Bidding on your own auction

[T206DK]

Originally Posted by jp1216

Just looked at my feedback. One purchase from Probstein123 this year.
One underbidder (y***s) with a feedback over 1200 bid with a price ending in .99 also. Feedback percentage with seller: 79%! Zero bid retractions.
A quick search reveals this bidder's ID. I won't post it.
Odd to say the least.
Looking at the variety of stuff y***s has won from him - just weird.

A friend of mine just won an unrelated card from him this week. The under bidder has private FB and nearly 90% with this seller... Funny .99 bid amounts again.

sounds like a friend or relative of the seller. Some of the shill accounts that big sellers use have high enough feedback of their own that it can throw off the casual observer and have them believing that nothing suspicious is going on when a guy bids .99 increments loads of times in one auction and has 75%-100% bidding history with one seller. Remember...there are flea marketers that have 7,8,9,10 different accounts on ebay why should it be any different for a dishonest baseball card dealer who is struggling to make a dime the Honest way. The fact that Ebay allows them to shill with impunity is no excuse for them doing it , I think it sucks and they ruin a neat hobby and discourage newbies from getting involved at all. This discusion has been had over and over though on this board about shilling at auction houses and on Ebay by supposed reputable sellers with great reputations in the hobby. Shilling has only gotten worse and some cases more brazen...if we really wanted to a bunch of people who know what they are doing could probably put a list together of Ebay sellers thay believe engage in nefarious activity, or we could just start telling people why we don't or won't bid with certain sellers
*signed fuming mad Dave in Ohio *