Shill bid or coincidence?
 

I am putting together an SGC common graded 1963 topps set. I was following a common graded card for six days in a seven day auction. There were no bids. The auction was going to end 22hrs. I put in a bid and three minutes later was outbid!. The auction ended with that bid. What do you think?

I think it sounds sketchy.
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me too!!!!!

Not nearly enough information to formulate an opinion.

Last time I had that kind of experience I had a really bad feeling in my gut. A year or so later I found out I was shill bid. And I think I was shill bid 2-3x in that auction. It was crazy what happened. That might be the same way you felt when it happened. It's like WTF?? This was back in the Legendary or Mastro era...so, a while back. I had even told authorities about it back then.
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What do you need to know?

Possibly shady, but I will say that if I am watching an auction that has no bids, then I’m in no hurry to bid until close to the end unless someone else bids first.

Usually you can go with your gut feeling. I’ve been shilled enough to know. Now, I love sticking the shill bidder with the high bid almost as much as winning the item I’m bidding on.

If it was a shill bid it means:
1. They lose out on a sale and pay fees too.
2. It will likely be relisted fairly soon.

Please help me to understand. How would a seller know that a bid was placed on his item unless he was monitoring the auction at the time? Does he receive an email or other instant notification that there's been a bid? Can he or his shill automate a bid to be placed for $x as soon as there's been a bid by someone else?

I realize that the timing of the OP's transaction seems suspicious, but if there's a seller out there with multiple auction items what are the chances he is watching this item so closely 22 hours before the end? If he is going to shill is the idea that the victim will still be online and be motivated to bid again? Why not wait an hour or two--is the theory that the victim will be offline by then and may not think to go back and check? I suppose it's just as strange for a legitimate bidder to be looking in at the auction at that same time-- are users who put something on the watch list notified as soon as bids are placed on that item, so as to alert them as to status?

Just wondering.

Vaults are good covers for still bids. They just keep re appearing in auctions down the road. Places with vaults are the the first thing I look for when I think something shady in terms of shill bidding could be goin on.

Ebay does notify you when there is a bid. The problem I have is there was no interest in this COMMON card until I bid. The out bid came 3MINUTES LATER. It seemed very strange as to when I was outbid.

I don't do very much buying on eBay anymore, but when I did there were sniping tools available, and a lot of people used them. I found it infuriating. Not only could these things bid at the last second, but they could also be set up to keep you as the high bidder if that was your desire. Maybe that's what happened?

Some auction houses let you set up a watch list, and will send you a text when there is a new bid.

Even with ebay, you can set up a snipe bid, and the snipe service will monitor the bidding and notify you if the bid amount goes above your snipe.

Bona fide bidders can use these tools just as easily as shills, so I would say most likely somebody wanted to make sure they got a bid in before the auction closed, either so they could be eligible for extended bidding, or maybe so the card showed up on their bid list.

I don't believe in coincidences. This frequently happens to me on eBay. I'll enter the first bid for an item that was listed a few days earlier, and within 5 to 10 minutes later receive an email notifying me that a higher bid was just entered.

As an occasional seller, I know that sellers receive emails when there is bidding activity. In my instances, I suspect the seller received my bid and then logged into his/her shill account or contacted a buddy to shill bid the item.

I just laugh and walk away. If I suspect shilling I won't enter another bid on the item, and create notes not to bid on this seller's item again.

eBay does not notify the seller when a bid is placed.

That makes no sense at all. The main purpose(s) of sniping services was so that first, you didn't have to be available to bid as the auction ended, and second, to wait till the last few seconds of an auction to make your bid so you didn't bid early and allow someone else to run your bid up, and/or outbid you. What you are suggesting runs totally counter to one of the main reasons to ever use a sniping service.

Of the sniping services I've seen in use, I've never seen (or heard) of one that purposely kept running up the bidding long before an auction was ending. I'd love to hear what sniping service(s) you're aware of that just keeps bidding like that. And if there is one or more such services out there doing that, I frankly don't consider that a true sniper service. It is something else entirely, just not sure what.

