Was attempting to buy some headphones for my daughter. When I initially bid on the item, with 30 minutes left, the price was at $17+shipping.
I placed a max bid of $41.50 and the price was pushed to $17.50 and I was the highest bidder. I watched the clock count down and the auction ended.
Once the screen refreshed, it showed me as the winning bidder BUT..... the selling price was $41.50 + shipping >:(
I looked at the bidding history and, with 2 seconds left on the auction someone just happen to submit 1, single bid that happened to be $0.01 below my max bid! >:(
Has anyone else seen this before? Not 1 or many incremental bids but, a single bid which just happened to be one penny below my max bid.
Looked at that bidders history and their previous 25 bid histories have only been a single bid in each.
Am I crazy or does something smell fishy here?? It looks to me like someone uses data mining to push bids up by knowing max bids. It just seems that the likelyhood of this being a coincidence is slim and none.
Yes, it is fraud, and here is how they did it:
https://community.ebay.com/t5/Archive-Bidding-Buying/Suspicious-Bidding/td-p/26736032
Er... Or at least they did something like this (they'd have to be able to bid and retract their bid repeatedly). Im guessing they used this mechanism to figure out your max, then retracted and waited until the last second to rebid the same amount.
Contact ebay.
Quote from: EBK on January 10, 2018, 09:15:31 PM
Yes, it is fraud, and here is how they did it:
https://community.ebay.com/t5/Archive-Bidding-Buying/Suspicious-Bidding/td-p/26736032
Er... Or at least they did something like this (they'd have to be able to bid and retract their bid repeatedly). Im guessing they used this mechanism to figure out your max, then retracted and waited until the last second to rebid the same amount.
Contact ebay.
I can see this but, I put my bid in with less than 20 minutes left in the auction. Could they have done that much bidding and cancelling in that limited time? Also, that pin-point dubious bid was submitted with 2 seconds left. It smells more like a sniping tool but one that data mined my max bid.
I think it may be possible for the seller to cancel bids, as an alternative to retracting bids, but I am definitely not an ebay expert. And, how could they do it quickly? Scripts made for this specific purpose.
Quote from: Govmnt_Lacky on January 10, 2018, 09:31:30 PM
I can see this but, I put my bid in with less than 20 minutes left in the auction. Could they have done that much bidding and cancelling in that limited time? Also, that pin-point dubious bid was submitted with 2 seconds left. It smells more like a sniping tool but one that data mined my max bid.
Yes, I think you can do quite a few bids in 20 minutes. I occasionally do "limit testing" on auctions I'm interested in, and in that case I can do 4-5 bids in about a minute. Actually, I think it's a lot faster than that, but I haven't done it in quite some time. If you bid and aren't the new highest bidder, it immediately asks you if you want to increase your bid. Only takes a few seconds to re-bid.
So this guy kept upping the bid until he found your limit (max bid price), and then once he became the high bidder, he retracted his winning bid, leaving you as the winner at 100% of your max. Sneaky shit. Or maybe they used some kind of direct API script to execute a dozen bids and a retraction in a second or two.
From my limited experience, I gather it should be very simple to write a program that does this.
Definitely fishy....
I think if there was a retracted bid, it should show up in the bid history, so look there. If there is a last second retracted bid, you should file some kind of complaint.
I don't know of a way they could use data analysis to figure out your max bid, unless you had made similar bids on similar items.
I once had an experience where I was outbid at the last minute and then the seller offered the item to me as a second chance, as if the other bidder had backed out. This is shill bidding (there was something transparent about it too, like the other bidder was from the same town as the seller). I declined.
Quote from: EBK on January 10, 2018, 09:15:31 PM
Yes, it is fraud, and here is how they did it:
https://community.ebay.com/t5/Archive-Bidding-Buying/Suspicious-Bidding/td-p/26736032
Er... Or at least they did something like this (they'd have to be able to bid and retract their bid repeatedly). Im guessing they used this mechanism to figure out your max, then retracted and waited until the last second to rebid the same amount.
Contact ebay.
I would take the conspiracy a bit further. Since Ebay obviously makes more money the higher the bid goes, how hard would it be for them to "hire" people to pull stuff off like this and drive up sales? If they really cared about "fairness", I've always felt that nobody should be allowed to bid more than a couple times just before an auction ends anyway. If someone has been the "high bidder" for more than 90% of the auction duration, they should get some extra leverage as well (a few anti-snipes maybe?)
One more reason to bid at the very last. From my experience (without going into conspiracies) most if not all the people that place a bid days in advance usually disappear and never win the auction, they only let the price rise (OK, room for conspiracies :D ). The winners are always showing up in the last minute or less, and it almost always worked for me as well.
