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Did anyone see that the same stamp that went for $49. was relisted and is now up to $41.00 by the same bidder. This is too amazing. I feel like contacting the poor girl who is bidding and tell her what is going on. Hate to see people get taken.
I reported the seller. I would encourage any of you who regularly use ebay to buy and sell to do the same. It might seem like a narc thing to do, but one of the reasons that ebay is so successful is because most of the members play by the rules and rely on others to let ebay know when someone isn't.
The ebay member in question is *** and the "shill bidder" is *** Here is the link to recently bid on items by postalgirl: http://cgi6.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dl...rows=25&sort=3 for anyone who wants to follow through and report this seller.
Please forgive my ignorance... but what is the bidder doing wrong to be reported (besides paying a ridiculous amount for 1 lousy stamp!!). My experience says tons of people pay too much for stuff on ebay everyday. Is that a reportable offense? I didn't think the $41 stamp was SU either. No criticism to you, i just would like the education.
Thanks!
__________________ Shelly
Central Florida
Stamper, Scrapper, Knitter, Homeschooler, Mom and Wife... not necessarily in that order!!
Please forgive my ignorance... but what is the bidder doing wrong to be reported (besides paying a ridiculous amount for 1 lousy stamp!!). My experience says tons of people pay too much for stuff on ebay everyday. Is that a reportable offense? I didn't think the $41 stamp was SU either. No criticism to you, i just would like the education.
Thanks!
It's quite possibly that this bidder and the seller are in on a scam(shilling). It's very suspicious that the item is right back up for sale in such a short time by the same seller.
deleted by me.........I am so unaware of what happens on ebay, I assumed it was a demo selling, I have never heard of shill bidding, thanks for the ebay lesson and terminology!!
I had already contacted eBay when I was reading the other thread about this. I hope she gets stopped. It it just not right!
If we all email eBay I am sure eBay will take a close look at the way she is doing business.
Shill bidding is when you or a friend/relative bid on your auction to force the price up. :( I think it's very obvious that Postalgirl is a shill bidder. If you look at her bidding pattern/history she only bids on items listed by ***. This is illegal and can be prosecuted by the Federal Attorney General. In fact there was a news report on NPR about 6 months ago where 6 or 7 people were brought up on federal charges for shill bidding on eBay. I think the items they were selling were real estate or vehicles.
I just went and looked at the other items listed by ***. Almost all high bids are ***. Including a Hummel figurine at $203!!! This just isn't right.
edited for spelling - not content...
__________________ Ashley - Banded 12-13-07 Ask me about it! Start 238 Current 138 Goal 125
Please forgive my ignorance... but what is the bidder doing wrong to be reported (besides paying a ridiculous amount for 1 lousy stamp!!). My experience says tons of people pay too much for stuff on ebay everyday. Is that a reportable offense? I didn't think the $41 stamp was SU either. No criticism to you, i just would like the education.
Thanks!
Most likely the bidder "***" and the seller "***" are the same person. ***only bids on ***'s items, driving up the price until she hits the max bid for the current bidder hoping that either that bidder will go higher yet, or will offer that bidder a second chance offer claiming that the orig winner (***) backed out. It is called "shill" bidding and is a huge no-no on ebay.
It is *possible* that they are different people, but highly unlikely. In any event, if it is reported, hopefully ebay will check it out. This kind of thing is completely unfair to bidders, especially new ones.
Wow! Thanks everyone. Shill bidding..... go figure. There's a scam around every corner isn't there? I wouldn't have thought of that in a million years.
Still scratching my head..... the world could sure use some of that creativity for good!
__________________ Shelly
Central Florida
Stamper, Scrapper, Knitter, Homeschooler, Mom and Wife... not necessarily in that order!!
another clue that this is a shill bidder is that ***has a zero next to her name for feedback. If she truly won those auctions and actually purchased them, there would be feedback. My husband and I have done many transaction through ebay and it is expected that you always leave feedback whether you are the seller or the buyer.
And, not only has no one ever left feedback for ***, but I check and *** has never left feedback for ***. This is very clearly an illegal operation going on.
I look to see what else the seller had and that stamp you are talking about was only listed for $7.00
After it is shill bid and won - she relists it back for the 7.00 price. This way she can continually relist everything trying to pass it off as a new item. This is (at least) the 3rd time she relisted this item after shill bidding it.
Is it more beneficial for more than one person to report this particular situation? I just looked at the history... more than one item has been resubmitted for sale. I don't want it to look like we are ganging up, but if eBay is impressed by numbers, I'll be happy to submit a complaint. After being an unsuccessful seller, it kills me to see this kind of stuff happening.
