Have you ever been cheated in a fake bidding war?
By spalladino
@spalladino (17891)
United States
January 28, 2009 4:26pm CST
My husband has been watching a small motorcycle on Ebay for the past few days. With 3 minutes until the end of the auction, and no bids on it, he bid $99. Almost immediately his bid was countered by someone else's autobid which drove my husband's bid up to $153...in less than 3 minutes! The person bidding against him had never bid on an item before nor had he ever sold anything on Ebay. His only activities on the site was this one item.
When this happened I read the ad and the seller wanted the entire amount paid through Paypal before the bike was picked up, instead of paying a deposit and the rest at pickup and indicated that he had a no refund policy. Red flags were going off in my head and my husband's, too, so we decided not to go through with this sale. I emailed and told the seller why and that, if he wanted to contest our decision, I would turn the matter over to Ebay to investigate. It's been two hours and no response from the seller so maybe he realizes that he was caught.
Has anyone else ever been subjected to this scam? We've suspected in the past that sellers have used friends or relatives to bid the price of something up but nothing as obvious as this one has happened to us in the past.
3 responses
@Barbietre (1438)
• United States
28 Jan 09
It may have not been as scandalous as you think. Have you ever heard of auction sniper? I used it use it all the time.It also automatically counters and bids that are higher than yours until it reaches the limit you have set. It is a way of putting a bid in during the last 5 seconds. I do not use it anymore because it is not compatabale with the rebate programs I use which give me back a percentage of my fees.
@Barbietre (1438)
• United States
28 Jan 09
Also as a past seller I new of the shills you are talking about. But many of the sellers watched certain sellers and they were weeded out. Ebay keeps an eye out for that sor if thing now.
@spalladino (17891)
• United States
29 Jan 09
I have to correct something because I hadn't looked at the auto-bid record before I posted this discussion. My husband submitted his $99 bid on the 27th., with a maximum of $155. That bid sat unchallanged for over 24 hours...until 3 minutes before the auction ended. This other bidder had also entered a maximum bid and Ebay's auto-bid was controlling the bidding for both of them. The reason I suspect that my husband's bid was intentionally driven up is because the other bidder has a zero rating and has only bid on one item on Ebay...that bike. Brand new members don't swoop in in the last few minutes like that. I've seen it happen too many times and know some folks who have done this to drive up the price of something...but never by over $50.
@Barbietre (1438)
• United States
29 Jan 09
Well the zero rating is the key, but still with a auction sniper, it can happen. I myself have outbid someone by seconds. But if you stll feel something is awry, contact Ebay. You best bet is to check out the sellers sales and see how many with 0 rating have won. That is how we found the bridal cheater.90% of his wins were by 0 ratings. But in the end they really lose becasuse they outbid the real bidders, not the shills. I was selling my bridal stock and knew many of the bridal gown sellers ( some of them I had trained to use Ebay) because I belonged to a bridal network. We flushed this cheater out, but it takes monitoring and dilligence.
@Opal26 (17679)
• United States
29 Jan 09
Hi spalladinio! I have never bid on Ebay before but this
technique doesn't surprise be! I do bid on bidz.com and I
see similar things happening. I believe that there are
"plants" on that site that are put there to raise the bidding
up when necessary. I know that Ebay works differently. I have
never trusted that site. I have a friend who buys and sells
there all the time and has not had any problems. And she
buys all sorts of things, cameras, instruments, jewelry. I
just personally have heard too many other "bad" stories like
yours to dare take the chance!
@spalladino (17891)
• United States
29 Jan 09
Hi Opal! Ebay's not bad as long as you're careful and you pay close attention to the description. We won a camper that claimed to have a clear title. Paid $100 down through Paypal and drove several hundred miles to pick it up. It was as described *except* that the title had someone else's name on the front and had already been signed by another buyer three years ago. The current owner was not the person who had signed the back of the title so it was no good because they can't be altered. He had no way of contacting the owner listed on the title or the person who had signed on the back so we refused to complete the sale and asked him to refund our deposit. He refused so we filed a dispute with both Ebay and Paypal. This title was not clear and, in the end, we were refunded.
@ZephyrSun (7381)
• United States
29 Jan 09
I don't think I have ever had this happen but, my husband sold a bass guitar on ebay and at 2 minutes before the aution ended it went from having no bids to have like 15 and it sold for almost 500. We were sitting there refreshing the page watching the mad bidding war over it. It was really crazy!
@spalladino (17891)
• United States
29 Jan 09
When we're after a big bike we set it to "watch" and my husband won't bid until the last 25 or 30 seconds of the auction. He'll do like you guys did...sit there refreshing the page, watching any activity and if the maximum bid he's already put in the bidding box hasn't been reached by that time, he'll enter it. By the time the system registers his bid, time has run out and a lot of times he wins that way.
