how to spot shill bidding?

technodup":kyvuzmsp said:
You offered £80. He's offering it to you for £80.

I don't see the point in this thread.

the point, he wanted an auction so he refused my offer, i then bid but i suspect foul play because the price didn't get where he wanted and it annoys me and therefore tarnishes the bike because if i now buy it at the £80 i feel like he's taken advantage.
 
Stick to your guns JB, ..just rem IF he had completed a sale at £82, after fees and poss paypal... at £80 cash collected your actually offering him more in his hand!

If you really want it I would go lower, £65 collected cash, out his shed, out his life, no fuss. especially if technically you won it at £55.
 
technodup":3e9k9czh said:
You offered £80. He's offering it to you for £80.

I don't see the point in this thread.
The point isn't in the sums involved. The point is the naughty feller.has pulled a fast one and attempted to defraud our hero. The question is a moral one, regarding she the or not he should do business with someone that's tried to defraud him.

It's entirely our OPs choice, but I wouldn't take it off the seller fora tenner now.
 
technodup":17kknf4f said:
You offered £80. He's offering it to you for £80.

I don't see the point in this thread.

Well opinions vary - I do.

The OP initially offered a certain amount as a buy-it-now, seller declined, probably because they thought they could make more in an open auction - perhaps by fair means, or foul. But they probably, then, had "insider" knowledge of the OPs ceiling in price.

So the seller thought the open market would be better for them, one way or another. For whatever reason, that didn't turn out the best for them, so now they appear to want their cake and eat it - which apparently seems to be extracting the best offer from the OP.

Well that's not exactly letting the market decide, is it.

The OP made the offer based on them being the definite buyer, not a bid in an auction. If you bid in an auction, you tacitly accept living with the final price the market has decided. If that's been diddled with by shills, you may feel it wasn't a fair scenario and that (quite a reasonable suspicion) the seller is not to be trusted.

I think I'd feel exactly the same as the OP - potentially manipulated, expecting fair play from the market, but potentially being expect to lose all the benefits of a decent offer to end something early as a buy it now, to having to live with the market deciding in a fair auction, to then having grounds to believe the market didn't truly decide on the price without interference, and the seller potentially wanting their cake and eat it.

So if I really thought this was an example of shill bidding, I wouldn't want anything to do with it, either - I'd feel like my offer was made for a different and more definite conclusion and the seller tried to take advantage. And if that is the case, as Chopper says, buy into it, and you encourage it.

Like it, or not, there is a difference between manipulation and interference, and potentially underhand diddling, and making an offer for something that finally gets accepted - I don't think it's a simplistic as you offered X, seller has finally accepted X, so what's the problem? The problem is the seller may well have manipulated events in the meantime, and the offer was for a more definite, rather than a speculative, "let's see" outcome.
 
He either wants the bike or doesn't. He either values it at £80 or doesn't.

Everything else is pointless conjecture.

But seeing as we're being all fncking pious about an £80 bike deal, it's not fully kosher to be offering a price to end the auction early which afaics is what happened. Buyer tried to manipulate the auction before the seller did, then gets all antsy at the seller? Unless I've read it wrong.
 
technodup":trbaabgd said:
He either wants the bike or doesn't. He either values it at £80 or doesn't.

He did want the bike, at one point in time, he was prepared to go up to £80. Things change. That you don't get that, really, is your shortcoming.

technodup":trbaabgd said:
Everything else is pointless conjecture.

Et tu?

technodup":trbaabgd said:
But seeing as we're being all fncking pious about an £80 bike deal, it's not fully kosher to be offering a price to end the auction early which afaics is what happened. Buyer tried to manipulate the auction before the seller did, then gets all antsy at the seller? Unless I've read it wrong.

Indeed you have. A buyer offering or requesting a buy-it-now, is merely making an offer - that the seller can either take or leave - in many circumstances, can be completely kosher and within the rules of ebay (either relisted, or auction changed to a buy-it-now).

The seller declined to sell it at that price, presumably thinking they could get a better price, and now having a clear indication of the ceiling of at least one potential buyer - nothing wrong with that.

What happened next - well it's possible there was some shill bidding, or maybe it's some uncanny coincidence - but all the same, I completely get why the OP doesn't feel comfortable, potentially feels manipulated, and isn't quite inclined to splurge the £80, now - they've lost all the benefit of having a buy it now, so why shouldn't they get the benefit of letting the market decide the price. And if the market has decided the price, and it really doesn't suit the seller, then surely that's their lookout - as is the scenario if there was shill bidding.

That you don't get that people may not be happy once they feel they may have been manipulated, well that's your limitation, but the £80 thing? Well it's one thing to accept that early on to seal the deal, quite another, afterwards, when the seller wanted the best price from the market, didn't get it, and still wants the buyers best price - even though that's now £5 more than the OP bid in the "open market" that was the auction.

In my experience, the people who see nothing wrong with shill bidding don't tend to be making an argument purely out of pragmatism, it tends to be more about being willing to do so themselves. In this instance, buyer rolled the dice, got snake eyes, then the seller did - that the buyer now thinks the deal is tarnished? Well no surprise to many, I suspect...
 
brocklanders023":2hqpaln1 said:
I'd offer £50 or tell him to relist. Then re-bid on it but don't put your max amount in at the start.

I am completely lost as to why anybody bids at the start - unless you think you really will forget, bid in the dying seconds - a snipe will probably still beat you to the punch, but you reduced the possibility of somebody reconsidering and putting in a higher max bid.
 
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