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 Replies: 32 / Views: 3,871 |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
2602 Posts |
Quote:
What? Two buyers mapping out a bidding strategy is "shill bidding"? No. Only if it involves the seller too. Buyers mapping out buying strategy is called smart buying. If you think two buyers is bad, you must really think sniping an auction is totally unethical too!
There is nothing unethical about a snipe in an auction. That kind of bid just has to get in on time and outbid everyone else. I'm talking about colluding between buyers, without the seller's knowledge to basically undermine the ability of the seller to get a fair price for his or her item. This was rampant on ebay and I saw numerous examples of colluding in different ways. One way is for the seller to be involved and get a friend to bid the item up so that it gets the bidding closer to seller's final price and then seller hopes the colluder gets outbid. This is shill bidding. The other kind is two or more buyers colluding to agree on not bidding too much so that one of them can walk away with the item cheaply (assuming no 3rd person outbids them). Colluding between buyers had a major negative impact on ebay sellers and this is, in part, why the bidders are now hidden from view, so that no colluding can take place. Either kind of collusion is a form of price fixing and should have no place in auctions, in my opinions, but unfortunately, these unscrupulous practices are common and occur at estate sales too, where there will be a plant in the audience artifically bidding things up. Whatever is won by the artificial bidder just gets sold in the next town. |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
2661 Posts |
Quote:
You could create a strategy that would help you to win bids and keep others out? I am not sure how this works on the bay, but it is called bid rigging and is illegal in live auctions. |
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Pillar of the Community
 United States
4618 Posts |
No, I would let my friend buy it and then guilt them into selling it to me.  Real answer, no. If I see someone post a coin here, even if I want it, I don't bid. Other coins are out there and I may get a better deal in the long run. Fake answer, if it's selling for little or nothing, I do have a TOP SECRET ebay account that I might use to snipe the coin. That way I keep my friend and have the coin, too.  ANA ID: 3203813 - CONECA ID: N-5637 Clean a coin that may be worth collecting? Please DON'T! When in doubt, leave it dirty!! 
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Pillar of the Community
3352 Posts |
sorry danloss9551, you're correct ... the other coin that I was thinking about was that amazing "loon struck on a 25ct planchet" .... man, I am still mad that I didn't man-up and win that coin!
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Pillar of the Community
Canada
902 Posts |
Would I bid against a friend on a ebay item? I would have no problem with that if it was the only one on ebay at the time |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
2734 Posts |
Bid against a friend once on ebay and lost.  (it wasn't a coin) I suspected all along my friend was willing to pay more for the item than I was.  |
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Bedrock of the Community
United States
10635 Posts |
Mycrob, you're wrong here. Strategy between two or more buyers is fine, as another buyer can always join in and bid. Strategy between a buyer and seller is not fine, and can lead to the seller being suspended on ebay as that is an unfair practice designed only to increase the price. This is called shill bidding. If you and I "collute" to agree that you won't bid against me on an item, there is no harm to the seller, as anyone else can come in and bid too. That is NOT shill bidding. Les  |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
3402 Posts |
It depends if I liked him
KK
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Pillar of the Community
 United States
629 Posts |
If you want something badly enough, you will in my opinion make the plunge and bid higher than your friend.
I am the type of bidder that looks at the coins that will be ending soonest, so I may not have enough time to contact my "former" friend to let them know that I am now in the hunt for this item.
When your bidding on something, you probably have a top end to what you will pay. If you bid that and someone goes over you, regardless of who it is, you walk away. You gave it your best shot. No hard feelings about losing.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
2602 Posts |
Quote:Mycrob, you're wrong here. Strategy between two or more buyers is fine, as another buyer can always join in and bid. Strategy between a buyer and seller is not fine, and can lead to the seller being suspended on ebay as that is an unfair practice designed only to increase the price. This is called shill bidding. If you and I "collute" to agree that you won't bid against me on an item, there is no harm to the seller, as anyone else can come in and bid too. That is NOT shill bidding. Well, I don't think there truly is a right and a wrong and I suppose we can agree to respectfully disagree. These are opinions after all, not facts. But I do ask you to consider how it does NOT harm the seller if buyers collude? It certainly can and does! If buyers collude to agree on much lower price to bid and one of them wins cheaply, who loses out? The seller does, because the seller winds up selling their item at lower price! This assumes nobody elses bid or bids that much. And with 100s of thousands of coins on ebay it is quite easy to have items end low and to be only a few bidders- there is too much material to go through on ebay. So in my opinion, collusion between buyers can and does lower the ending price for an item for the seller, which means it hurts the seller. The other collusion between a seller and a shill bidder hurts the buyer. Both types of collusion hurt someone. If you are primarily a buyer, you may not care whether it hurts the seller, but if YOU are the one selling a $20 item and two buyers collude to pay $10-11 and that's the final price, you would not be happy, especially if you found out they colluded. You want the bidding to be independent and allow the item to reach it's final price, hopefully close to what you need to get for it to break even or (gasp!) even make a profit (hard to do with all the fees anymore!). Just my opinions. |
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Pillar of the Community
Canada
576 Posts |
I've probably bid against the majority of posters on here. None of my friends knows my ebay id and I tell them I don't want to know theirs. If I'm serious about acquiring a coin - as I've learned umpteen times before - I'll wait to bid until the last five seconds. |
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Valued Member
Poland
114 Posts |
If it was my friend who let me know about that auction - I would not bid. Otherwise I would.
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Moderator
United States
16679 Posts |
The only friends I have interested in Numismatics is very limited. I have a few dealer friends, none of which I know their I.D.'s on ebay so, irrelevant. Most are here on the CCF. If I knew they were the first bidder (again, have to know their ebay I.D.), no. If I did not, I would not know anyway so yes. swcoin.ecrater.com
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Valued Member
United States
200 Posts |
Well, I am pleased at the range of opinions on this topic. Some of which I didn't consider before. I would still bid on the item, to my pre-set maximum, regardless of who is competing. It is an auction, not a friendship contest. If a friendship is so fragile as to be thought lost because of a winning bid, then that is NOT a friendship, as I see the term with my friends.
I would, however, tell my friend that I am also interested in the item, and that I will be bidding. After that courtesy, I'd bid to win, to my limits.
And, I believe most miss the essential point here, is anyone THAT naive that they feel ONLY two buddies will be bidding? Only if they collude to raise the bids high enough to cause other bidders to drop out. And that is a gamble itself. I don't buy the premise of this topic, although I really enjoy the discussion and opinions presented.
Edited by Tam
07/29/2011 10:55 am
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Valued Member
Canada
103 Posts |
This topic has brought to mind something that happened to me at a Torex auction years ago, during the series of Mason sales, if I recall correctly. Anyhow, I was chatting with a fellow collector (who I know, but who is not a close friend), as we were going through the boxes of coins featured in the auction. We came to a 5¢ piece that I was interested in. He was also interested in it, and confided that it was the main piece that he was aiming to buy. He then mentioned what he did for a living (fairly low pay), and talked about how badly he wanted that particular coin. So, I decided that I wouldn't bid on that piece, and instead concentrated on a number of other coins I was also interested in. At the end of the auction, I talked to this collector and asked him if he had won that coin. He said he hadn't, and in fact admitted that he had not even bid on it, because later on in the day he had found another piece that he hadn't noticed before, which he liked better. Needless to say, I was quite surprised and disappointed.
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Replies: 32 / Views: 3,871 |
First Page
Posted 07/27/2011 5:30 pm
