dubious activity - how do i report...

[andysgray68]

Hi,

I was interested (ok curious) in (part of) a lot

It had had no interest and I wondered if it would be sniped - Well it got 1 bid in the last hour of the auction and sold for £100, funny thing is that I repeated a search for similar items and BAM, brand new listing from the same seller, less than a minute after the original ended, asking £399 - is this shill bidding, has the account been hacked, or is this some other scam I'm not familiar with?

I reported the second item as fraudulant but couldn't see way to link to first item..

[plpmr]

you have no basis for calling out another member and suggesting criminal activity

[andysgray68]

The 'Basis' is that the item sold to a bid made in the last half hour of the listing. bidding ended without any further activity and magically a couple of minutes later it is back up for sale with the price increased by £300 - It is a job lot, a conglomeration and as such pretty unique so this is not a case of having 2 for sale - nor is there any reason why, if the buyer had somehow been in touch saying they intended to default that the price would increase fourfold - plus had the buyer and seller agreed to void, it would be a relisting to save the fees - just too suspicious - Anyway it has been reported to ebay and they can check it out.

It seems like you are suggesting that nobody should ever report anything suspicious on ebay - I would hope the contrary is the case for the safety of everyone!

[pixiesen2012]

it wasn't a couple of minutes later, it was 4 hours later!

[andysgray68]

No, they changed the postage 4 hours later, I came in about 3 mins from the end, saw it had a bid, literally watched the timer to zero to see what happened, and was just the 1 bid. OK, so That one has sold, lets see if there are any others, by the time I had typed in NEC and the model number, changed to UK only, set to used, set to gallery it was there on the second page at much higher price - I assumed was someone scamming with a stolen picture, so quite surprised that the original seller had relisted the item that had JUST sold - As I said 2 minutes tops!

[john1297576]

I think you are making too much of this, it is not Shill bidding. I think it is simply that the seller did not get enough money on the sale so has just relisted at a higher price.

Unless he cancelled the first sale properly, and that should be with the consent of the buyer (doubtful), he still pays the selling fee and buyer should leave negative feedback.

I suggest you watch to see what happens, on his account !!

[tobiasd4]

This is a guess, but seller didn't get price he wanted.

Pay for item & see what seller does, if they send cancellation request, refuse it.

If item does not arrive, 1 day after estimated delivery date open item not received case, escalate on day 9.

Of course, you may still receive item.

[andysgray68]

No, I wasn't bidding - there was only 1 bidder - 1 bid - but I think it was done in such a way to scam/shill snipers autobids - The seller had the new listing ready to go and made it live within seconds of the first ending - how could they do that unless they knew the bid was theirs?

[tobiasd4]

Very difficult to prove shill bidding,
can't see advantage of seller doing this if the only bid, they could just relist at any price.

[andysgray68]

I think they were hoping somebody had set up a snipe, so if their friends (their alternate) account had a e.g. £199 autobid the sniper would get it for £200 or if less than their fake autobid, they could send a second chance offer to the genuine (and only real bidder) for whatever their maximum snipe bid was...

[pixiesen2012]

you're over thinking this,


they didn't have a listing set up waiting to list, they just hit the sell similar button 4 hours after the first listing sold!