__________________ RT - In-house Bunny Chaser "It takes a lot of money to look this cheap."- Dolly Parton
That very well could be true, except for the history... the one buyer with no feedback "winning" so many items from the same seller... go look at the history and you'll see how suspicious it is.
__________________ RT - In-house Bunny Chaser "It takes a lot of money to look this cheap."- Dolly Parton
Please forgive my ignorance... but what is the bidder doing wrong to be reported (besides paying a ridiculous amount for 1 lousy stamp!!). My experience says tons of people pay too much for stuff on ebay everyday. Is that a reportable offense? I didn't think the $41 stamp was SU either. No criticism to you, i just would like the education.
Thanks!
The second link shown in newstamperamy's post is to a list of all the auctions *** has bid on recently. If you'll notice, the seller is the same in EVERY auction. That's how you know it's shill bidding. This seller is bidding on her own auctions with a different eBay id to artificially drive the price up. An EVIL practice! Thanks to those who reported her!
According to the history I saw postalgirl has not won any auctions . Did I miss something??
Did you click on the link in the first post on this thread? There is a whole string of items where *** was the high bidder.
Just checked it again and it just appears there have been no feedback posted, doesn't necessarily mean she didn' t win.
Did anyone notice that she's not the only bidder with zero feedback that has bid on this seller's auctions??
Just checked it again and it just appears there have been no feedback posted, doesn't necessarily mean she didn' t win.
Did anyone notice that she's not the only bidder with zero feedback that has bid on this seller's auctions??
Shill bidders often have several ids. It's possible she's using other ids as well.
Just checked it again and it just appears there have been no feedback posted, doesn't necessarily mean she didn' t win.
Did anyone notice that she's not the only bidder with zero feedback that has bid on this seller's auctions??
Shill bidders often have several ids. It's possible she's using other ids as well.
I'm sure she does and will probably have more now!
Maybe I am missing something. I have never bought nor sold on e-bay so maybe I am way out of line with my thinking. My thought is that if someone WANTS to pay $49 for a stamp or $490000 for a stamp why should we stop them?
If you check out all the items the seller has up for bid, you will find the same bidder keeps raising bids even if they are the hi bidder at the time. Checked out a "doll" listed there and it really looks strange!! Now there a a couple of ""new"" bidders going at it!! Looks like something really funny going on?? Just my opinion.
__________________ Experience is what causes a person to make new mistakes instead of old ones!
Maybe I am missing something. I have never bought nor sold on e-bay so maybe I am way out of line with my thinking. My thought is that if someone WANTS to pay $49 for a stamp or $490000 for a stamp why should we stop them?
Not saying they shouldn't pay what they will, but how would you feel if you could have gotten that $40 stamp for $6 instead ,if a bogus bidder hadn't been bidding against you??
I agree that bogus bidding is a slimy thing to do. It lacks honesty and integrity and is despicable. But as a buyer I will only buy what I want at the price I want. I think the buyer takes full responsibility for their choices.
I agree that bogus bidding is a slimy thing to do. It lacks honesty and integrity and is despicable. But as a buyer I will only buy what I want at the price I want. I think the buyer takes full responsibility for their choices.
Oh Dot2dot, not at all. This is fraud pure and simple. This isn't about a buyer being willing to pay a high price for an item. This is about a seller intentionally frauding his/her customers by making them believe there are other buyers out there willing to pay more than them.
This is fraud pure and simple, punishable in most states by high fines and jail time.
Other eBay sellers were convicted of this during this past year. Their fines were in the 6 figures (yes, that's $100,000+) and many frauded buyers were given financial restitution - thankfully.
Okay-if you are new to this thread then you will wonder what all the **** in place of names are about.
In keeping with our Terms of Service (avaialble under Announcements as a Sticky) we do not allow the posting of people's names-this issue with naming sellers/buyers on ebay has come up before, and that is why this guideline was put into place.
I think shill bidding is a serious issue, but we can't post the names of people (even if it is a username on ebay).
Thanks in advance for understanding-I aplologize that I did not put a note in each posting I changed, but it would have taken me even longer than it did, and I thought a clear explanination was more in order than a 1/2 sentence jot at the bottom of a post.
Thank you again for not shooting th emessenger and being cooperative with the guidelines of the site.
__________________ I want people to be afraid of how much they love me-M. Scott
Understand the need to not put anyone down when they aren't around to defend themselves but how do you (SCS) suggest we warn others in regards to someone who is so obviously doing somethng wrong??
Okay-if you are new to this thread then you will wonder what all the **** in place of names are about.
In keeping with our Terms of Service (avaialble under Announcements as a Sticky) we do not allow the posting of people's names-this issue with naming sellers/buyers on ebay has come up before, and that is why this guideline was put into place.
I think shill bidding is a serious issue, but we can't post the names of people (even if it is a username on ebay).
