Ebay announces new Shill Bidding policy...Thought?

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Posted By: <b>DJ</b><p>eBay announced that a seller's family members, roommates, and employees are not permitted to bid on items offered by the seller, even if their sole intent is to purchase the item. According to eBay's announcement, shill bidding is "bidding that artificially increases an item's price or apparent desirability. It includes bidding by individuals with a level of access to information about the seller's item not available to the general Community. Shill Bidding unfairly manipulates item prices and undermines trust in the marketplace, and is prohibited on eBay."<br /><br />eBay said it would ban a seller's family, roommates and employees from bidding because they "have a level of access to information about the seller's items which is not available to the general Community." Sellers who violate the shill bidding policy face listing cancellation, loss of eBay fees on cancelled listings, loss of PowerSeller status, account suspension and referral to law enforcement. eBay said it would hold a workshop on its shill bidding policy on August 16. <br /><br />How do they know who my friends are? <br /><br />Thoughts...<br /><br />DJ

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Posted By: <b>Glenn</b><p>I don't know, but just to be safe maybe we should make this forum a little less friendly.

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Posted By: <b>Jim F</b><p>I think they can only enforce that with people of the same address listed with ebay. You can not prove family. Are people named Smith not allowed to bid on auctions from anyone named Smith? C'mon<br /><br /> Jim

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Posted By: <b>warshawlaw</b><p>I'll believe it when I see it. One thing is for certain, the people who get whipsawed by the policy are all going to be small potatoes sellers. The BRSZ'S of the world won't be touched.

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Posted By: <b>Richard</b><p>Sounds like a scare tactic more than anything. Ebay, and Paypal, have much bigger problems that they should attend to first. I don't see how they can enforce it either.

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Posted By: <b>Gilbert Porter</b><p><P>They just suspended my son because of him having bid on my nephew's auctions. The bids were genuine (my son purchases a number of items from my nephew on eBay - particularly when he and my nephew cannot agree on what is a fair price and they decide to leave it to market forces).</P><P>But it would take a miracle worker to figure out that they are related, since there is nothing in common - name, city, etc. - to connect the two. </P><P>Nice that they are picking on innocent people who play fair, while others continue to commit wholesale fraud with eBay's blessing. For instance, as soon as my son was suspended a seller who was already paid in full decided to use my son's suspension to wrongly inform eBay that he was never paid - we have the receipt for online payment etc, but there is no way to contact the seller (or even look up the transaction and seller contact information) or to dispute Seller's position with eBay because of the suspension. eBay was "nice" enough to email my son that he was accused of being a non-paying buyer, but they do not provide any ability for my son to reply or contest this statement. So eBay's suspension policy becomes a blank check for sellers to rip off customers.</P><P>Needless to say, I have dispatched an angry letter to eBay. We shall see . . . .</P>

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Posted By: <b>Richard</b><p>Are you sure that your son was suspended due to the shill bidding policy, or due to the non-paying bidder filing?

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Posted By: <b>Gilbert Porter</b><p><P>Absolutely certain - the suspension states that the reason is for shill bidding (my son had a 135 perfect positive rating bfore this, and the nephew had an over-250 perfect positive rating). Neither my son nor nephew ever received an inquiry or warning from eBay about this.</P><P>When we inquired of eBay about this, they recited their "no family" rule. </P><P>The purported "no pay" claim by a seller was one day later. It invited us to reply to eBay if we disagreed (which we did, with proof of the electronic payment through BidPay), but there was a second email minutes after the first on this point from eBay informing my son (in effect) that because he is suspended the matter is not open for him to challenge. In the meantime, we still have no ability to contact the seller through eBay (except through my other eBay accounts, which is what I have been trying to do to no avail). And, of course, since my other eBay accounts are not the "buyer", there is no ability for me to complain about the seller to eBay. Fortunately, it is a small amount.</P><P>When you are suspended they continue to give you access to your eBay emails, but nothing else - hence even though we paid for several items over the last two weeks prior to usspension, we have no way of looking them up - even if just to reimnd ourselves of what we were supposed to receive.</P>

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Posted By: <b>Daniel Bretta</b><p>How in the world did ebay know that your son and his cousin were related???

