People Arrested For Shill Bidding On eBay
from the they're-after-you dept
I've heard plenty of people talk about helping friends out on their eBay auctions by "bidding something up". Apparently, doing so is considered wire fraud and can get you five years in jail - so perhaps it's worth a second thought. Of course, in this case, the folks involved were caught rigging nearly 500 auctions. What I still don't understand is how they caught them. How do you figure out that a certain bid is a "shill" instead of a real bid?
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How they where caught
Sounds as though they were using multiple identities and bidded against themselves. For instance if DonaldDrongo and PaulaPonzii are bidding and they turn out to be the same person (by matching IPs) then you've got fraud.
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No Subject Given
YOWSA !
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Re: How they where caught
which just goes to show ya':
if you're going to shill bids, shill from behind a NATing internet service provider.
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Re: How they where caught
Or at least from differnt locations
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Re: How they where caught
I'm pissed off. I'm trying my best to do everything possible to make money and here is this guy on ebay who I know for a fact that is shill bidding and yet ebay does nothing. Why?
Here is his site http://stores.ebay.com/id=12818542&ssPageName=L2
He is always getting somehow (new registered users) and I know his auction of his jewelry is contradicting itself. He is lying to make it sound so inticing. I sell Jewelry and gems and I know my stuff. He is cheating. How is he doing this, what source. Here he is on day 1 and already selling stuff up to $50.00 and here I am at day 6 and still nothing.
Input would be great. Make me feel sane. What can I do? All I want is traffic to see me. Like everyone else.
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Re: How they where caught
Hi Annette,It's a shame that your jewelry is not selling as well as you would like. I am,however puzzled at how you can be sure that this guy is shill bidding,without the records that ebay have access to,which presumably show the IP addresses of the bidders.Here I am assuming that you have reported your beliefs to ebay;in which case,I'm afraid there's nothing else you can do.
Regards,Rob
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Re: Re: How they where caught
what is a Nating internet service Provider??
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Ebay Shill Bidders And How To Catch Them
It's really very easy to catch shill bidding in the act. First off if your going to shill bid rule number 1~don't give yourself feedback such as this buyer/seller did.....
">pay close attention to the email addresses
Rule number 2~don't copy and paste. See when you copy and paste you suddenly forget which auction and name that you were under such as this seller/buyer did.....pay close attention to email addresses
Now if you have taken a close look and said, "Gee so the buyer of this auction just has the same name as the sellers email address, that doesn't constitute shill bidding"
If you have said that then go get your sign now! The seller of this auction finally gets it together in the end of her auctions such as this one and finally gets the copy and paste technique down right..... ">decides that email and names should coincide and once again decides that email and names should coincide.
I guess she could claim in a court of law that it was multiple personality disorder. And that she couldn't make up her mind if she wanted to be Lori or Brandy. Make no mistake they are the same person. It is really quite entertaining busting someone though.....;)
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Re: Re: How they where caught
I have reported 2 sellers I know were shilling. How is it there are bidders with little or no bidding history,and they all have name's like: Bidder1, Bidder2, Bidder3. On and on. Another thing I noticed, was these people would run up the price, and if they won the item...I would see it re-listed almost immediately. There is a huge scam going on with ebay, and even Bbay has a class action suite for increasing buyers bids without their permission. They just increase the buyers bid if there is a reserve amount the buyer has to automatically place another bid up to a capped amount. Now you tell me that isn't as low as you can go. In musical inst.'s there is a flood of counterfeit guitars from China, about 90% of what's being sold. Talk about unfair competition. I'm about ready to start blowing the whistle big time on these guys.
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bidder1
i have been searching ebay for a car for some time now but have been made unsuccesssful by bidder1 8 of 10 items i search has high bids from whoever this person is but the person only has a feedback score of three wich i find highly suspicious cant ebay staff investigate
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Re: Re: How they where caught
Well this store does not seem to exist anymore as your link is dead, so maybe they were caught.
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Re: bidder1
Usually this is a private auction - you see bidder 1 bidder 2 etc.
These always raise a red flag for me but are often for items that are adult in nature.
Here is what ebay has to say about it.
http://pages.ebay.com/help/sell/private.html
Also that is hilarious about busting the mold lady shill bidding, she is still on there. (HAHA get it? busting the mold)
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Re: Re: Re: How they where caught
Why do you want to know?
