[Archive]

Posted By: warshawlaw

It is one thing to have anonymous bidding when an auctioneer is actually running the show and presumably (I know, I know) using its best efforts to prevent shilling. It is quite another thing when a sale site that we KNOW doesn't police anything without being asked to do so makes it impossible to tell if an item is being shilled.

Remember the Broadway Rick's Strike Zone scandal? For those of you who don't, BRSZ was using a secondary ebay account to bid up its items, and either taking wins away from actual bidders by outbidding them or running up the price levels on cards to what BRSZ wanted to realize from the sales. BRSZ was outed because we could trace the bidding.

If the final auction results still show winners' names, it will be possible to trace shilling. Not call attention to it during a bid, but trace it afterwards. If they take away that too, good luck.