I was interested in some dial calipers that "800 watt" sells on ebay, he seems to put a couple up for auction every week. When the price on the one I was bidding on got too high, I dropped out and instead bid on an identical item that had been listed for several days at $13.99 with ZERO bidders. With 2 days to go I put in an initial bid at $13.99 with a maximum bid of $18. In less than 60 seconds after my bid was accepted I was outbid! And my shill-o-meter started activating.How could someone outbid me in a minute on an item that had been sitting for days with no bids and had 2 days to go and there was another identical item with no bids? Could this be anyone but the seller? If there had been a starting bid by someone else obviously they would have gotten an e-mail that i outbid them, but who gets notice that I entered a starting bid? Can anyone tell me what is going on?

Just bid what you're willing to pay and forget it. If "he" loses sales to himself maybe he'll quit.Randy

automatic ebay shill?

Feb 19, 2005 25 Replies

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Steve Lusardi 21 years ago

I have read all these posts on this subject and my 2 cents is place the bid for the value you are willing to pay and walk away. You will win or not. This takes personal discipline. Amateurs snipe. It makes no difference if you are the ultimate consumer or a reseller. You must establish its value to YOU. Bid it and leave. You will never, ever bid too much. You will lose a lot of them. If you regret an auction loss, then you didn't bid enough in the first place. If somebody bid more, then it had more value to him than you, so what. Anything else is entertainment and for that, I have no comment. Steve

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Nick Hull 21 years ago

Unfortunately those are all 6" and I'm looking for a 12"

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Dave August 21 years ago

I'll toss in my 2 cents here also

Of course it was a shill, and I'll bet dollars to donuts the guy does it all the time. I would be quite easy for eBay to spot a regular seller doing this and trash him, but they don't.. it just raises the price and hence their profits.

As to the 'auto-snipe' web sites. These would be even eayser for eBay to spot and stop, but again for the same reason they don't.

If you are going to bid I'm with Steve, pick your price, bid closley to the end of the auction so you aren't bidding against yourself (several hours before the end is fine)... and if you get sniped, shrug your shoulders and move on... FWIW I've had good luck e-mailing people who sell a lot and just buying outside of eBay.

--.- Dave

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Spehro Pefhany 21 years ago

If you're suspicious it's a shill, do a search and see what other auctions that ID has been bidding on.

Best regards, Spehro Pefhany

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BillP 21 years ago

I checked this site out for grins and immediately realized you're a damned fool if you give out your password to ANY SITE, PERSON, SNIPE OUTFIT, OR OTHERWISE!!! NO WAY!!

Thx Anyway...

Bill

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Dan Murphy 21 years ago

Nick Hull wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@corp.supernews.com:

There are plenty of those too. The first seller I listed has them up to

40", Digital, dial and vernier.

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Dan

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