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Posted By: davidcycleback

One last point is many collectors raise their bid because they think they are competing against a fellow collector-- a collector who is simultaneously expressing his valuation opinion for the item-- not a phantom pseudo bid. Many people also value a rare item by looking to see what other fellow collectors are bidding, not a made-up pseudo bid from a collector that doesn't exist. Collectors regularly use what other honest collectors bid and are willing to pay to help determine value and pricing. After all, it is these same fellow collectors who will be the potential buyers if one wins and resells the item If a collector wins a an item for $1,000 (shill bid underbidder $950), then finds out the next highest real collector bid was at $490, you bet he will feel cheated.

Also realize that for many of those horrible fake T206s and such, the fraudulent seller will use multiple shillers to get the price fake high so it appears that there's lots of bidder interest in this convincing others that the card is legitimate. This shills are almost like advertising. Many shillers will raise the bid real high in the hope there's one sucker bidder who will top it at the end. If there isn't the sucker bidder, the scammer will relist it and try again. Thus, in an ongoing shilled auction, the high bid may be $500 when highest bid from a real bidder is only $20 or there are no bids from a real bidder.

When people use past prices on eBay as a price guide, there are two questions: 1) How many of the auctions were paid for, and 2) How much of the pricing is due to shilling. An earlier argument was "If you place a bid knowing what a card is worth ..." However, if you're using past pricing to judge what a card is worth, how do you know you know what a card is worth? What you may calculate as the market value of the card may be derived from shilled numbers.

If straight bidding was the only way to auction on eBay, I might consider arguments over the merits of shilling. However, eBay offers the seller a plethora of different ways to auction or sell or 'protect his investment.' The seller can set the minimum at any amount he choses, he can use a reserve, buy it now, make-best-offer. eBay offers enough choices that there really is no good excuse for resorting to shilling.