Schilling on ebay

[Phonofolks]

Several of us have expressed concerns in the past about phonograph schilling on ebay. One non-related phonograph item I was watching last night appears to have, shoudl I say, a strange bidding history. I believe it to be a schill, but I can be wrong. I think ebay should have a program in place to detect for those times items that are constantly bid up a little by little, by the same bidder, over a period of 5 mintues that someting may be up such as a potential schill. My opinion is the auciton should be stopped and investigated. The worst that can be done is the auction could be stopped and a reprimand sent to the seller and the potential schiller. Why would a bidder bid at small increments when if they were interested in the item just place a top bid? Here is an ebay item showing such a potential schill. It's not a phono related item but it demonstrates my point. Any comments or observations? Note: there are 55 bids and one bidder bid a few dozen times in a 10 minute period totalling over $120.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... K:MEWAX:IT

[Steve Stephens]

I agree the bidding pattern is very strange. When I see people bidding in lots of small increments I think they may be newbies on ebay or think that ebay works like a live auction and that there must be some advantage to being the high bidder. It could be that a***n wanted to win the cup but thought if he bid in too high of an increment the bid would automatically go that high.

a***g didn't help his cause by bidding three days before the end of the auciton. He showed his hand and a***n wanted to pluck fingers off it. There could be some shill bidding going on here but probably only ebay would know. I think they have software to identify certain patterns in bidding.

How did a***n get new bids in in only 2 seconds apart? He must have had a bunch of windows open ready with a small incremental bid in case his last bid came back 'outbid'. He either ran out of time or reached his maximum. Why didn't he just bid his max as close to the auction end as possible?

Though ebay is open to dubious bidding practices I still like the format of an auction ending at a given time. I always snipe and win every auction I bid on. If I'm the winner...I win. If I'm outbid...I still win by saving my bid cost plus shipping. At least that's the way I often look at it which keeps me sane. I'm definitely not one of these people who win 99 or more percent of all auctions they bid on. My pockets never fill up too much.

[nipper]

To be winner is to not participate at all with Ebay

Most of Ebay is about Schilling , They should call it Schilling Bay and not Ebay , it has a better ring to it .


Aloha

Nipper

[Steve Stephens]

To be winner is to not participate at all with Ebay

Most of Ebay is about Schilling

I disagree, at least from personal experience, and have acquired many items from ebay that I would never have a chance of finding otherwise. Prices paid are often not a bargain but still within reason. I'd love to live where there were farm and estate auctions with nice old "men's" antiques but such isn't the case and ebay fills a need for me. I don't even want to know if and how many times I have had my bid raised by shills. I'm sure it happens but how do we really know?

I should add that I have yet to buy any phonograph related items from ebay as I am just getting back to an old interest in phonos. When I can I hope to take in a few phono shows and meet some collectors to see what is out there for sale.

Steve

[Zeppy]

Might not be shilling. Hard to say. That's the only thing of the seller's that he's bid on in the last 30 days, and he has a reasonable amount of feedback. Perhaps he just was indecisive?

[Brad]

If you look closely, the winning bidder upped his max bid to $100 about 15 minutes before the under bidder started upping their bids. Once the under bidder passed winner, the winner put in another bid - all of these bids were 2-4 seconds apart.

I think what we are seeing is the effect of some sort of automated bidding SW. Perhaps both bidders were using the same service and they just "walked up" the ladder together.

It is not likely both were sitting there entering numbers 2 seconds apart.

I too look at the number of bids and if I see multiple bids from bidders with very little feedback, I will stay away from that auction. I would think that shill sniping is dangerous in that the shill could end up winning if they snipe higher than then the underbidder is willing to bid. This would force the shill the run the price up early allowing real bidders to spot them.

[nipper]

To be winner is to not participate at all with Ebay

Most of Ebay is about Schilling , They should call it Schilling Bay and not Ebay , it has a better ring to it .


Aloha

Nipper

This reply is reminiscent of Shakespeare's "Macbeth" - Act 5, Scene 5:

After Macbeth has woefully lamented the misery of his circumstances he concludes:

• ". . . Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."

• After which a messenger enters and Macbeth pauses to say:

• "Thou comest to use thy tongue; thy story quickly."

To which the messenger replies:

• "I should report that which I say I saw, But know not how to do it."

Walt ,
I suspect from your copy and paste comments you must be an ebay share holder

Check out these links

http://www.trainorders.com/discussion/r ... ?3,2116796

http://reviews.ebay.com/SCHILLING-NOW-R ... 0006469917

Nipper

[larryh]

Hey guys, it boils down to do you want to pay the price or not? I sell and many things lately get almost no bids, in fact I keep listing things that others appear to be doing well with only to end up at about a sixth the price! Oh well, its a buyers market in reality. So if I am bidding on things and they get out of my price range, I normally try to walk away and let the high bidder have it. Which for some reason in this hobby is a lot lately. There are quite obviously some very deep pockets, probably among our members I suspect. I guess if people have the money to bid any price they want in order to win then its a plus for the seller. So a shill bidder really is only as effective as we are willing to let them be?
At one point I had a lot of record literature and frankly it did very well at the time. Recently I watched two items sell for 12.00 and 22.00. The exact thing brought 180.00 when I sold it. So you never know. It doesn't really mean the value is what the bidding is, it just means someone with a lot of money they are able to blow will do what they will to win. I admit it gets aggravating from a buyers perspective. But that is what an auction is. Whether your at a farm auction or a yard sale, it's what ever you're willing to pay and what someone else thinks it worth.
I recently wrote a seller who is making out like gang busters on some terrific electric records of Edison. I am sure they will come to mine and many are still running. He found them at a flea market and one record alone recently of the several hundred he purchased went for twice his paying price for the whole lot! So I think the guy is very fortunate that others deem them to be highly collectible, and probably according to the bid patterns I see, I guess they are. Personally I can't afford almost any of them. I only managed to pick up a couple classical records from the early electric period. Funny thing is I have acoustic copies of the same pieces which to me sound a whole lot better. But I know those hot pop things do have a sound not heard on acoustic recording.

[nipper]

(the word is "shill" not "schill")

Bad speller, yes, but at least an honest one.

Still a member of ebay with a 100% feed never got thrown out, and got caught for what?

Last response you are getting from me on this, I am past cat fights.

Beach time

Nipper