New Ebay seller trick ?
 

Ok, last night I was following some vintage card auctions on ebay that I had placed bids on. I always check the bid history of every auction before and during the so I can try to detect shilling or any funny business. Last night , about 2 hours before the auctions were to end,ALL the auctions from one particular seller changed from being viewable to suddenly being private so noone could check the bid history. I didn't know sellers could change auction styles on the fly like that with such little time remaining in their auctions. This seller had a good rep with me as a vintage seller until last night. I suspect I will be seeing some of those cards that I lost last night up for sale again in 15-20 days.
Called Ebay customer service and a nice 19 year old girl made me laugh at her instead of giving me and explanation as to how this could happen

What was her name?

Yes you can change the auction setting to private at any time.

Perhaps he had a very valid reason for making the change. You said yourself the seller had a good rep with you prior to this. Maybe a simple message to the seller expressing your concern over his change in auction policy towards the end of the listing and inquiring why they did make the change would put your worries and concerns to rest?

My father runs a model train business with most of his sales occurring on Ebay, moving anywhere from 100-200 items per week. I asked him his thoughts on this issue and his reply to me was that there were times he changed his auctions mid listing as well. He said he most often does it when he’s notified by an auction bidder who had been contacted by a 3rd party, offering for sale the exact same item my father has for auction. This is of course against Ebay policy so my father (along with the valid bidder) reports the 3rd party to Ebay and promptly switches the auction to private to protect all current and future bidders on his auction from being contacted in a similar fashion.

There are reasons for making this change mid-auction, and not all of them nefarious in nature.

So, When the cats away the mice will play.

who was the ebay seller who did this?

Please share with us the name of this person. Thanks.

Am I out of line to ask why this 1st post should appear with a link to betting tips on football at this time of the season?

Paul S(pec.tor)

I don't think you are out of line Paul. I just left a phone message for that user and depending on if/when/how they answer, will determine if they are a continuing member or not.

If you aren't interested in what we do on the board, but are here for any other reason, then we probably aren't going to be a long term place for you.

I will share the name of the seller if I see the cards I lost out on re-appear for sale by the same seller in a couple of weeks. Otherwise, I don't want to accuse this seller of anything fishy. what I noticed after looking at all the auctions I was bidding on and tracking with gavelsnipe was that I lost every auction. in some cases a private bidder bid up in small increments until my bid was passed. I think two auctions there were 19 bids placed one afterthe other until I was outbid. the gavelsnipe auctions I tried with this seller all had a similar bid patter with the bidder placing a double bid as his last bid after surpassing the previous high bidder. It looked like someone was just placing probative bids until they outbid me and the in some cases placed one more bid right after that to perhaps ensure a win or if it was shilling , to ensure a certain price was met

How is that possible? How can someone A) know who the bidder is, and B) then contact them? Back in the day, sure, but now?

That was the same thing I was thinking. How is this possible???