Does anyone here buy things from Ebay? For those of you that do, I have a question. I’ve noticed over the years that the price of certain items always seem to be bid “upward” by people with a “0” rating. This leads me to believe that certain people who are selling items on Ebay, have created these fake user names with the express purpose of bidding “up” the price. I’ve also notice that most of the time, the user with the “0” rating almost never wins the item but they are always around to drive up the price for the real bidders.

Any thoughts on this?

could be possible ...yes


i dont pay attention to that because i set in my mind 1st the highets i would bid on the item anyway...if it goes higher i drop out

i mostly use the "buy it now" option because i dont want to wait / bid for 6 days on something that could already be delivered

I agree, I do believe that some Ebay Sellers may be doing that.

I tend to find certain Ebay sellers I find are reasonable priced / Honest and most of all trustworthy, then I will stick with them as much as possible.

I

Upbidding is less common then the paranoid would think. to start an account at ebay you have to put in personal info, like credit card numbers or bank account. To start zero bidders just to upbid you .50 cents is paranoia. Stop being a cheep-ass.

More true is the reality that once you start an account and you are a zero bidder you don't know the rules of eBay bidding. I mean, the unwritten rules, like snipping.

Does upbidding go on? sure it does.

It happens.

luv4all7 said:

It does happen! yes, but let us look at the flip side of the coin.

I am an eBay buyer/seller. I sell shit on ebay that I have around my house and want to get rid of. I wouldn't call myself an ebay seller, because I buy 3 times as much as I sell...

However when someone is looking to buy one of your items, all the ebayers are cheap. They want a gold ring for .29 cents with shipping to be less then 2 dollars. Really tasteless. I don't blame the seller at all for trying to get 5 dollars for his gold ring. It's a simple concept. If you don't want the item don't bid it higher. However if you are just being cheap and paranoid don't bitch about it.

Personally, one of my favorite things to do is if I have an item that cheap ebayers are penny and nickeling, I will pull that item with minutes to go. You have the option to end the auction early.

"Shill-bidding" goes on all the time. On Ebay Australia the reserve price function was removed as some sort of trial, therefore "shill-bidding" became almost an acceptable way to achieve your minimum price.
Ebay is full of holes when it comes to the welfare of the buyers. No matter their claims, they do precious little to weed out fake/pirate items (just search for Tiffany jewellery - Tiffany even state on their own website that the only places you can purchase their goods is in their stores or from their own website). Excessive shipping charges? Ebay only takes notice of those when it's obvious that it is done to avoid sellers fees. Someone rips you off you'd better have a paper trail up the wazoo if you want to get your money back, and if you didn't purchase shipping insurance or registered delivery you're out of luck.
When you suspect someone of shill-bidding ebay "investigates", and unless they get a confession they do nothing. Without absolute proof they will not take action against a seller as long as they pay their fees.
All ebay cares about is getting their fees which are all paid by the sellers - they couldn't care less about their buyers.

gsh said:

I agree with your comments. I've been lucky so far. I've completed quite a few purchases and so far so good.

MickG said:

Hummmm I don't know. I prefer the buy it now option. I don't have the patience for bidding and the stuff I get from Ebay is anything but cheap. I've spent thousands of dollars there but I can't stand these little shit heads driving up the price of something that is already expensive.

Graycap23 said:

Ah Graycap, there is a diffrence between lucky and selective. Maybe you need to admit you make good choices.

And as for "eBay Fees" rightly so they are a business. So to are some of the sellers. They want to make money.

As for exssive shipping prices, it isn't a shipping price, it is a shipping AND handeling price. Most auctions let you know what that price is to be before you bid. If you don't like the s&H price don't bid.

They get caught very quickly. Sellers used to do this in order to win their own items and leave feedback for their accounts in order to reach 10 and be able to list using the Buy Now feature. Nowadays that's circumnavigated by buying or selling gmail accounts from or to unconected sellers.

My friend had about 5 accounts which left feedback for each other and slowly but surely they all got caught.

try out www.toolhaus.org if u want to see things like only a seller or buyer's negative and neutrals, and indeed to see which users are frequently leaving feedback for each other.

Fauxie said:

People are always trying to get over or scam someone. That shit is played out.

Graycap23 said:

Yes, the buy it now price is a very good feature. I will often use it. A true buy it now price is set right around what the seller would think if all went right the ending auction price would be on the high end.

I don't know about you all, but if I am looking at something, I will stalk the item across several sellers for days. Sometimes weeks or months.

I for one would rather pay twice as much from the right person, then get a deal from a scuze.

MickG said:

I tend to agree.

MickG said:

I don't think most buyers care, if the actual item price is adjusted accordingly. Sellers do this to keep prices low, to attract attention and more success in searches, and to pay less money to Ebay. Sensible buyers would also understand that a smart seller could actually lower overall prices by doing this.

For example, you could have a $5 item and $3 shipping and a total of 8 bucks, but if a seller made it $0.99 they could afford to ship for say $6.75 and still make the same profit. Buyer pays less and seller gives less to Ebay, making the same profit.

Makes sense. Now excessive shipping just for greed, that's something else.

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[Edited 6/5/06 9:17am]

Graycap23 said:

I sell a lot on eBay and I never do that.
What I do as a buyer is decide what an item is worth to me, and make that my maximum bid and be done with it. If you win the item, great. If you do not, then maybe the item sold for too much.

