pwcc

[steve B]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

FYI it took me about three minutes to find five (or maybe it was more) suspicious bidders who should be investigated. The stats people throw up in an effort to make this seem more overwhelming than putting a man on the moon don't impress me much.

How?

I decided to try it myself, looked at about 25 auctions bid history. Only checked patterns that looked odd.

That took roughly 13 minutes.

I did find three bidders I thought were a bit suspect, and two maybes.

But over a couple thousand auctions the hours spent would be close to what Jason had. And call it statistics, but the costs I figured would be the costs no matter what you call them. Checking requires labor, those workers need to be paid.

I do agree that some effort would weed out the most obvious problem bidders.

I'm not so sure that would reduce the overall problem since those bidders might be replaced with new problem bidders.

And I have doubts that such light scrutiny would satisfy you.
If a big consigner came on once a month and said he'd spent a half hour and banned 5 people would you be ok with that? Or would you demand that he look into every bidder.
If he looked into every bidder on items over 250 would that be ok, or should it be every bidder on every item?

And what's the threshold for "suspect" a couple bid retractions? A certain pattern? Someone intent on shilling will work around almost any detection method. (See also computer anti-virus programming. They're written nearly as fast as the AV can be adjusted to block them)

I agree shilling is bad, and that some steps should be taken. Persoanlly I'd be happy with any genuine effort by any of the large consignment companies.

But it does have to be tempered with a bit of realism. Not all suspect patterns are shills. Not all shills can or will be caught. It doesn't mean not trying.

Ebay allowing people with too many retractions to be blocked would be a very big help. And for Ebay it wouldn't be that hard or expensive. (Not counting the lost fees from shilled items.) They already have the programmers on the payroll.

So far no takers on bankrolling a shiller detection program..........Not that I'm expecting any.

Steve B