Shill Bidding

I have 2 auctions at the moment. 8 hours left
and suddenly I see a bunch of accounts with 0 feedback bidding on it. i had to add them to my block list and cancel their bids. I don’t see the logic behind this
Why would someone do this even when it’s not their auction?

Are you 100% it was shilling? I would be more afraid of them being non paying bidders at that point.

there was one with 1 positive feedback. I clicked their account, and it says buyer didn’t pay.

The other one was definitely shilling. Account created 6/16/2017

Petty people create accounts to win auctions and not pay.

is there an option on ebay where I can prevent buyers with 0 feedback to bid on my auctions?

As far as I am aware, it only lets you limit buyers with -1 and below.

I wish! lol but that would pretty much leave out legitimate new buyers :slightly_frowning_face:

You can state in your description that you don’t sell to anyone with feedback lower than (x) and cancel their bids. I’ve seen a lot of people doing that.

Pretty sure you can make it so only accounts with linked paypal can bid. Not sure if that would help though.

I thought this practice was uncommon until I saw what happened with the Snap Poliwag from the other night. I am actually looking forward to seeing it posted again.

I have a bunch of small auctions up right now with some cool stuff like lottery promo SR energy and a bunch of japanese ex cards, and I was surprised to see a lot of low feedback buyers, as in some had 0 2 and 4, but as long as they pay, it shouldn’t be a problem, right?

Why are you cancelling bids? If you want to sell your stuff for nothing message me.

For collectibles and Pokemon due to the huge spike since Pokemon Go there are a ton of new accounts. I get maybe 1 non paying customer a month and often have 0. I think my non paying percent for the year is something like 0.2%. So, maybe 1 out of every 500 transactions.

Here is what my last 100 buyers look like feedback wise, and they all paid and some were brand new accounts.

I had 8 buyers with 0 feedback (they are all 1 now due to auto feedback by me). I also have 2 x 3 feedback and 1 x 2 feedback buyers (remember 1 of the feedback from each is from me):

So using my quick numbers I would have canceled sales to 8% of my last 100 customers, maybe 11% since that 2 and those 3’s might have been 0’s when they bought off of me.

Every month since Pokemon GO I have been selling a good amount of cards/items to low feedback sellers. I would rather relist 1-2 items per 100, let alone my current 1 every 500, than lose 10% of my sales.

Since you are holding auctions I guess you will get the sales, but you are potentially selling the cards cheaper then they would have sold for. Remember, for auctions you need 2 strong bidders to get a good price.

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I’m a new seller and I’ve already had experience where the winner of the auction not paying where I had to go through a 7 day process of opening a claim and waiting for the buyer to pay. Not to add that new sellers like me only have a limit of $2000 so having a buyer not paying affects how much I can list the current month. I cancel bids that make no sense such as bids from buyers who have feedback saying they have not paid in the past and new accounts specifically made to bid on my listing.

Do be careful in regards to turning away potential buyers. I’m rather new to collecting, and ebay as a whole as well. As a result I only have something like 3 feedback reviews for my account. I was genuinely interested in buying a $300 card from someone, but was declined the chance due to my rating being 0 at the time. Dealing with that kind of money It is understandable, but it does create a situation where people like me will not get a chance to increase feedback :slightly_frowning_face:

this has actually bothered me before in some of my auctions. Someone continues to bid so that they remain on top throughout the entire length of the auction. Who thinks that is a good bidding strategy? I just don’t get it. I have even had another person complain because they noticed the bids and thought it was me doing it. It is pretty strange

Bidding so the item gets to a decent price early is a strategy, people pass once they don’t think it won’t be a deal. Wow, it’s at 75% of value with 4 days left, pass.

Also, was it a person who had just placed a high bid or multiple bids? Some people just want to bid and forgot unless they win the auction. Many people don’t run snipe programs.

Also, I see a fair amount of auctions sell for higher than buy-it-now’s of the same card. Obviously that isn’t a good bidding strategy, but people still do it.

1 Like

I made a new account a few weeks ago, as I’ve been using my father’s account for years, and eventually want to move toward my own. His account has 420 item and $11k selling limit. The new one I just made, has a selling limit of $25k and 500 items … what is this?

How? I called up eBay and they only gave me $500 as initial. and $2000 when I asked for a raise.

Cancelling multiple bidders bids? Seems a little counterproductive wouldn’t you say?

3 Likes

I’m guilty of doing that. I guess the idea is to let people know I will continue to one up them without giving away a true max bid. Idk I suck at snipes so that’s my goofy little thing. Didn’t realize it looked shady so I’ll try to do things differently.

12 bids from the same 0 feedback account. (account created on 6/16/2017)