Bidding on your own auction

[D. Bergin]

Originally Posted by Bugsy

If Probstein were an honest seller, he wouldn't want shill bidders continually manipulating his auctions...assuming he himself isn't the shill bidder.

That's a good point. Retractions happen from time to time, but if it is frequent from the same bidder, or worse, from a consignor.........he should be blocking that bidder and/or refusing those consignments.

He does have a somewhat huge operation going and I understand some things can get overlooked, but these are somewhat easy to notice things.

Retractions are the key. The Bid %'s Ebay gives, really means nothing IMO, unless it is in tandem with other fishy practices.

[Butch7999]

Again, just tangential trivia, but since you asked --
MW1, all we can tell ya is basically what we already said and what we've seen in auctions in which we've bid.
-- our bids have shown up as both "u***u" and "u***7"
-- we've also seen the bids of a friend and fellow Net54 member showing up with two specific characters in several auctions
(we decline to specify the characters without his permission) and those same two characters transposed in other auctions.

Presumably, there's something in the eBay encryption programme that will change the "standard" masked ID for a second bidder
if another bidder, whose masked ID appears as the same two characters as those normally used to mask the second bidder,
has already bid in that same auction.
-----------------------------------------------------------

Quote:
Originally Posted by Butch7999
Trivia, just for the record:
-- "masked" eBay IDs do not always come up the same for the same bidder (although they're consistent within any single auction).
Our eBay ID has shown up masked a couple of different ways.
-- a "masked" ID can represent any number of eBay bidders -- there are only about 1,600 possible two-character combinations.

Quote:
Originally Posted by MW1
Butch,
Can you provide an example?

[ScottFandango]

in todays day of hidden ebay bidder's IDs, why do some bidders show up as "private" still?

what is the benefit of this? y*****y is listed as "private"...

[D. Bergin]

Originally Posted by ScottFandango

in todays day of hidden ebay bidder's IDs, why do some bidders show up as "private" still?

what is the benefit of this? y*****y is listed as "private"...

I have a couple regulars who are "Private". I know from speaking to one of them, It's so they can leave feedback and others can't see what they have been bidding on through their own feedback history.

The ID's aren't always a mystery either. If you already know somebody's Ebay handle you pretty much have free reign to track what they have been bidding on.

[t206fix]

Ok - so I've purchased some items from this seller in the past. I looked up this item that I've purchased, and look at the underbidder's activity with this seller...

http://offer.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.d...Buyer_ViewLink

It says that there is 100% bidding activity with this seller. Am I reading this right? Does this mean that this buyer only bids on items from this seller, or am I missing out on something?

This card went for more that what I expected it to go, but I guess that doesn't mean anything!?!

[Leon]

Originally Posted by cardboardbliss

Ok - so I've purchased some items from this seller in the past. I looked up this item that I've purchased, and look at the underbidder's activity with this seller...

http://offer.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.d...Buyer_ViewLink

It says that there is 100% bidding activity with this seller. Am I reading this right? Does this mean that this buyer only bids on items from this seller, or am I missing out on something?

This card went for more that what I expected it to go, but I guess that doesn't mean anything!?!

that buyer really likes that seller

[wazoo]

Honestly, these shill bidders do a terrible job covering their tracks. I mean, if you don't want to be seen only bidding on items from one seller, why not just put in a bid on items from different sellers that they are positive they won't win! That's make it look less fishy honestly, they just do a poor job.

[Edwolf1963]

Originally Posted by cardboardbliss

Ok - so I've purchased some items from this seller in the past. I looked up this item that I've purchased, and look at the underbidder's activity with this seller...

http://offer.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.d...Buyer_ViewLink

It says that there is 100% bidding activity with this seller. Am I reading this right? Does this mean that this buyer only bids on items from this seller, or am I missing out on something?

This card went for more that what I expected it to go, but I guess that doesn't mean anything!?!

It means he hasn't bid on/with anyone else in the last 30 days. This may have cost you a few bucks on this auction (assuming it was shilled) as you may have otherwise won the card for the next increment over $26 and change.

What's more suspicious about this is another under bidder s***s (445) with 43 bid retractions in the last 6 months! This was brought up before by other members and in previous replies - I don't get this at all - - I've never had any! 1 or 2 seems like a lot - 43..?!

s***s (445)
30-Day Summary
Total bids: 967
Items bid on: 416
Bid activity (%) with this seller: 76% Help
Bid retractions: 4
Bid retractions (6 months): 43

[T206DK]

Originally Posted by cardboardbliss

Ok - so I've purchased some items from this seller in the past. I looked up this item that I've purchased, and look at the underbidder's activity with this seller...

http://offer.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.d...Buyer_ViewLink

It says that there is 100% bidding activity with this seller. Am I reading this right? Does this mean that this buyer only bids on items from this seller, or am I missing out on something?

This card went for more that what I expected it to go, but I guess that doesn't mean anything!?!

that looks really suspicious. I wonder how many of those bids he placed were winning bids.