What's Going On With This Auction

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Posted By: Lee Behrens

This auction has one bidder, bid 3 times and his highest bid is the current bid. What's up with that?

http://cgi.ebay.com/1909-T-206-Hof-Zach-Wheat-Piedmont-Back-PRO-8-Wow_W0QQitemZ8819613312QQihZ005QQcategoryZ86837QQr dZ1QQcmdZViewItem

Maybe it's punishment for bidding on a PRO card.

Lee

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Posted By: Richard

Hello, it could be what they term in the industry a shill bidder. That is someone who knows the seller and is deliberately bumping up the auction price. This is not permitted on ebay but is a very bad loophole that has not been overcome. One way to tell is check the sellers other listings if any and see if that same userid is bidding in his other auctions. Also, look at the pattern and see if he always bids the same way. This would be a red flag.

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Posted By: Cat

The only way that bidding makes sense is if the reserve was $300.

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Posted By: aro13

The reserve was $300. He had to keep bidding until he hit that amount.

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Posted By: jay behrens

There is no reserve on the card. That was my first thought too, but if there was a reserve, there were be a note next to the price "(reserve met)". It's not there

Jay

Growing old is not optional, growing up is.

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Posted By: Shawn Adkins

Maybe it's a Canada server issue? I had a similar experience back in March with an auction I sniped which ended with a large gap between myself and the underbidder. So I sent an inquiry message to ebay Canada support on the issue, their response was this...

"Once you make a bid that is equal or higher than the reserved
amount, it will automatically jump up to the reserve amount the seller
had previously set when listing the item. Since you have put a certain
amount it would automatically push the bid to the reserve price because
you are willing to pay at least that amount. I recommend that if you
really do not wish to pay for the amount that you bid, you should make a lower bid. I do understand why it seems funny that it jumped up without
any other bids under you, but I hope I have explained it enough for you
to understand why it did just that. Have a great day!"

Funny thing is that I never realized it even had a reserve and there is no "reserve met" note on this auction either. It does state reserve price in teh auction description so I just let it drop. But I still think there is a problem as it should display the reserve met notification if one was assigned to the listing.

Shawn

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Posted By: Anonymous

eBay has changed their reserve policy so "Reserve Has Not Been Met" displays until the reserve is met, and after that there is no other indication that there ever was a reserve...such as "Reserve Has Been Met".