Question about detecting shilling

[steve B]

Originally Posted by D. Bergin

The 38% is only for the last 30 days, not for their entire bidding history. It's not unusual at all.

I have yet to understand the theory that anybody who doesn't evenly spread their bids all over Ebay in a 30 day period, must be a shiller.

The biggest hints to me would be a low feedback bidder, with tons of bids with exclusively the same seller, lots of bid retractions and 2nd chance offers being sent out by the seller, almost immediately after the auction.

Maybe I'm naive, but I think more highly of most of the quality sellers on Ebay to think they'd waste their time and reputation with such shenanigans.

I'm not saying it doesn't happen, but it seems all too common for charges of shilling to be flippantly made, without care of the damage it might do to an honest seller.

Bidders are all different and take different paths. Any seller who has done it on a regular basis for any amount of time sees strange bidding patterns on their items all the time.

And even then it might not be shilling. I had an item I was underbidder on with all those red flags. And it turned out to be totally legit. Shilling does happen, but I don't panic and see shills behind every odd bidding pattern.

But if you do, keep right on doing it. In that case, I eventually ended up with the item from the second chance offer for less. And it was nicer than the first one offered.

Steve B