Is this some form of shill bidding?

[meonia_majic]

Hi. I'm wanting to bid on an item but I checked the current bids and noticed that the same person has put in about 100 bids since 5th April with only a few bids from others. It looks very strange - could it be some form of shill bidding?

I know we can't report these things now and I was wondering if this extreme bidding was a way of fooling ebay's algorithms?

# 186376185630

[dch2112011]

No it is normal, I believe all that you are seeing is where two bidders insert a maximum bid  and then when a higher bid is made against them the auto bid kicks in - bidding in increments against each other until one of the maximum bids has been reached. 

Then the buyers insert another maximum bid and the auto bids kick in again - hence the multiple bids from one bidder

With a maximum bid ebay will keep bidding in increments on your behalf until your maximum bid is reached - this way you can win an auction at a lower price than your maximum bid

[dch2112011]

Following on - check this ebay help page which explains 

Bidding Ebay

[*****sonny***** · Accepted solution]

It is NOT autobidding as has been suggested.

The bidder you are referring to has a bid history of 99% with this seller.

On his 30 day bid summary, he has had 248 bids on 4 items. 247 (84, 65, 98) of which are on 3 of this seller's items.

Personally, I would be buying elsewhere.

[dch2112011]

Each to their own but if you look at the bidding increments they are exactly the same as the bidding increments that are used by the ebay automated system and they correspond to when another bidder is active and stop when a limit is reached.

I think you are reading far too much into what is an obvious and normal process. 

[douglaspuglas]

Until recently there was a feature so you could see automatic bids when using a browser.

Unless it's a glitch it looks like eBay's removed it.

[ett1954]

Certainly on a PC the time the bids were made indicates the majority of his bids were incremental bids as others pushed the price up.  This of course still doesn't prove one way or the other whether he is a shiller.

@meonia_majic   If you are unhappy with the way it is panning out then don't bid.  If it comes up for sale again after the auction ends then you will know to steer clear as it was almost certainly a shill.  If it doesn't come up for sale again and feedback is left then it would suggest it wasn't shilling and you missed an opportunity.

[meonia_majic]

Thanks to everyone for your replies.

@*****sonny*****'s response makes the most sense to me.

I'll most definitely not bed bidding on it!

[nigel_paul_wright7557]

Best way to approach this is not to get auction fever and keep bidding.

There are millions of items on ebay so look around for a better deal.

[meonia_majic]

Errr I didn't get auction fever nor did I place any bids because it looked suspicious. I've been buying and selling on ebay for over 20 years and don't tend to get over excited by anything,

That particular item doesn't come up very often and I'll probably have to wait a while for another.

[*****sonny*****]

Quite amusing. 

I AM looking at the physical bid increments and they are NOT the same as the autobid increments.

As stated, absolutely nothing to do with autobids. The bidder referred to by the OP had 98 physical bids. The autobid system does NOT show all incremental bids. A new physical bid will show only one incremental autobid above the previous physical bid.

Autobids are also shown in a grey italic font. 

I can understand a nibbler with 98 bids on one item belonging to a seller but am suspicious of a bidder who bids a further 84 bids and 65 bids on 2 two other items belonging to the same seller.

[dch2112011]

If you look you will see that the incremental ebay bids are obvious and in line with the incremental values set by ebay (the dates and timings of the auto bids are a dead giveaway and then when the limit is reached and the bidder is outbid, the bidder places very small manual bids to find out where the winning bidder's limit is so that a new limit can be set, hence the large number of bids.

Absolutely nothing unusual in this on ebay auctions 

[dch2112011]

Amuse yourself a bit more and Check the incremental bid amounts in ebay help and you will see that they are exactly in line with the ebay auto bid policy - you may have missed that as the bid value increases  so do the incremental bids but hey you only see what you want to see !

[dch2112011]

To amuse myself - below is how the bidding ties up with ebay auto bidding -  

Incremental bids by ebay are based on the maximum bid amount

1st max bid £15 increment £1
2nd Max bid £62 increment £2 - last bid £3 auto to nearest bid
3rd Max bid £150 increment £4 - anomaly ebay help states £5 increments ?
4th Max Bid £300 increment £10
5th Max Bid £600 increment £20 anomaly bid stops at £540 ebay help states £20 starts at £600 - explained by another auto bid £10 increments making bids show as £20 - look at A****8 - this is the other autobidder - see timing

MAX bid £578 reached - reverts to £10 increment and finally small increments as higher bids less than the auto increments of £10 are made by other bidders .

Confusing yes but nothing extraordinary