shill bidders?

[vintagetoppsguy]

I feel like we re-hash this issue every few months. Probstein himself may not be shilling his own auctions, but he turns a blind eye when his consignors do. It was pointed out to Probstein over a year and a half ago that Panky was shilling his own items (that’s when you could still track members and purchases by feedback) and he did nothing about it. Probstein was told what was going on, shown proof, yet still let Panky continue to consign and continue to shill his auctions. What more do you need to know about Probstein?

Also, as Leon mentioned, he could block bidders with 'X' amount of bid retractions. People can choose to do business with him or not. It doesn’t matter to me. As for me, I refuse to do business with someone like that.

That said, I don't believe the auction in question was shilled.

[Wite3]

I would love to see the actual screen cap where I could see the time stamps on the bids (it is too small to read currently)...if it was a bot, the time stamps might be meaningful...

Joshua

[Republicaninmass]

I figured it was people on a payroll, no way to have that many shills a' shilling

[ajjohnsonsoxfan]

I've tried to enlarge the bidding time stamps. Let's see if that works. I think there's "bot" technology that used to shill bid. Would love to hear if anyone has heard of how this works.

Originally Posted by Wite3

I would love to see the actual screen cap where I could see the time stamps on the bids (it is too small to read currently)...if it was a bot, the time stamps might be meaningful...

Joshua

[nolemmings]

The OP said it was strange that there would be such a high % of bids with this seller, but there really isn't much strange when you look at the very small sample size. One of these guys only bid on 4 items in the past 30 days and had only 27 bids total. It stands to reason that if he was really interested in this one card more than the other three items that would explain the 14 bids on this auction. Same with the other bidder--only 20 bids total in the past month, seven of which were with Probstein. Hardly eyebrow-raising IMO.

As someone posted, the tap bidding feature on cell phones has made it tougher to gauge a bidder's motives. I have limited to no understanding how it works, but apparently just tapping one key will bump up the bid one small increment, and it may be easier to just keep tapping until you're ahead than to enter a specific max dollar amount on your phone. That would explain how they are entered so rapid-fire also-- not a bot but someone on a cell phone tapping every couple of seconds.

[vintagetoppsguy]

To the OP,

I was looking at your completed sales, and here is a CJ that you sold that shows the same two bidders that you're questioning. So, I don't think they're shills or bots, they're probably just CJ collectors like yourself.

t***e was the winner of the item, so you should already have his contact information if you want to know who he is.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/1914-Cracker...0#ht_86wt_1220

[Mountaineer1999]

LOL.. I get it from the professionals on Wall Street then the sellers give me the business on EBay. I wonder what % of people will cheat you if they know they can get away with it.