Quote:
Originally Posted by samosa4u
Bob,
Yes, you read right.
We're all grown men here - not schoolchildren. Why do we need to bid ten times or more?
Hmmm, let's see ... 350 ... 400 ... hehehe ... 425 ... 450 ... oh dear ... 475 ... 499 ... 501 ... hohoho ...
A person bidding like that is either a) not serious about the item or b) shilling it up! Limiting the number of times an individual can bid on a particular item is a great idea and all the major auction houses should consider it!
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Okay, that is an interesting opinion, and I don't think you'll ever see it happening. No self-respecting AH would ever institute such a practice as the first thing I can see consignors doing is taking their items elsewhere from then on. How someone chooses to legitimately bid in an auction is their own business, and I can't understand how your thinking will be of much help. I assume your concern is with shill bidding, if not, I'm really curous to know what it really is.
I saw one other person already responded to your post stating they have at times made multiple bids on auctions, and for exactly the same reason I'm assuming you are concerned with, shill bidding. So are people that do that type of bidding so they don't get stuck leaving a secret max bid out there for some shill bidder to run up wrong? And if so, please tell me exactly what they are supposed to do then. Since auction houses have things like extended bidding, you normally can't just set a snipe bid and forget about it. And the way a lot of these extended bidding periods are set up, they continue on till only one person is still standing. I have gotten into a back and forth in extended bidding periods myself, and at times have only wanted to go one increment at a time so as to hopefully outlast the other bidder without going higher than I have to. During such times things can change also if another lot suddenly went out of reach so I now have more to spend on a lot than originally planned. Or I end up winning a lot I didn't expect to, and so have less money than I anticipated to have and am thus thankful I just didn't put in a secret max bid on the lot I was going bid increment by bid increment on. And the same circumstances can happen with the person you are bidding against, which may suddenly cause them to drop out of a back and forth bidding war and allow you to get something for less than you would have had to pay otherwise.
So you stated what you don't approve of, numerous multiple bids, which I assume is an issue to you in combating shilling. So if that isn't okay, please explain to me how limiting the number of times a person can bid on a particular AH item will actually stop shill bidding. If the number of times someone could bid on an auction item were limited, I would assume someone shilling an auction would simply run the bidding up to where they wanted in fewer bids going forward. So you haven't really stopped the shilling, but you've now succeeded in limiting legit bidders to how often they can bid, potentially costing consignors and AHs money as I said earlier.
And if it turns out you aren't really concerned about shill bidding at all, do you really just dislike the way some legit people bid? If so, would really like to hear from someone who owns/works for an AH to get their perspective on limiting how many times someone can legitimately bid on an auction lot.
And calling people schoolchildren because you personally don't like their legit auction bidding habits is a bit harsh, don't you think?