Posted By:
Paul MossHere is a post from powersellersunite.com where one person has identified 185,000 fake auction listings.
I read the rumors of eBay posting Shill Listings and took them with a grain of salt. I didnt think they could stoop so low. I was wrong.
User ID sdc_prod_434012 has 34998 items listed. No feedback. When you click on the feedback profile it shows User Id SPECTRUMSUPERSTORE member since 11 April 2007.
sdc_prod_9124_14 HAS 48391 ITEMS LISTED. 253 Feedback. When you click on the feedback profile it shows User Id THENERDS, INC member since DEC 2007
sdc_prod_9074_35 HAS 21401 ITEMS LISTED. 0 feedback. When you click on the feedback profile it shows User Id PCRUSH.COM ,member since 28 FEB 2008. And get this NOT A REGISTERED USER WITH OVER 20 THOUSAND LISTINGS? eBay is starting to cover this up.
sdc_prod_9452 HAS 24471 ITEMS LISTED. 75 FEEDBACK. When you click on the feedback profile it shows User Id eTronics, INC member since JUL 2007
sdc_prod_301013_74 HAS 27291 ITEMS LISTED. 503 FEEDBACK. When you click on the feedback profile it shows User Id THE TWISTER GROUP (EBAY DOES HAVE A SENSE OF HUMOR AFTER ALL) member since OCT 2006
sdc_prod_9352_67 HAS 30782 ITEMS LISTED. FEEDBACK SCORE OF 915.
When you click on the feedback profile it shows User Id Digital Foto Club. member since MAY 2007
In summary there are over 185,000 listings for the sellers above which I could identify. One of them is not registered yet has over 20,000 auctions.
None of these can be bid on
Mystery listings are appearing on eBay that don't allow shoppers to bid or buy. The listings appear to be feeds from Shopping.com sellers. A look at the User ID sdc_prod_301013_74, for example, shows the seller has 27,076 listings - but the ones we clicked on did not have bid or buy buttons. Users found multiple User IDs with the preface "sdc" - a commonly used nickname for Shopping.com
A discussion about the listings began Friday night on eBay's Feedback board. Some posters believe it is a sign that eBay is trying to inflate its listing numbers to mask any effects of the seller boycott. Because of the dearth of data from eBay, Wall Street analysts put a lot of credence on listing numbers to gauge the company's marketplace performance. This month, everyone studied listing numbers to try and measure the impact of the seller boycott. And sellers have been prowling the site looking for any evidence of manipulation.
Update 3/1/08: eBay spokesperson Usher Lieberman responded by email on Saturday, "This was a limited test that has run its course." I appreciate the update on a weekend and, if I learn more next week, will update this post.
Interesting "spin" from the Ebay rep, a limited "test" of software. With that they can probably get away with the stunt, though I have seen shareholder lawsuits over more innocuous things than this. The high priced Wall Street analysts are looking at the listing numbers, and Ebay knew this, so I'm sure they wish their "test" didn't get spotted. Depending on how widespread the incident is, and what is said in an official response from Ebay, this could get ugly, or be a non-event.