PWCC – Announcing Formal Policy Concerning eBay Bidder & Buyer Integrity

[irv]

Originally Posted by D.P.Johnson

No Dale. What you're doing isn't "string" bidding. "String" bidding is when someone is "fishing" to see if they can find out where the maximum bid is by continuously bidding with minimum increments. When someone does that, they can sometimes see what the high bid is before they actually reach it because the incremental bid amount will suddenly change. Hope that makes sense. It's kinda hard to explain...
That being said, I always snipe...

Thanks for the reply, Daniel. I appreciate it.

[icollectDCsports]

Originally Posted by irv

Thanks for the reply, Daniel. I appreciate it.

I see, so a string bidder who's not really intending to win knows when to stop. That's the part that I was not understanding before this explanation.

[Snapolit1]

If a string bidder knows to stop at $1499, why does he want to waste his time bidding in dollar intervals to jack the price up? If it's sitting at $1000, just bid once at $1499 and go to bed. Why bother wasting time with interim bids.

[Luke]

Because if the leading bidder entered an odd amount like $1475.85, the string bidder might find that out $1 at a time.

He bids $1471, the high bid goes to $1472

He then bids $1473, and the high bid goes to $1474

He then bids $1475 and the high bid goes to $1475.85.

Now he knows to stop.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by LukeLyon

Because if the leading bidder entered an odd amount like $1475.85, the string bidder might find that out $1 at a time.

He bids $1471, the high bid goes to $1472

He then bids $1473, and the high bid goes to $1474

He then bids $1475 and the high bid goes to $1475.85.

Now he knows to stop.

I saw that time and again just randomly looking at bidding histories in certain types of auctions.

[savedfrommyspokes]

Quoting eBay's policy on shill bidding:

"Policy overview

Shill bidding happens when anyone—including family, friends, roommates, employees, or online connections—bids on an item with the intent to artificially increase its price or desirability. "


IMO, based on eBay's definition of shill bidding, a "string" bidder is nothing more than a shill bidder when their sole intent as a bidder is to "artificially increase" an item's by price by placing consecutive but small increment bids only to reveal the high bidders top bid while they have no intention of bidding to win the item.

In other words, per eBay's definition of shill bidding, string bidding is shill bidding due to the bidders intent to artificially increase an item's price.

[Exhibitman]

Yeah but without a retraction you cannot tell whether a bid is legit. My view is that if a bidder always risks winning then the bid is legit. Solution: prohibit a retraction. Put the bidder in jeopardy of becoming high bidder and he won't risk it on a high priced item.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Prior discussion of whether some string bidding is shilling or not.

http://www.net54baseball.com/showthr...hlight=pushing

[pbspelly]

Originally Posted by LukeLyon

Because if the leading bidder entered an odd amount like $1475.85, the string bidder might find that out $1 at a time.

He bids $1471, the high bid goes to $1472

He then bids $1473, and the high bid goes to $1474

He then bids $1475 and the high bid goes to $1475.85.

Now he knows to stop.

This explains a lot. Thanks

[Snapolit1]

I still don't get it. Who is the croooked string bidder? Is he a friend of the guy who consigned the item? Is he the seller himself? And why does he care so much about 85 cents in the above example if he's spending over 1000 on a card?

If someone bids $1000 on an item but puts a max bid of $1200, who cares if that gab is closed in $1 intervals or $100.

I'm nowhere near smart enough to make sense of this.

[Snapolit1]

Thread Peter posted was useful.

[Luke]

Originally Posted by Snapolit1

I still don't get it. Who is the croooked string bidder? Is he a friend of the guy who consigned the item? Is he the seller himself? And why does he care so much about 85 cents in the above example if he's spending over 1000 on a card?

If someone bids $1000 on an item but puts a max bid of $1200, who cares if that gab is closed in $1 intervals or $100.

I'm nowhere near smart enough to make sense of this.

The reason tiny incremental bids is worse is because the string bidder can "find out" where the max bid is without exceeding it. In your example, the shill bidder has no idea that the max is $1200, so they would rather bid it up at the smallest increment in hopes of finding the max than just bid $1100 and risk becoming high bidder because the previous max was only $1050.

[Exhibitman]

Originally Posted by LukeLyon

Because if the leading bidder entered an odd amount like $1475.85, the string bidder might find that out $1 at a time.

He bids $1471, the high bid goes to $1472

He then bids $1473, and the high bid goes to $1474

He then bids $1475 and the high bid goes to $1475.85.

Now he knows to stop.

Not likely. According to eBay, you cannot bid a dollar increment on a $1200 item. That requires a $25 increment. A buck will only get you to $99.