Hi all:

With further reference to the seller I mention above, if you look at all the items in his current auction several have only private bidders whose identitites are protected. This is the situation in the case of a blue and white pot offered by the seller for which forum members have questioned whether the item is an antique or a modern replica.    SEE EBAY LINK

I'm attaching a couple of items from that seller's auction and you can check out the items for yourself.

Errol

Hi Errol,

thanks for this interesting thread. I personally have never experienced shill bidding although I have bought a lot on Ebay. I never leave a bid before the last 3 seconds, maybe that's just too short for a shill bidder to step in.

Birgit

Hi all:

Further to my posts above, I decided to take the step this morning of reporting the individual seller I mentioned in the posts to eBay for both decidedly odd bidding issues and for having what many of us think as modern replicas presented as Qing dynasty items. The lady I spoke to at eBay told me that eBay would investigate this but for privacy reasons they would not be able to inform me of the outcome of their investigation.

I really think that this seller should be banned from eBay, but I'm not holding my breath on that. I would ask though that Peter look into his auctions and determine whether there is something odd going on. As in the case of another seller, who Peter has agreed to never mention again on bidamount.com, I think this particular seller SEE EBAY LINK should NEVER again have any of his items shown here again.

I would suggest that you all help me mount a campaign to achieve that. To that end please look at this seller's current auction on eBay. Not only are there items that we all in another thread have agreed are modern replicas presented as Qing items, but virtually every item has only bidders whose identities are not disclosed. It might turn out that these are genuine bidders who want to protect their privacy, but I doubt it. There should be at least one or two bidders whose identities are not private or undisclosed. It is the consistency of the bidding for every item in the auctions that to me is unprecedented.

I think this forum is more powerful than any one of us is alone and Peter can help by never highlighting such a seller's items on bidamount.com to show our contempt for such practices even though eBay will likely continue to countenance them.

Errol

I have written to Peter privately to ask him to take a look at the above seller's auctions both in respect of the peculiar nature of the bidding and bidders and the likely fake items being presented for auction. I have asked Peter to ban him from bidamount.com in perpetuity if he concurs with my assessment. I think Huey, Alan and others have reviewed some of this seller's items and agree that they are modern replicas with a couple of genuine items included.

Errol

Thank you Errol for raising the issue in this thread.  At least people can read this and learn from it. 

I generally now leave  bids late because it gives me time to see if anyone else is interested; if they already bid more than I intended, I can generally move on and leave it - a bit like it is easier not to eat the chocolate if you don't open the pack and have a piece!  ?

If I really want it, I will bid how much I am prepared to pay in the last minutes.  If I don't get it, no one can mess with me: there is no time to enter the bidding war.  I may lose out on things, but the strategy seems to work for me.

Hello Folks.

This happens nearly 85% of the time in my experience. Ebay can't or won't do anything. To be fair it is quite difficult to police. Antique dealers easily work in pairs so the temptation to manipulate the auction is too much. The only way around this I think is........

Make a bid you are happy with. Then, if the auction accepts it make a direct offer that you are also happy with. If not contact the seller directly and tell him /  you are happy to pay "X", for a piece and should the auction buyer fall through and not pay, which is of course what will happen, "he/she", the dealer is left with a piece that hasn't sold although there is a buyer ready to buy at a specific price. That’s your price so you won't over pay by being manipulated in an auction.

If the auction was genuine and a purchaser paid the higher price well good for him. If he overpaid. That's better for you.

Best wishes

Thanks Julia and Supioduo:

I'm surprised this phenomenon has not got greater attention. I think it is widespread as Supioduo indicates. The problem with Supioduo's approach is what to do if one wins the item at an inflated price as a result of shill bidding. I suppose one could refuse to pay for it unless the seller reduces the price, but one would not want to blackmail an innocent seller as apparently often happens. However, if the seller is recalcitrant and refuses to accept a lower price then one's eBay record could be blemished or one could be banned from future bidding in extreme cases. Obviously, if one loses the auction to a shill bidder one could make an offer on the piece to  the seller, but in most cases we do not know that the item has gone unpaid for until we see it at the the seller's next auction. 