Feedback is a bitch!

I am a great eBayer. I send my packages out packed well and ship quickly. My payment is most often paid within a couple hours of the end of the auction.

However, once I lost track of my higher bidding standards. I bid on a sellers item that I wouldn't normally bid on.

Shame really because up to that point I had 100% positive feedback.

They did everything wrong. They packed a breakable statue in a weak old box. The statue's only line of defense was ONE SMALL PIECE OF CRAYPAPER, that's all they used to pack my item. Ofcourse it ended up not only late but broke.

When I tryed to make the deal good with the seller all they would do was send me a "insurance" form.

I left negitive feedback for getting screwed. I got retalitory negitive feedback in return.

MickG said:

That's why I wrote that I've been "lucky".

Many times when I've sold on Ebay I've automatically gone for $0.01 bid prices and $0.99 Buy Now prices, no matter what the item cost me (within reason) and then adjusted the shipping price. That has allowed me to price the item at a total cost as low as possible for the buyer and still make my desired profit. It doesn't screw the buyer, only possibly Ebay, and they're already screwing sellers (along with Paypal). Second chance offers on items that go above the Buy Now price are a seller's dream since they avoid listing fees and often allow a seller to sell several of an item at a price much higher than could be achieved if the buyer simply checked out your other items and saw you were selling the same item they just bid on. Ultimately buyers just need to be smart and sellers should be fair but savvy.

Fauxie said:

Problem with that is if there is a dispute (item not delivered), even if it is a genuine mistake, you are not covered on the shipping charges. Even if you get paypal to chargeback the money they will only get you the item price, so you are out $6.75.

Fauxie said:

Yes that is one way of looking at it, but you can't look at it that way.

I charge higher shipping prices, because I buy all that stuff new, boxes, packing and such. I often end up getting the screw from my shipping. I don't mind however, I want it to be a good experience for the buyer.

However some do charge a too high price and then send your stuff in cheep packing on a slow boat through china. We all hate that!

BUT the term S&H stands for shipping (the costs of sending the item to you) AND HANDELING (the made up cost of using one's hands to mail the item to you).

MickG said:

But you don't need to resort to that. If you paid through Paypal open a dispute through them. If a hasty negative is left for me as a seller I automatically leave negative back, though usually tempering my anger with something positive, then ask them to join me in a mutual withdrawal. I sort out the transaction with them through email and they usually go for it. Negative erased.

gsh said:

Not in my experience. I've had people open disputes with me and though I typically refund the full amount before the time passes, there was one occasion where Paypal took the money from me and gave it back and it was the total payment.

MickG said:

That is how I look at it. I don't care about Ebay but I do care about buyers. I want to be treated the same way when I'm buying. I want the best deal and I want honesty. I charge a lot more for shipping that it costs me, but the overall price is way beyond fair. That's where my profit usually is. Sometimes I have hardly made any profit because, like you, I want the buyer to have a good experience. I want them to be happy with what they get and for the price they paid for it. I tell all my expected shipping times upfront so if someone doesn't like 7-14 business days they shouldn't bid. I used to ship registered post because I thought it was better, but it was costing me nearly a dollar fifty extra. I stopped doing it and then could put prices down by just over a dollar. Packages arrived even more often and quicker (people don't have to be in to sign) and buyers paid less for their items.

I've been selling for many years, but it's mainly for fun. Like I said before, I'll sometimes almost make a loss on an item. Typical profit on an item might be only 80 baht, or $2. I've often put things on at a bid price that should the item get only one bid would make me less than a dollar. I couldn't do that if I couldn't keep item prices down and shipping prices up.

MickG said:

I work from home selling on ebay every day, on account for myself, and one for a car dealership, and it happens.....wrong or right it happens. But lemme say this, I do know people's who's user accounts have been frozen over this scheme, and you need to be careful if your going to go about it.

luv4all7 said:

Yep, you don't want to get suspended. I had one account where I was selling bracelets of a style and design I'd previously sold on another account and I was suspended. They asked me for proof that I had bought the items and had them in my possession. I had a receipt for the items but it wasn't itemised. I sent faxes twice and emailed them several times and they never reinstated me. All for perfectly legitimate bracelets. Unbelievable.

And don't get me started on gemstones. That is a nightmare for genuine sellers on Ebay with all the crap people try to flog on there. Those of us in locations able to find genuine bargains and offer them for sale to people at over 10 times less than they'd buy at retail in the US are screwed by people lying. They don't like you selling 'Burma' rubies either due to the trade sanctions, but you just have to say you acquired the item before a certain date a couple of years ago and say 'Myanmar' instead. Still, some sellers fuck it up for others.

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[Edited 6/5/06 9:46am]

MickG said:

Some "bake in" the price with the shipping.

All in all Ebay is a good nay GREAT place to find things. One thing that gets me is when no pic is posted of actual item...or when you get a "rare" item that isn't rare at all.

Here's my way of "beating" the system. I "watch" items. I have a basic price in mind as to how much I am willing to buy an item for. And then wait until 5 min before the auction ends and will snap it up last min if the price is right. I'm a bastard...I know. But it's the only way I won't be roped into getting an item at expensive price. It also curbs my spending, as I have not bid and if I haven't bid, I can't spend. SOmetimes I find an item cheaper during an auction of another I am waiting on. The only draw back to my system is when I forget that an auction has ended or if it does while I am asleep.