It stands for "Network Address Translation"
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bidding
Ebay knows whom does what. They are intelligent fellas whom design their sellers a way to make their item sell for what it cost normally or very close and sometimes most likely over what it should cost and to the better of any commission. I enjoy the 99 cent bid and the 29.99 shipping cost especially when you make the bid and then all of a sudden here comes several bidders out of the blue right at the end and all with funny names and small numbers of items won or sold. Sometimes a friend will help out and you will see he or she is a power seller and that is how sellers maintain their stores for profit instead of loss. Make sense to have a little help from your friends? If you don't like the bid don't bid or just overbid and you are sure to win. HaHa
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There is nothing wrong with shilling, some people r trying to make some money on ebay. Everything u get on ebay is probably cheaper than elsewhere and your still saving money. Some powersellers need to make the money so their business can continue, without shilling there will not be many sellers and without sellers u dont get the good deal in the first place So stop acting like babies and just suck it up, and ebay doesnt care for shilling cuz the higher the price the item is sold, the more they make from the final value fee
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Shill Bidding
Auction laws allow the consignors to bid on their own items. Looks at terms of Christies, Sothebys, etc. Ebay USED to allow it, but when they began charging for reserves, they banned it with an accompanying fear campaign. All of the arrests involving "shill" bidding have actually involved selling counterfeit or stolen merchandise.
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Re: Re: How they where caught
I don't know what the incentive would be for eBay to really make an all out effort to prevent shill bidding. After all, if it's as prevalent as many people seem to think, and if sellers who employ it wouldn't make any money if they did not, then they would stop selling on eBay and eBay would lose profits also. So why would eBay really go all out to try to stop the practice?
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follow up to my own posting
For those of you who haven't seen it, here is a really interesting story from the Sunday Times on shill bidding including interview of an actual power seller from eBay who says he has done it and also does not believe eBay is going to hassle him about it. Kind of confirms my suspicions of why eBay may sometimes "look the other way".
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Shill Bidding
Shill bidding is fraud, it deceives a potential buyer watching an item, it enriches those who do it and robs the public of a fair auction. The buyer is usually left holding the bag and it reflects upon all legitimate Ebay users because the public will lose trust in any and all auctions as if they are fixed. Ebay needs to crack the whip they know who these people are, they get the fees from them and turn their backs. Check this guy out on Ebay under the user name porscheahmet. He has been caught not once but twice and they only suspended him for I believe 90 days for committing a felony. I am sure that the dozens who are in contact with the federal authorities because of items they purchased on Ebay are no whee near the worth what they were sold for. I am not talking about a fair profit. I am talking about ripping people off in large amounts.
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SHILL BIDDING
Stop the foreign people using Ebay to rob Americans by shill bidding, it just may be your inheritance they rip off with their scams. How many of you heard about the Nigeria email scamming of folks who lost millions. Well now they are high tech and from quite a few different countries hiding here in the USA committing their scams on EBAY. They look for a weaknes in the system and take off. EBAY is that system.
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eBay seller PorscheAhmet also know as Ahmet Sandikci......I have all the proff needed for shill bidding on this one, but Fleebay does not care
""Buyers beware as Ahmet Sandikci is under investigation by the FBI, The Department of the Tresury, IRS and more for defrauding customers. DO NOT BUY FROM AHMET SANDIKCI. YOU WILL NEVER SEE A RETURN ON YOUR INVESTMENT. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED " "
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Re: SHILL BIDDING
Is that not just a little racist? Stop 'The foreign people' ? Well I'm English, live in the UK, use ebay.co.uk, Should ebay stop me? Ebay is world wide, and happy to make a profit for it's services in almost every country around the world. Oh sorry, you must be one of those Americans, who thinks you are the world, that the globe begins and ends at your borders.
Let me guess, you don't mean me do you, you mean non-white foreign people, people that speak a different language to you.
The email scam that originated in Nigeria happened because of a loop hole in Nigerian law. There are dishonest people everywhere, it just so happens that dishonest Nigerians, not Nigerians per say, exploited this loop hole.
Or maybe Americans simply never rip off other Americans?
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