Julia your approach seems good. However, I find that submitting a single bid, as you presumably do, versus a maximum bid in the last few seconds can, as you point out, result in losing the auction and that is not good if you really want the item. Also, I have found recently that the eBay computer often will not accept very late bids presumably because of internet speed issues. So it's a difficult situation.

I think shill bidding is practiced by many Asian art dealers on eBay with notable exceptions. Every buyer knows this. I know when I have won an item at a fair price versus winning an item at an inflated price because of likely shill bidding. I end up liking the item but remembering that I was cheated every time I look at it. 

There is no solution because eBay has no real interest in preventing this. However, we can do our part by asking Peter to ban from bidamount.com in perpetuity any promotion of those sellers who are obviously resorting to this practice in a routine manner for every auction as in the case I mentioned in my posts above.

Best regards,

Errol

Dear Erroll,

I think that something must be said.

It seems to me that you believe that it is the bidder who set his identity as “private”. If so, that is not true. It is the seller who can chose to “protect” the identity of the bidders. That is the reason why ALL the bidders that you see in some listings are private.

I fully agree with you that this option is indeed not meant to protect the identity of the bidders. The identity is never fully displayed by ebay, so it is protected by default. Sellers who choose this option are most probably hiding the fact that who bids high on their listings are always the same bidders, hence shill bidders.

About the last seconds bidders, those are not shill bidders in my opinion. I am convinced that shill biddings start early, to artificially lift the price of the item, counting on the fact that many bidders are not really experts and hence are attracted by items with many bids, thinking that, if there is a strong competition, it means that the item must be valuable.  

As an (occasionally, indeed) ebay seller, I always wonder why I have only last seconds bidders while some well known sellers have a lot of bids day after day. It never happened to me to sell an item at the high prices fetched by some of those sellers with similar items. I don’t know why, probably there are shill bidders there, probably not, who knows.

What I can say is that bidders with zero feedback, especially if bidding at the last seconds, drives me in panic. It happened, and when it happens I am in despair, first at all because I believe that the other bidders will think that it has been myself placing a shill bid, and you are confirming that.

Besides that, those bidders almost certainly will not pay, which is really worst, because I have two chances, offer the item to the second high bidder or re-list it. In both cases, the result is always bad because it is understandable that the bidders that was interested on the item will think that in the first case it has been a shill bid, and in the second case that if the high bidder didn’t pay there must be some reason for that.

About the seller that you are referring to, I see that he is quite vague in his descriptions (18^th/19^th century, and so on) and he says that he is not expert on antiques, so the responsibility is up to the buyer. That is not true, because he is asking high prices for the few genuine items that he is listing, so he knows what is ok and what is not.

A last word about the policy of sellers like this one and ebay’s policy. You can see that he claims of being no competent so his sales are with no return, no exception.

I do not know if that is possible and if yes how It is possible, because if I declare no return, it has no effect at all. If the purchaser wants to return the item for whatever absurd reason, I am forced by ebay to accept it. There is no way to refuse it.

Dear Giovanni:

As always you have offered valuable insights and, as an eBay seller, you know things from a different perspective to someone such as myself who only buys and never sells items.

I was puzzled by why the seller in question would choose to protect the identities of all his bidders for every item in every auction and I'm amazed that eBay allows that. When I'm considering an item I like to see who the other bidders are. For example, are they dealers (who have a high number of buys) or are they individual buyers such as myself? I know dealers will usually not exceed the value of an item in their bidding whereas if I'm up against an individual buyer who desperately wants the item, I know I will have to overpay to get the item and that helps me decide how to set my maximum bid. Even worse though, as you point out, if a seller elects to keep all buyer/bidder identities private I can see no reason for that other than to protect the identities of shill bidders. It puts honest buyers/bidders at a decided disadvantage.