Quote from: lars on January 11, 2018, 06:44:07 AM
Quote from: EBK on January 10, 2018, 09:15:31 PM
Yes, it is fraud, and here is how they did it:
https://community.ebay.com/t5/Archive-Bidding-Buying/Suspicious-Bidding/td-p/26736032
Er... Or at least they did something like this (they'd have to be able to bid and retract their bid repeatedly). Im guessing they used this mechanism to figure out your max, then retracted and waited until the last second to rebid the same amount.
Contact ebay.
I would take the conspiracy a bit further. Since Ebay obviously makes more money the higher the bid goes, how hard would it be for them to "hire" people to pull stuff off like this and drive up sales? If they really cared about "fairness", I've always felt that nobody should be allowed to bid more than a couple times just before an auction ends anyway. If someone has been the "high bidder" for more than 90% of the auction duration, they should get some extra leverage as well (a few anti-snipes maybe?)
So Ebay must have a warehouse of stuff they have won. Right?
Quote from: reddesert on January 11, 2018, 03:10:40 AM
I think if there was a retracted bid, it should show up in the bid history, so look there. If there is a last second retracted bid, you should file some kind of complaint.
I don't know of a way they could use data analysis to figure out your max bid, unless you had made similar bids on similar items.
The bid history (that I can see) does not show retracted bids. Only manual and automatic bids. All bidding looked normal, at least, according to my experience. The questionably suspect bid was this bidder's only one throughout the auction and it was for exactly 1 penny below my max bid. Prior to that last second "guess of the century" I was the winning bidder with $17.50!
I have used eBay for 10 years at least and have never seen this before! Usually, if a bid is placed that close to closing, it is a sniping program. Even then, they typically show incremental bids until the program gets the highest bid. NOT A SINGLE BID, LAST SECOND, AND LOSING THE AUCTION!! Even if the "sniper" did set their max snipe bid at $41.49, it would still show the snipe program bidding more than once to try to get the best deal for the sniper. NOT A SINGLE BID OF THE MAX!
Isn't sniping, especially automated sniping another means by which a bid could go up very rapidly in the very last seconds? I know I've done it. In fact its how I usually do it. Mea culpa.
Quote from: Max on January 11, 2018, 08:22:07 AM
One more reason to bid at the very last. From my experience (without going into conspiracies) most if not all the people that place a bid days in advance usually disappear and never win the auction, they only let the price rise (OK, room for conspiracies :D ). The winners are always showing up in the last minute or less, and it almost always worked for me as well.
I've noticed it too. There's basically no point whatsoever to place a bid long before, as somebody will try to raise the price, and the biggest competition, the snipers, only come in at the last seconds. But I too have noticed that there are bidders, who usually don't win, but are still busy driving up the bids. Sometimes slowly incrementally by a single dollar or euro.
Quote from: Muadzin on January 11, 2018, 01:48:48 PM
Isn't sniping, especially automated sniping another means by which a bid could go up very rapidly in the very last seconds? I know I've done it. In fact its how I usually do it. Mea culpa.
Yes it is however, with automated sniping you would see more than one sniped bid as the programs goal is to get the item for the lowest possible price (up to what you deem to be your maximum bide). It is not a one shot deal. Also, the purpose of sniping is to WIN the auction. Not to be the 1st loser.
Quote from: Govmnt_Lacky on January 11, 2018, 01:45:36 PM
The bid history (that I can see) does not show retracted bids. Only manual and automatic bids.
I think retracted bids are only shown in aggregate in the user's profile. I'll bet if you look at that user's profile, you'll see a lot of retracted bids.
That does seem extremely suspicious. Shill bidding, plain and simple. They really don't need to place multiple bids to find it - just one big one that then gets retracted. Bid $100, find that they are the high bidder for $42.50, deduce that the next highest bidder is 41.50, retract bid, set up a snipe for $41.49.
I would think eBay would have had automated measures in place against this by now, but yeah, as others have said, it's not exactly in their business interests, so they wouldn't really have an incentive to do anything about it unless it became so widespread as to be a PR problem. Shill bidding has been against the rules since day 1, but I'm not sure how aggressive they are on fighting it. They tend to be pro-seller more than pro-buyer because the sellers are their customers, and shill bidding is an anti-buyer tactic that does benefit the seller.
I've been on eBay since '99 and learned within a few auctions that you shouldn't ever place bids early, despite what eBay tells you to the contrary. You've got to snipe to get anywhere. I've been using AuctionSniper exclusively for maybe 10 years now - really low fees so it's well worth the cost, I probably haven't paid them more than $30 in a decade. Before that, I was sniping manually by having my finger on the bid submit button while watching the countdown.
UPDATE:
Just got off the phone (again) with eBay. Spoke with someone a bit more experienced this time. I was put on hold 3 separate times for a total of 12 minutes while they "investigated the auction."