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Posted By: <b>jackgoodman</b><p>How did they determine the relationship?

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Posted By: <b>Gilbert Porter</b><p><P>Good question.&nbsp; Since I presume most eBay action comes from member complaints, I can only assume that the complainer must have met them both at some of the shows that we do together.&nbsp; Once my son and nephew were informed by eBay of their suspension they disclosed to eBay&nbsp;that they were related - until that time, none of us realized that eBay was making "family" transactions illegal.</P><P>But the process of eliminating friends and family from bidding is a real drag for those of us who had used eBay to "resolve" the issue of fair price ("if you think that's what it is worth, I will put it on eBay and you can bid with everyone else").&nbsp; And the fact that eBay merely announces its judgment, without notice or warning or request for information, is rather amazing - particularly since their system is so inept and unfair in dealing with legitimate pre-suspension transactions.</P><P>&nbsp;</P>

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Posted By: <b>davidcycleback</b><p>As far as "family and roomates" go-- beyond other investigative information, I suspect eBay is going strictly by matching addresses registered with eBay and/or PayPal. <br /><br />From a practical standpoint, if eBay were to explicitly allow family or others with the same address and paid employee's at one's work address to bid, eBay might as well simply forget about policing shilling. eBay doesn't have a case by case Vulcan Mind Probe to judge the mind set of the wife who share's the seller's bed at night.

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Posted By: <b>Howie</b><p>Ebay said "seller's family members, roommates, and employees"<br />This means.<br />Anybody sharing the same computer.<br />Anybody sharing the same address on file with Ebay.<br /><br />What they're trying to get at is people who might be working from the same computer or network to list and bid on items. You list a card using your computer and then a buddy comes over to visit and places a real bid on your card using your computer. It may be on the up and up but it will immediately be seen by Ebay if they want to monitor for it. If your room mate bids on your card on another computer but shares your address then Ebay can easily monitor for that. They're slam dunk obvious violations that take zero effort for Ebay to investigate. Trying to prove that a buddy in Idaho is shilling a Minnesota guy's auctions is next to impossible.

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Posted By: <b>davidcycleback</b><p>My personal point of view is a shiller is a person who makes a specific and calculated effort to cheat collectors in a way he thinks he can get away with. The question for the collector isn't so much about the known shilling (that's just a matter of money), but about what other areas or potential areas might the dealer willing to do things because "the buyer will never find out." It blows my mind when I read on a chatboard about a collector who purchases autographs from a dealer who the collector himself knows to be a shiller.<br /><br />For one's reputation alone, allowing relatives to bid, even innocently, in one's auctions is playing with fire.<br /><br />

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Posted By: <b>Tom</b><p>It is not hard to figure out how ebay knows whom and where shill bidding is taking place at their site. If you can not figure that out shame on you for not being technical experts in computer science. Oh, for give me I forgot you only deal in vintage baseball cards. I believe it's the best thing that could ever happen. Shill bidding places others people at a highly disadvantage. I new ebay would final come out with this policy and I am glade they did. Just to let you know who wrote this message this has nothing to do with M101-4/5.

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Posted By: <b>Charlie O'Neal</b><p>I agree with most of eBay's new policy. I do have a problem with not bidding on other employees auction's though. While it may not influence an auction if you work in a company that has about 20 employees but, it could cause a problem when you work for a company that employees ten's of thousands of employees such as Citigroup. I have had an auction before where someone from the same company has won the auction but we didn't know about each other till after the auction was closed. The result of him not bidding would have been about $90 dollars less than the selling price. So I am deffinatly against eBay not letting other employees bid on each others auctions.

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Posted By: <b>Bob</b><p>'Nuff said.

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Posted By: <b>B.C.Daniels</b><p>or at least put a horses head in bed with them~<img src="http://www.network54.com/Realm/tmp/1121322176.JPG">