I agree with you that shill bidders mainly function to inflate the prices of  worthless fake items early on in the auction process so that a true bidder is conned into thinking that the item is popular and must therefore be authentic and desirable. However, if the seller himself is a shill bidder, what would would stop him from watching the bidding and gambling that he can double the price he'll get for the item by submitting a high bid at the last moment when a genuine bidder has a maximum bid somewhat higher?

I also agree with you that last second bidders are not always shill bidders. Some are genuine buyers who so desperately desire an item that they will pay virtually any price. Others are eBay gamblers who like the thrill of winning something. Some of the latter obviously hope to turn around and sell the item before the payment is due and if they cannot sell it they then walk away without paying. However, I still think that some sellers submit last second bids so they are bidding against the buyers.

Another very reputable and very occasional seller on eBay of very high-end Chinese antiques told me that, as in your case, the last-second bidders with no eBay history drive her to distraction. They often contact her after the auction stating that they want to return the item, but will keep it if she discounts the cost by 40-50%. This is blackmail pure and simple. She has since stopped selling on eBay. So I fully sympathize with the plight of honest sellers such as yourself. However, there are really dishonest sellers on eBay and we should do what we can to expose them for what they are.

Kindest regards,

Errol

Dear Erroll,

just to understand if it is my ebay' settings that are different for yours. You said that you like to see who the other bidders are, if they are dealers or individual buyers. How do you know that?

If I look at an auction that is not my one, I can't see who are the bidders. If the identity is not "protected" by the selelr, all what I can see is something like the following:

So I can't see who the bidders are. Is it not the same for you?

Giovanni

Dear Giovanni:

I see exactly what you do. What I meant was that if, for example, in your post we take bidder bb (5623) I assume he/she is a dealer because I have assumed that the 5623 figure represents the number of eBay purchases or transactions he/she has made. I cannot imagine any individual collectors (unlike the Rockefellers and J.P. Morgan in the days of the robber barons) buying 5,623 items anywhere. On the other hand, if we take bidder 4a in your post, he/she has bought/sold 5 items and I assume that is an individual buyer.   Of course, my assumptions may be incorrect as generalizations often are, but I do use this as a rough guide.

Regards,

Errol

Giovanni:

I suppose to be more accurate the numbers in parentheses after bidders identifications represent the number of ratings received rather than actual transactions. So since every transaction is not rated, the 5,623 figure in your post could be even higher. However, that still helps me decide whether an individual bidder is a dealer versus an individual. I agree though that there are gray areas where one could not possibly tell the difference.

Errol

Hello All,

Very interesting reading we are lucky to have this forum. Both sides of the Ebay story have been covered very well Giovanni with his well written laments from the sellers point and Erroll's equally well written perspective from the buyer. Don't think I can add anything constructive except to perhaps say there is nothing new under the sun. Back in the day before the advent of on line Auctions , some Auction houses were notorious for off the wall biding. One large Melbourne Auction house was quite famous for knocking items down to Mr Wall. This particularly happened at large house sales where large  numbers of the general public would turn up to battle it out with trade buyers. Any item knocked down to Mr Wall was code for those in the know to approach the Auction House after the sale and negotiate. And on the buyers side there were the Auction rings groups of dealers banding together and agreeing not to bid against each other. Not sure this will be of assistance to either Giovanni and Erroll, just chipping in my 2 cents worth. Just remember that in this world there's NNUTS  and it helps if you are bit nuts to survive in it

Cheers

Michael

Dear Erroll,

thank you. I understand now, I was suspecting that what is shown by ebay could differ from one place to another.

Dear Michael, that is absolutely true. Even the bigger auction houses can drive the auction according to their choice. I had a couple of experiences myself.

And it is true that there are group of buyers who place a single bid on an important piece in order to re-sell it and share the income.

Giovanni