Ebay as the shill bidder

[SMPEP]

Who cares what VCP says or what the card is worth? That is completely irrelevant to the topic.

The point is:

1) Ebay has a choice in how they choose to allow sellers to offer Second Chance Offers.

2) They could chose to have a Second Chance Offer that is one incremental unit above the next legitimate bid (which is the actual result that would have happened if the highest bid hadn't occurred) OR they could choose to use your maximum bid (to which they have insider information - unlike traditional shill bidders) and offer that price.

3) Ebay has chosen to abuse their inside knowledge, and offer it at your maximum price.

4) Now you have thrown out the red herring - that the buyer has a choice to accept the offer or not. Sure they do. But that is irrelevant. Ebay already knows the highest amount you are willing to pay for the card. You told them your highest price when you bid. (Again the inside information is key.)

5) You have also throw out the red herring that - you can negotiate with the seller. Sure. Maybe the seller will negotiate. Maybe they won't. But that's irrelevant. It's not the Seller's job to run a fair auction. That's EBay's job. That's why they get paid. The seller's job is to get the most money for their card. So the seller isn't doing anything wrong in offering the second chance at the buyer's maximum price. BUT they wouldn't have known that price if Ebay didn't tell them. Without the fraudulent bidder, the fair market price would have been one increment over the next highest bid - NOT the bidder's maximum bid. Again, it's EBay's obligation to run a fair auction. That would be the fair auction result.

6) You also throw out the red herring of "gee ... maybe there were other snipes that did not execute." Okay. Maybe. But what are the odds? 1 in 1,000 where you have this minority situation? 1 in 100? Certainly not much better than that. But what about the counter example. What if "gee .. no one else would have bid." Then explain how exactly what Ebay did isn't in effect EXACTLY the same as shill bidding. The buyer was pushed to the absolute highest price that they are willing to pay by fake bids. Because in essence Ebay is placing fake bids against your maximum bid price when they offer the second chance at your maximum price. And they have inside knowledge to do it! And they get to set their "highest" fake bid at the spot that pushes your maximum bid to the exact penny of your highest offer - which is worse than most shill bidding because they can't get quite that accurate.


And finally Bobby ... I PMed you to ask you to please ban me from your future auctions. I thought you would prefer that the public did not know that potential customers of yours are choosing not to deal with you because they doubt your character and ethics. I apologize for that mistake. I will not PM you again.


Patrick Prickett