The solution is simple. People who own, run, or work for grading companies should stick to grading - not price guides (PSA -SMR), or prices realized (on the SGC home page). Becasue as soon as they stress the monetary aspects - they should not be allowed participate in bidding on any graded cards. They are indirectly generating "buzz" and it is self serving and a conflict of interest. Let the people who advertise in their magazines do that.
Here is the definition of a shill from Wikipedia.
A shill is an associate of a person selling goods or services or a political group, who pretends no association to the seller/group and assumes the air of an enthusiastic customer. The intention of the shill is, using crowd psychology, to encourage others unaware of the set-up to purchase said goods or services or support the political group's ideological claims. Shills are often employed by confidence artists. The term plant is also used. Shill bidding, found on many auction sites such as eBay, is punishable by law[1] and may result in fines and or prosecution.
Shilling is illegal in many circumstances and in many jurisdictions because of the frequently fraudulent and damaging character of their actions. However, if a shill does not place uninformed parties at a risk of loss, but merely generates "buzz", the shill's actions may be legal. For example, a person planted in an audience to laugh and applaud when desired (see claque), or to participate in on-stage activities as a "random member of the audience", is a type of legal shill.
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