Live Auction: Standard Biscuit Cobb - Shill Bidding?

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Posted By: E, Daniel

is a pretty common sight on ebay. Quite a few buyers seem to have a strategy of trying to scare off potential topping bids by putting 2 or more covering bids, even where they are only a few bucks apart. The thinking seems to be that if you see that same ebay id with numerous top bids, you'll think the bidder has deep pockets with high covering bids and be discouraged from even trying to outbid him/her...

Always seemed kind of lame to me, but who knows - maybe it works.

Those other bids you're questioning seem like a stretch to me to have made the out and out proclaimation of shill bidding, especially where the result can be to influence the amount of money the seller makes off it. I would try and be aware Matt that ebay has rules against interfering with the outcome of an auction, and if you're wrong the seller could look to come after you for recompense, or ebay could take their own action against you.


Edited to add: If you look at the order of bids in the timeline they were made, "s***t" (198) wasn't pushing anyone's bid up - his/her bids were the high bids at the time and the $349.87 looks like an attempt at a covering bid. Just because you'd go higher, doesn't mean he should or that he would think the natural possible bid to cover is $350. In fact, I use the exact same strategy. I'll bid to the $340's if I think the next highest bidder will just be over the $310 mark , and into the $380's if I think the next best will be around the $350's.

I really do think that apart from the location of the seller, you've made an incredible stretch with this outing and sugestion of wrongdoing, and If I was the seller - I'd be super pissed .



Daniel