How to tell a eBay seller is bidding on own stuff

[n-b-king-69]

I just want to know if anyone else has noticed that when you watch an item for ages like say 5-7 days and no one is bidding on it but as soon as you message the seller about the item or make an offer or bid on the item a mystery bidder with no feedback or ratings or recent transactions or a private bidder will bid on the item within couple of minutes and keep bidding to a certain price 

to me that's the seller bidding on his own item himself or a friend is .

I know it's against the rules to do so but I don't t see eBay actually doing anything about it . 

it's the same as an item your watching or bidding on will sell to someone else but then within 12 hours it will be back on eBay stating relisted due to non payer but this will happen a couple of times in a couple of days on the same item .

there should be a way to stop this I think when you sign up to eBay you need to provide photo evidence of who you are to stop people having multiple accounts on eBay 

[vikkipollardanddafyddthomas]

If you really want something and suspect any bid will trigger this course of events which appears suspicious to you, my advice would be to bid in the last few seconds of the auction. If the seller is "protecting" their items in the way you suspect, this gives them no time to put the plan into action. Of course you may still fail to win the item because when it comes to auctions, many people use a sniping tool which also bids in the last few seconds.

It's also important to remember that when you ask a seller a question, they may look at your feedback , particularly your feedback left to other sellers. I've just looked at yours and of the 26 feedbacks you have left to sellers, 10 are neutral and 4 are negative. So more than 50% of the feedback you leave for sellers is either negative or neutral ! Many of the comments you have left are because you won an item and then wanted to cancel. There are also multiple claims of items you bought not arriving.  If I had something for sale and you sent me a question or an offer, I would take one look at the feedback you have been leaving to other sellers and block you. 

[nigel_paul_wright7557]

Ebay dont allow you to bid on your own items with same username.

They would have to use another username to get the bid in or get a mate to do it.

[pirellico]

Is it so difficult to have another account and bid on your own items? Is it difficult to use your wife's or your son's account? come on!..easiest thing on earth. Shill bidding happens all the times

[hesterstoybox]

I am a seller and what happens is people wait last minute to bid on items and those that have like 10 or less feedback love to not last minute then they don't pay and loads of times I have to keep messaging them with no response then have to relist the items and at times if I listed like teeing items on bids guaranteed about four won't pay and I have to relist it so now I don't allow anyone with less that ten to bid on my items 

[papso22]

How do you stop them bidding?

[joy_spnfan]

That might explain why a seller recently did not reply when I asked which version of Android, a tablet he was auctioning, was running. It was not in the description or pictures and I asked politely.

I think he must have seen that I only have three feedback and maybe didn't  want to sell to me. It's a shame because assuming the OS had been at least 5.1, my max bid would have been higher than the final price ended up at. 

[michaelj1382]

Hi.It happens all the time in my experience.From making an early bid on multiple items and a mysterious bid appears in the middle of the night,to if the item price is not high enough for the seller near closing of bids you of course lose out.I have actually seen the item listed as not sold and even delisted.

As a seller myself never would I do the above,totally unethical and not very nice.

I very rarely bid on items now ,and also items I do bid on make sure I know the going price.Too much rip off and eBay need to weed this sellers out and many of them are full time businesses.

whew !  Michael.

[237ben]

This is a very old argument, but it’s  based largely on speculation rather than proving any particular incidence. 

In all probability it does happen, though not to the extent some people believe. Let’s face it, some believe something fishy must be going on every time they fail to win an auction at a bargain price, whilst others believe eBay is one massive conspiracy to cheat them personally at every opportunity. 

Very easy to say ebay must put a stop to it, but I’ve yet to see any practical scheme as to how that would be achieved. 

[michaelj1382]

Hi,It's very annoying and unfortunate that is happening all the time.It's a pretty despicable way to do business,but you have to remember many sellers don't care.As eBay don't seem too strict on weeding them out,we just have to find the sellers that have a business which is fair and honest .Michael.

[michaelj1382]

Completely agree on all your comments.

