Posted By:
JoannI think Barry summed it up perfectly. I've been trying to decide how bidding on a card you don't own is unethical in any case and have come up empty.
The difference between this and shilling is in how it relates to another bidder. If you bid on your own card or on behalf of the owner, you drive up the price to a single (hypothetically) independent bidder. If you bid on a card that you don't own and aren't bidding on behalf of the owner, then you are legitimate competition and the subsequent rise in price to another bidder is part and parcel of auction basics - bids raise prices.
So as long as you don't own the card or are bidding for the owner and will buy it if you do happen to win it (even if you did not bid with the intention of winning it), then your intent for bidding is 100% irrelevant. You are a legitimate bidder making a legitimate bid.
It doesn't matter if you bid to raise the price, to stay on the active catalog mailing list, to place a bookmark, give the card to your Aunt Fanny, collect a duplicate or decopage it onto the side of a coffee mug.
J