suspicious to me...

When I bid on a coin on ebay I try not to even think that someone can be shill bidding , it ruins the whole excitement of bidding . I believe shilling bidding can be detected around the last 45 minutes to one hour before the end of the auction .

Same as Kenkat...I find a coin that I want, figure out my maximum that I will pay and bid. Have lost a couple by .50. That is fine with me. Far too many shill bids for me to get depressed.

It's not E-bays problem . Just don't take your eyes off the time remaining on the bidding .

An important thing about ebay is that part of the premise is that everyone bids their maximum bid and that's it. But that's not what most people do when they think "auction". So they bid until they are winning and then they stop. If they are winning at $35 and you bid $40, they will bid $45. You bid $50, they will bid $55. But if you wait until the final seconds of the auction, when they think they are winning at $35, you bid $50 but get it for whatever the next increment over their $35 bid is. Let's say it is $40. They don't have a chance to run the numbers up because they don't understand the game and you do. You win and get it for a lower price as well.

Now it gets more complicated with popular items with multiple bidders, especially employing the last second bid strategy (commonly called a snipe). But I started winning a lot more auctions once I started to use that strategy.

Perhaps I am selfish, but I am ready to overpay 5-10 dollars to get this product(although there were cases when I won the auction, but my bid was too high and I realized it too late)

KenKat, I understood you correctly that you offer to place a bid immediately (even if the auction is still 6-7 days away) but put your maximum and wait for the end. So there is an opportunity to buy cheaper ?