I don't recall setting it up this way, but I do get notifications on my iPhone when there is a bid on an item I am selling, along with an annoying tone. Nothing that shows up in ebay messages though, it seems to be an app function only. I would be glad to get rid of the feature.

Maybe someone had it in their watchlist and bid when they saw you bid. Hard to say, but a common 63 topps card seems an unlikely shill candidate. How much was your bid?

Actually a possible simple explanation. The card was on someone's watch list, but it makes no sense to be the first bidder if you think you can snipe it at 1 minute before extended bidding begins.

Once it has a bid though, you need to put your bid in so you are eligible for extended bidding so waiting no longer makes a difference.

If this was on Ebay, then yeah you were shilled lol.

In my opinion it seems shill, but it may be coincidence. Say people bid just to bid, if there were zero bids the auction would have counted down, but for example your graded common say at $5, someone else may say hey you are not getting that I’ll go 5.50 or 6. What do you think about this?

Proud to say I am stuck in the 20th century and have next to no apps on my phone. An eBay app would be one of the last I would put on the phone and only at gun point.

If it was still worthy of another bid you had 22 hrs left to counter, and see what went on. I've bid many different ways depending on how things are or what they are. I've actually bid on an item at nearly the same time, and had to increase my bid when I just looked it had no bids. I usually don't bid if there isn't a bid or I bid twice once at the buy in price, and then wait till auction is almost over 10 to 13 sec left, and put in my max bid I'm willing to pay.

Just watch for it to be relisted.

I've had this happen as well. When it does, I go to the bid history and hit the link associated with the account that out-bid me. When you do, you will see something like this:

Attachment 522022

The 30 day summary is the key. If they have a fair number of bids over that time and a high percentage are with that particular seller, it would seem a good indicator that there is some shilling going on. It isn't a perfect rule, as there situations it may be innocuous. For example, if you are looking at auctions with a reputable, and large volume seller, like Greg Morris it is probably coincidence as many buyers (like me) only bid on auctions with those sellers. But, if it is a marginal seller and I see a suspicious history, I walk away.

Note: The picture above isn't what I would consider suspicious. I only used it for illustrative purposes.

I do not recall the name of the software/executable/app but I saw one that would allow you to customize your bidding. You could set it up to keep you ahead all the way to the last possible second up to whatever monetary amount you put in. Stupid or otherwise. And there were others. And I don't care to debate it with you. Disagree all you want, I saw it. Finally, snipers are 100% a-holes, in my opinion.

Ebay sure does notify a seller when a bid is placed. I get notifications all the time.

My problem was that there were 22 hours left in the auction with no bidders. I put in a bid and 3 minutes later I was outbid. He could have waited and sniped and I would have been fine with that. I did note the seller and will be looking at some of their auctions.

Jim,

Not looking to argue or debate with you. Using a snipe service like that just makes no sense to me as it runs counter to what people normally want to use a snipe service for. I'm just surprised someone would want to use such a service in the way you described. To each his own though, right?

Some consignors love their snipers.

Thanks. I am with you. Sniping is just one of the things that drove me away, but it was a big one. I found it infuriating! It was old railroad timetables. Not nearly as limelight as baseball cards. I would find one with very few or no watchers, no bids, and get sniped at the end. So I asked around, and actually used one once or twice. I think it was called Bid Snapper or something like that. It was a free tool and didn't have any of the bells or whistles like custom bidding, but it would bid at the last possible second. I did not like it, I did not like putting my credentials into it, and I got rid of it and moved on to buy-it-now to the maximum extent possible.

Absolutely correct. Not sure about emails but the eBay app on your phone will notify you of bids if you want it to.

I agree Jim, there are both good AND bad points from using such services. On the one hand, they can help to deter shill bidders and their hijinks, but then on the other hand, you have to put up with issues and conditions as you mentioned. In your case, about the only acceptable and viable solution then is to wait and watch for the auction to end, and then you yourself physically put in your last second bid. Unfortunately, we both know that isn't always easy, or possible, depending on one's schedule and all the different and crazy times auctions can end. Can't always have everything perfectly the way we'd like, can we? LOL