Thanks in advance for understanding-I aplologize that I did not put a note in each posting I changed, but it would have taken me even longer than it did, and I thought a clear explanination was more in order than a 1/2 sentence jot at the bottom of a post.
Thank you again for not shooting th emessenger and being cooperative with the guidelines of the site.
Sorry! I wasn't aware of this. Is posting links that do contain id's such as ebay usernames ok?
I agree shill bidding is fraudulent use of your "power" (for lack of a better word) as an ebay seller. It is the sellers responsibility to be honest and respectful to buyers. And this person should not be allowed to practice shill bidding.
In addition, ebay does have the power to check the IP address that the bids are coming from. If it is the same IP address that the actual seller of the auction uses then ebay will in fact "bust" them and dish out the "punishment" to both the seller ID and shill bidder ID. Ebay does in fact check the IP addresses from time to time as well.
However, having said all that - I do not feel it is my place to be the ebay police. The reason I say this is because as a seller I have unintentionally violated ebays policy in the past. I had another ebayer sending me harassing emails for MONTHS afterward. I reported this person to ebay for the harassment and nothing ever happened. As an ebayer I was highly upset that this situation was permitted to go on. This person is still an ebayer by the way. All because of a simple mistake on my part - and one that I admitted to doing and immediately removed my auction, fixed it and relisted it. I'd hate to jump to conclusions and scurge this seller without knowing the whole story. Also, I refuse to be like the person who harassed me. Finally, I also agree that the buyer has some responsibility to not be swindled. If the same person is outbidding you on auction after auction for the same item... well, it doesn't take rocket science to figure out you're being swindled. JMHO.
Thanks in advance for being respectful of my opinion/thoughts.
Ruth
__________________ I see who I want to be
In my daughter's eyes.
~Martina McBride
How sad!! You're right about this "poor girl", someone needs to help her realize "e-bay" ain't the only place where she can shop.
Know most people want to help and stop people from making a shopping mistake, but want to remind you to be careful.
According to your user agreement with eBay, you agree to not contact any buyer with the intention of taking them away from (where else they can get the item--even on eBay--for less, selling off-site, etc.) any auctions they are involved in. If you do, you are in as much violation as the shill bidders. It's sad, but true.
I know people have contacted buyers to let them know they were paying too much, and it was done with the best of intentions, but I wanted to make sure everyone knows eBay considers this wrong as well.
Sorry to dampen any RAKs in regards to eBay, but want to look out for you all too!
However, having said all that - I do not feel it is my place to be the ebay police. The reason I say this is because as a seller I have unintentionally violated ebays policy in the past. I had another ebayer sending me harassing emails for MONTHS afterward. I reported this person to ebay for the harassment and nothing ever happened. As an ebayer I was highly upset that this situation was permitted to go on. This person is still an ebayer by the way. All because of a simple mistake on my part - and one that I admitted to doing and immediately removed my auction, fixed it and relisted it. I'd hate to jump to conclusions and scurge this seller without knowing the whole story. Also, I refuse to be like the person who harassed me. Finally, I also agree that the buyer has some responsibility to not be swindled. If the same person is outbidding you on auction after auction for the same item... well, it doesn't take rocket science to figure out you're being swindled. JMHO.
Thanks in advance for being respectful of my opinion/thoughts.
Ruth
I hate disagreeing with anyone on these boards bc it is so hard to get one's intent and tone correct through a post - That said, I respectfully don't agree with you - lol! Ebay as a business and as a community does in fact rely on all it's members to help "police" the site, for lack of a better word. With the auction in question, if it is shill bidding, putting aside the whole buyer beware thing, is illegal on ebay. I, as a community member did report the auction(s) as suspicious and now it is in ebay's court to investigate and follow through. If the seller has done nothing wrong, then no harm is done to the seller. If they are shill bidding and are removed, ebay has just become a more fair marketplace.
I think that your situation is different. You didn't intentially do anything wrong and the fact that that buyer was harassing you is a seperate issue from whether or not we, as members, should alert ebay when we see a problem. That ebay member should not have been allowed to harass you and I am sorry that ebay didn't intervene. Did you put thast ebayer on your blocked bidders list? This will prevent them from bidding on your auctions in the future with the intent of leaving negative feedback.
I am glad we can respectfully disagree! And no offense was taken by your post And true - two very different situations going on here.
I did in fact try to block this person from my bidder list but :oops: couldn't figure out how to do that... I was always worried they would bid on an item with the intent of leaving negative feedback, however this never happened. The reason being I am sure is I would in turn leave negative for this ebayer as well. (At least that is what I am assuming.)
Ruth
__________________ I see who I want to be
In my daughter's eyes.
~Martina McBride
More on the ebay item from yesterday
