Thread: Question on bidding

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I was bidding for a item and this person kept out bidding me. Now the person has like 50-60 bids that they have made for other items in the last 30 days but not 1 purchase to the account. I think its the guy trying to run up the bidding on the item I was bidding on. I guess he could push it as high as possible. If he loses , what, he is going to pay his self for his item? WTF????

Is he only bidding on items sold by one seller?

I've had runs where I bid on 8-10 different items and goy non of them. E=bay polices that kind of thing pretty well.

there are several tricks that are used on Ebay quite often that are hard to pin on a person. One common trick that is used to find what your high bid is (if you are high bidder) consists of the scammer gradually increasing his bid until he becomes the high bidder...he has now found your high bid. Then, he cancels his bid, claiming it was a typo. Then, he can wait until the end of the auction and enter his winning bid. I have bid against scammers that had 75+ cancelled bids in the last six months, all supposedly typos.

Another scam is to shill bid by either setting up another account (easier to catch because the source computer is the same as the listing computer) OR have a buddy bid from another computer. If it works by driving up the bid amount, they gain. If they accidently are the high bidder, the seller delists the item at the last minute OR sometimes he eats the Ebay fees.... for small items, the fees are small so it is no big deal. For cars, they claim a local sale and delist early.

Also, there is the feedback scam where the scammer buys a bunch of small, cheap items, pays quickly and gets great feedback. Then, he sells something of high value. Many bidders check his feedback but miss the point that the feedback was from buying, not selling.

I have sent evidence of scamming to Ebay but they always respond that they investigated but found no fraud.

What should one look for in doing "background" checks on these accounts?

I am no computer whiz but as long as I have particitpated in online auctions, ther have been software proggies to up the bid by the minimum amount to beat your bid. If nobody bids until the last moment, it stays more fair and even with the software available it can be won with directive timing and stick it out. Unfortunately, the bidding wars are extremely competitive. Good luck.

Originally Posted by Geezer2

Is he only bidding on items sold by one seller?

I've had runs where I bid on 8-10 different items and goy non of them. E=bay polices that kind of thing pretty well.

No, but I guess its not hard getting past that either. Couple buddies and a couple computers. Each buddy could have a few accounts

It does not seem like a good deal anymore You find a good deal then its so easy to get it scammed out from under you.

Big, one thing that you can look at is to see what your competitor is bidding on... usually, if they bid up the item, they have done it before...compare bidder names for the seller's past sales. Also, check to see if the ebay user name has been changed.

If you search enough, there is usually a pattern. The new Ebay format hides the bidders names on high dollar stuff so it is harder to decipher.

i had the same problem with a bid once , everytime i bid i got one upped , i finally ran the part through the roof and quit leavin the part to the high bidder ..
next day got an e-mail saying they couldnt collect from the person blah blah blah and that i could purchase the part using my last bid , well hmm i told them where they could place the last bid along with some other instructions
its scammers running programs ..

Also, a lot of them are using bid snipe software, tough to bid faster then the 'puter!!!!!!

i have had some good buys with the "buy it now " option but i dont bid on much of anything anymore the scammers have ruined what started out as a good idea..

ya , so far good luck with the buy it now items..... The person that out bid me seemed to pop up out of know where. I was the highest bidder by the time I refreshed the screen I was out bid by a new guy..... The guy with 50-60 bids in 30 days and zero purchases.

I put all of my "wants" in the "watch" file and save any bidding for the last 3-5 minutes, if there is to be any bidding wars it starts before then and i don't bother. I have had a problem trying to get my bbc p/s pump that one vendor always lists and another "shop" (same one all the time) outbids. Hard to tell if they are scamming together because some guys sell just the brackets. I moved on but still looking.

I have had over a 145 bids won,I put the item on my watch list and make the bid at the very close with less than 30 secs remaining,that way if some one is running the bid up you can pass it up and not buy it,your odds of winning are better with less competition.Did not do so well when I had dial-up isp,high speed improves the odds!

The key to Ebay is patience. Sellers WANT you to get caught up in some frenzy of being competitive and outbidding the next guy. Don't get married to some item and bid past the vaule of the item. You WILL see the same or similar item in a 1-2 weeks usually and be able to snag it with an opening bid.

Ebay just flows like that. 6 guys all bidding something up double its value one week and no interest in similar item the next. Go figure.

Don't fall for the idea that you don't want to lose an item for the sake of 50 cents. Make the maximum bid you want to go and leave it alone till the end of the auction.

I was looking for a vintage desert water bag. They are continually offered on Ebay so are not really rare. I saw generally what they went for with the stupid exceptions when some nuts bid them up to $45! I bid for probably 3 weeks. One max bid. I finally got one for $18. Sure I coulda got one for $50 I guess but why not be patient?

Where I see the same guy bidding on the same type of item I wonder what the hell he's doing, wanting to buy a bunch of the same thing to resell or what. Sometimes I think they just makes several bids and figure they'll win one and if they win 2 that's OK too. I don't know.

I personally never bid if the seller has less than a 98% performance factor and I read the feedback include any negatives. A 99% positive feedback on 6,000 sales is pretty damn safe.