eBay - am I being conned?

Red Pepper

I rarely use eBay but I have been trying to buy an ipod shuffle recently and I think the price is being pushed up by the seller using other usernames. There is a shuffle for sale every day from the same seller. As soon as I start bidding all these other usernames with the same 'format' (a***z, e***y, o***w etc) keep outbidding me. Is this a standard "trick" or am I paranoid?

Judgement Day

Red Pepper wrote: »

I rarely use eBay but I have been trying to buy an ipod shuffle recently and I think the price is being pushed up by the seller using other usernames. There is a shuffle for sale every day from the same seller. As soon as I start bidding all these other usernames with the same 'format' (a***z, e***y, o***w etc) keep outbidding me. Is this a standard "trick" or am I paranoid?

Link to seller/item.

F1ngers

Red Pepper wrote: »

I rarely use eBay but I have been trying to buy an ipod shuffle recently and I think the price is being pushed up by the seller using other usernames. There is a shuffle for sale every day from the same seller. As soon as I start bidding all these other usernames with the same 'format' (a***z, e***y, o***w etc) keep outbidding me. Is this a standard "trick" or am I paranoid?

IIrc when you put in a bid, you can also put in a maximum that you are willing to pay - it looks to me as though these automatically jump your bid as it is still below the max they are prepared to pay.

allthedoyles

Its normal for eBay not to show you the identity of other bidders .

All you can see is what you described o***w etc .

It would also be normal too for a friend to bid in an attempt to increase selling price

Judgement Day

allthedoyles wrote: »

Its normal for eBay not to show you the identity of other bidders .

All you can see is what you described o***w etc .

It would also be normal too for a friend to bid in an attempt to increase selling price

I wouldn't agree that it's 'normal' for a friend to bid up an item - I've only ever done it once in an emergency and it's not good practice.

As an aside, eBay is often vastly more expensive than Amazon for a lot of items - eBay for looking, Amazon for buying.

Red Pepper

http://offer.ebay.ie/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewBids&item=321454159754&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2565

Here is one of the shuffles I was outbid on.

The seller has a new one every day.

Judgement Day

Red Pepper wrote: »

http://offer.ebay.ie/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewBids&item=321454159754&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2565

Here is one of the shuffles I was outbid on.

The seller has a new one every day.

Looks fine to me - the seller has excellent feedback (99.8% on 3883 transactions for similar items). Be patient and you should pick one up sooner or later.