ebay bid change notice

Morlar

I am currently bidding on several items from the same seller. They recieved increased bids at pretty much the same time and now I have recieved this mail from ebay

eBay Bid Change Notice ********************

Dear eBay Community Member,
The following item, on which you placed a bid (*************) has had a bid retraction or cancellation, and you are now the high bidder. Congratulations! You can view the retraction/cancellation and the reason provided by selecting the (bid history) link from the individual item page. As a result of this retraction/cancellation, there is a possibility that the high bid amount and the current high bidder have changed. You can always view the current status of any item by going to the individual item page. (Be sure to refresh or reload the page to view the most up-to-date information.)

Regards,
eBay

When I go into the bidding history - it says 'Administrative Cancellation' - (this is the same on several items from this seller)

Can anyone translate that for me - does that mean that the seller was engaged in bogus up-bidding ?

ttm

Can't say for sure but bid retraction can be the bases of a seller scam.

What can happen is that once a bid is in the seller will bid with another account up untill he see's your max bid then retracts his bids. If your bid is enough for him he'll wait and see if he gets any better bids and if not bid again just before the end of the auction just below your max so he gets the full amount out of you.

Hope someone can explain the "Administrative Cancellation" bit

Edit> Maybe it means he got caught shill bidding?

Morlar

ttm wrote: »

Can't say for sure but bid retraction can be the bases of a seller scam.

What can happen is that once a bid is in the seller will bid with another account up untill he see's your max bid then retracts his bids. If your bid is enough for him he'll wait and see if he gets any better bids and if not bid again just before the end of the auction just below your max so he gets the full amount out of you.

Hope someone can explain the "Administrative Cancellation" bit

Edit> Maybe it means he got caught shill bidding?

Thanks for that. To be honest with you that's what I am thinking. Ebay themself cancelled the bids as part of their administration, ie not a user/bidder initiated action.

The only reasons I can think of that are shill bidding on a dupe account. It is suspicious that the increases happened across this sellers items at the same time. I was the first bidder on the items so I am a bit suspicious about it.

Can you clarify something - does the seller normally know how much a bid is for or would they have to do something like this to find out ?

ttm

The sellers don't know what your max bid is unless its reached by someone bidding the same or more hence the scam.

jor el

An administrative cancellation is when the seller cancels a bid on the auction. This would be done when some idiot is trying to spoil a sellers auctions, or when a zero feedback bidder bids (some sellers won't sell to a zero user) or if a bidder from a problem country (Nigeria for example) places a bid.

[edit] Actually, it is when eBay cancels a bid, not the seller. There's a different name on that.
http://pages.ebay.ie/help/account/glossary.html
Is the cancelled account still a registered user?

It could also be that the seller is using a shill account to find your max bid, and once found, he simply cancels his shill account's final bid, leaving you the winner and at your max bid.

For the bidder who's bid was cancelled, were all of the bids cancelled, or just the one that out bid you? i.e., if all of his bids were removed, would your bid be reduced back to your first one? Or were there several bidders on the auction.

You can report a bid as being a possible shill.

Morlar

Unfortunately these are private sales - so the bidder ID is not shown.

I just looked again and it doesn't say 'No longer a registered user' or anything like that - just 'private listing -- bidders identities protected'

I just checked this sellers other items and it's the exact same story there - I did not check them all but the ones I checked had the same thing happen.

I will leave my current bids in place, whereas before this happened I had been prepared to increase them significantly.

jor el

It could well be that some one is trying to spoil all of his auctions (someone with a grudge) and that the seller is the one reporting the other account(s) and getting the bids removed.

Morlar

Saw this article today (completely unrelated seller but thought it was interesting)

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1267410/Ebay-seller-person-convicted-bidding-items.html

Ebay seller becomes first person in UK convicted for bidding on his own items

By Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 10:17 AM on 20th April 2010

* Comments (20)
* Add to My Stories

paul barratt

Paul Barrett increased the value of the items he was selling by bidding on them in a practice known as 'shill bidding'

An eBay seller faces a fine of up to £50,000 after becoming the first person in the UK convicted of bidding on his own goods to raise prices.

Paul Barrett increased the value of the items he was selling by bidding on them under a separate user name, in a practice known as 'shill bidding.'

Barrett, 39, from Stanley, Co Durham, pleaded guilty to ten breaches under consumer protection laws but said he wasn't aware he was acting illegally.

Barrett, who runs a minibus hire company, was investigated by North Yorkshire Trading Standards after a complaint that he advertised and sold a minibus that had its mileage reduced illegally.

Officers found he was selling goods under the account of ‘shanconpaul’ and then bidding for them under his other identity, ‘paulthebusman’.

'eBay let me open up the second account and I gave all my personal details and home address to do so,' he told Skipton's magistrates' court.

'I realised the price was too low on some things and put the prices up using the second account.'

His account has been suspended and he now faces a fine of up to £5,000 for each offence.

He said yesterday: ‘I made a mistake in the advert. I put a bid on it to put the correct price I wanted. I didn’t realise I was doing anything wrong but now I do.’

The fair trading laws were brought in two years ago to bring Britain into line with the EU.

A spokesman for eBay said 'shill bidding' was illegal.

'It is important for people to understand that there is not, nor has there ever been, room for illegal activity on the site.'

Sentencing was adjourned.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1267410/Ebay-seller-person-convicted-bidding-items.html#ixzz0ldFIPfCh

jor el

What an idiot. He used his real name on his shill account.

Morlar wrote: »

'It is important for people to understand that there is not, nor has there ever been, room for illegal activity on the site.'

Is this the funniest thing that an eBay rep has ever said? Certainly the biggest lie they've ever told anyway, if the rather large eBay scam thread is anything to go by.

ttm

If you check the article you'll notice it was North Yorkshire Trading Standards that actual took some action, I have a relative that works for them and they have a section just devoted to online (read eBay) crime. So don't you think its just great that the tax payer (all be it the UK tax payer) has to pay someones wages to police eBay because eBay do sfa themsleves.

Morlar

I agree fully they completely take the piss. So long as it doesnt cost them a cent they are fully onboard with fighting fraud to the ends of the earth.