I don't normally bid these days.But have the last few weeks and won a couple good items at reasonable prices.Sellers 100% fantastic.Then there's the usual mysterious bids in the morning, or items bid in last minute and these I can tell you are not genuine as the sold price is always just above my final bid. I shall now be returning to buy price only unless it's a seller who I recognise as honest.Guess it's just a reflection of the World we live in,Not a good one sometimes . Michael.

[bankhaunter]

Being beaten in an auction by a bid in the last few seconds does not necessarily mean dodgy practice.

On a number of occasions I have placed a snipe bid only to find I have merely pushed up an existing leading bid which has still beaten me.

My thoughts at the time are that the other bidder, who may have been expecting a good bargain, is probably a bit *bleep* off to see their bargain become more expensive.

[treetopsminicottages]

I rarely place bids these days but when I do it is usually in the last few seconds so I ask why are my bids not genuine? Surely bids can be placed at any time while the auction is live?  I opt for last minute bids to lessen the chance of being in a bidding war. Sometimes I win , sometimes I loose, as some one else has placed a higher bid at some point.

I am also curious as to why morning bids are 'mysterious'? 

At the end of the day the final 'sold price' is the price someone is prepared to pay.

[*help_no_brakes*]

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@michaelj1382 wrote:

Completely agree on all your comments.

I don't normally bid these days.But have the last few weeks and won a couple good items at reasonable prices.Sellers 100% fantastic.Then there's the usual mysterious bids in the morning, or items bid in last minute and these I can tell you are not genuine as the sold price is always just above my final bid. I shall now be returning to buy price only unless it's a seller who I recognise as honest.Guess it's just a reflection of the World we live in,Not a good one sometimes . Michael.

You do realise that eBay is a world wide 24 hour site?

Do you understand time zones?

My snipe service places my one & only bid 2 seconds from the end of an auction.

How is that not a genuine bid?

---

[roger_roger_over_and_nowt]

I only bid early if there's also a buy it now price that's too high for me just to knock the buy it now off.Then i will put my "real" max bid in in the last 6 seconds.

Bid once ,bid your max and bid as late as possible is my strategy.If i win i win if i lose i lose .

Not once have i had a seller cancel a sale because they didn't get what they wanted for it and only once did a seller cancel the sale as they got the postage very wrong at 3.50 instead of 15 quid.I didn't moan coz they were new to selling and made a slight error ,all was well.Not bad in 20 years.

[edgeog]

EBay works very hard to prevent shill bidding, they redact parts of user names that already protected your identity to make absolutely sure. They also make sure you cannot see bidding history to keep us safe..............if you can believe that.😜

[pumpeduse123]

HI yes i purchased an item I bid on from  a seller two weeks ago. I repeated thi sprocess recently using same seller and exactly the same item model. All of a sudden its doubled in price accompanied by some strange 

bidding  where one buyer put a bid in for £50 and then repeated the process in £5 increments till he got to £70 then stopped weird or what.  He was overtaken by a few bidders who went to a £100 then one bidder started the increment process again and stopped at £135 why ??  I get the impresssion this is shill bidding in progress.  The question here is why would you continue bidding against yourself ? all very dodgy.

[*help_no_brakes*]

"I get the impression" that you do not know how the bidding process works.

Click on the number of bids & iclude automatic bids.

[philligrove_21]

So to the person who ansered, your OK that a buyer gets ripped off. 

[charlievybz]

Also, the user can just cancel when you win the auction!

Ebay allows sellers to exploit it's systems, hence, winning an auction means nothing.

You are right - I don't know whether anything can be done about the 'multiple accounts per user' issue, it does make winning an auction harder and allow sellers to fake interest in their products - but does Ebay care?

I've just 'won' another auction - if Ebay allow this user to cancel because I've got a good price [I beat his second account, he was bidding on his own item to raise the price] -  I'm not using Ebay again

[dirtyharryjoseywales]

I have just had this happen to me I had the high bid but a private bidder out bid me then a few hours later the same seller same  item was listed again I have messaged the seller but no reply wonder why?