[Snowman]

Originally Posted by BobC

Frank, sorry for one more response to Peter.

Peter, you and Mark going back and forth about running up bids, and what difference it makes if a person's max bids are known are i think very different issues as well. The idea of bidding someone up is a little like playing poker where I'm trying to bluff to win the pot. I assume you'll eventually get scared off and fold, and I win the pot. But if you have a decent hand and don't take my bluff and end up calling me, I'll likely lose, and it will end up costing me what I had put into the pot. That is simply considered gamesmanship and an accepted part of poker. Kind of like if you try bidding someone up, and they suddenly stop bidding. You now end up overpaying for a card you never really wanted.

Now assume in that same hand I somehow knew exactly what cards you had, and even though I had a nothing hand myself, I knew your hand was even worse. So I again go to bluff you out of the pot, all the while knowing that whatever you do, I'll still end up winning the hand regardless. So now I have no fear of chickening out and letting you bluff me out of the pot, or of losing it should you end up calling me. Now that is outright cheating and illegal. And to me that would be the same as shill bidding in an auction where I know your max bid. I'd bid right up to your max amount, and then stop. I'd never have to worry about winning the auction by accident, and you'd end up paying the max amount possible. Again, cheating and illegal.

To me, that is a huge night and day difference between the act of shill bidding someone up.

Good analogy. I definitely agree. While both are illegal, there's a big difference in my eyes too between someone who shill bids their consignment with what is effectively a 'reserve price' and a seller like 'aj_wag' who shills people up to find out what their max bid is, then cancels his shill bid and then with 1 second remaining, shill bids again just below the other person's max bid to extract maximum value from them. He's basically looking at his opponent's hole cards. The fact that this behavior is even possible, let alone repeatable across hundreds of listings by the same 2 accounts on ebay is either mind-blowing incompetence or intentional enablement/looking the other way by eBay. And the fact that this behavior is allowed to continue despite people repeatedly reporting them for it (everyone here should report 'aj_wag' and his 'rywag123' account BTW) tells me that it's much more likely to be the latter than the former.