Posted By:
Corey R. ShanusAuctions by their nature can be a dirty business. At the major auctions houses (e.g., Sothebys, Christies), it is perfectly legal for the auction house to have the house bid an item up to the hidden reserve, even though there are no real bidders at those house bids. The reason, of course, is to give the audience the impression that there is real interest at those bids, in the hope of enticing a bidder to reach the reserve who otherwise might not. I have always had a problem with the ethics of this practice, but it goes on ALL the time. Who's to say that sellers on ebay who run private auctions like the one currently being run for the T210 Jackson do not do the same thing. They have a hidden high reserve, get some friends to place bids below the reserve, and hope other prospective bidders are duped into believing there is real interest at those levels. This practice in my view is just as unethical as a bidder intentionally entering a very high bid in order to flush out the reserve, and then retract that bid. While I'm sure ebay proscribes bids by bidders who do not intend to buy the item, the system does allow such bidding to take place. How does anybody know that that isn't going on in this case? I'm not saying it is, but how can we know for sure? My point is that if an ebay seller wants to conduct an auction that minimizes any sort of shenanigans on either side, then he should just announce the reserve and make public the bidders' user IDs.