The man referred several times to the fact that they cannot reveal results from other's accounts HOWEVER, he did tell me in very subtle ways that it looked like there was inappropriate activity. He told me to message the seller and request that my bid be cancelled and to include that "eBay has been notified about possible shill bidding." If they do not comply, I should pay for the item and immediately request a refund. (couldn't believe when he said this!!)
So, all in all, it looks like they actually did see some wrong doing and they are going to fully investigate it.
I think this officially brings an end to my eBay days. I had stopped selling all together a while ago but, now it looks like buying is a joke now too :-\ So sad!
EDIT: And, exactly 4 minutes after sending the request to cancel with the reference to shill bidding, my order was cancelled. AMAZING!!
Awesome! 8)
Early in my eBay buying days, I think I might have seen a shill bid on a bass I wanted. Someone placed a last minute bid OVER my price, then immediately cancelled it without getting another bid before the auction ended. I thought that the seller was probably trying to drive up my price but since he failed I didn't bother to take any action. I now only buy things on eBay with buy-it-now prices.
And even though I have had quite a few successes as a seller, I'm reluctant to sell guitars there anymore. I've heard too many horror stories from sellers.
Annnnd I'm officially done with eBay except BIN stuff. ::)
So sad. I've had a couple of really cool transactions but mostly because they flew under the radar. Picked up my Variax 300 a long time ago for something crazy like $200 BIN just because I hit the bid about 30 seconds after he posted.
Outside of this place is there anything good on the Interwebz these days?
This is exactly why everything I sell on Ebay is with "buy it now" and usually with the option of "best offer". I don't want a bidding war over nickels and dimes for an item, because that kind of buyer is more likely to be someone who will get buyer's remorse or have issues paying. I want to sell my item to somebody who is willing to pay what it's worth and actually wants the item, not just the thrill of beating somebody else at the last second. I think that aspect of Ebay bidding is an addiction that some people have, a lot like gambling. They just want to "win".
By the way, if you want to have "safe" browsing on Ebay, use the Seamonkey browser with it's great Adblocking plugin. Then in the settings, set it to "only allow pictures from the originating server" (then you get to see just how much stuff comes from who knows where). It's amazing how much garbage Ebay has linked all over the place. Seamonkey pops up with a warning message that Ebay is actually not secure and has code that can allow third-party ease dropping (through all those external items). So when somebody beats you by .01 or drives up your max bid, it could be that they are just watching what you are typing in. They don't even have to do shill bidding.
Interesting side point - even with all the adblocking and image rejection settings, madbeanpedals.com looks exactly the same. Just proof that this is an outstanding site, with nothing shady going on in the background.
I have not bid on an item in 10 years. Only BIN.
Ebay and paypal have both been very professional in the rare instance I have dealt with them. I do not believe for an instant ebay is willing to let you get snookered, ever. The whole process is geared to favor the buyer over the seller. Think about how ratings and feedback are pro-buyer the last few years. Ebay and paypal both have great US customer service, and this is a fair example.
I know there are predatory businesses out there, and I have worked for a couple of evil corporations. Ebay's present business model is committed to keeping the buyer happy and returning. It is so one-sided in favor of buyers, I really hesitate to sell. I have a big box of items I need to sell, but buyers gaming the system always stops me.
I am glad the situation was simplified by ebay being straightforward and protecting you.
I still buy stuff now and then. On the non-BIN stuff, I don't go too far over the current max bid. Then if I am not high enough, I go a bit higher, etc etc etc. I'll then go maybe 5-10% over the max bidder, and just keep an eye on things. If I get sniped in the last 30 seconds, so be it, I'm probably not super invested.
I also only buy from people with 100% good ratings, and typically from people who don't have like 10,000+ reviews (IE I prefer person-to-person sales, not folks who use Ebay as a business). If I'm really paranoid I'll also try to limit to North American folks.
I have had a few scam experiences, back when I had to buy textbooks. Thankfully between ebay and paypal they were always resolved quickly.
I too much prefer BIN items over auctions. And I didn't even know it was possible to retract a bid.
One thing that I did not mention....
The bidder who came in last second and bid $0.01 less than my max bid had almost 19,000 ratings and was at 100% :-\
Whoever that is, they have been doing it for a LONG time! They also had almost 900 bids that month. All of which, I presume, were just a single bid. I am wondering now if this is a company in and of itself. You pay them a small portion of the sale price and they "ensure" that you get the most for your sale.
Quote from: Govmnt_Lacky on January 17, 2018, 05:04:51 PM
You pay them a small portion of the sale price and they "ensure" that you get the most for your sale.
Seems like AlphaBay was a safer place to shop.