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Man fined for bidding in his own eBay auctions

  • 05-07-2010 5:28pm
    #1
    Run_to_da_hills
    Closed Accounts Posts: 20,009 ✭✭✭✭


    The first eBay seller to be prosecuted for bidding in his own auctions Shill bidder) to boost the price of his goods was ordered to do 250 hours of unpaid work today by a judge in the UK who also told him to pay £5,000 in fines and costs.

    Im surprised it has taken this long to catch someone on something that would be so rampant with on line auctions across the globe.

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/hi/technology/newsid_10500000/newsid_10508900/10508913.stm


Comments

  • #2
    Judgement Day
    Closed Accounts Posts: 13,549 ✭✭✭✭Judgement Day


    Intriguing and I would have to go along with the guilty party's plea that he didn't know it was illegal. I have attended auctions in the past and, on occasion, have had to bid up my own items when they were going too cheap. I know that you should put a reserve on rather than bid on your own item but sometimes things don't work that way. In fact, now that I think about it, it was a painting that I had put a reserve on and the auctioneer was about to knock it down to a crony of his for less than my reserve. On this occasion I ended up with my own lot back and had to pay sellers commission as well as buyer's commission. That said unless it is an organised scam it seems a bit harsh to be in court for.

    Ebay would do well to deal with some of the large scale blatant scammers instead of the little guy but I see that eBay didn't instigate this court case.


  • #3
    Grumpypants
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 8,077 ✭✭✭Grumpypants


    That is the UK im sure here with our weird laws we prob just don't have any law covering this.

    Its wrong i just didn't think it was illegal. But is it really any different than a guy selling a car going "ah i don't know i have another guy looking at it who is interested" to keep the price up.


  • #4
    Run_to_da_hills
    Closed Accounts Posts: 20,009 ✭✭✭✭Run_to_da_hills


    Grumpypants wrote: »
    That is the UK im sure here with our weird laws we prob just don't have any law covering this.

    Its wrong i just didn't think it was illegal. But is it really any different than a guy selling a car going "ah i don't know i have another guy looking at it who is interested" to keep the price up.
    It's technically fraud, whether the Gardai have the resources to follow this type of crime up is another story. It would want to be very serious before they would get involved.


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