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Suspicious bid on an auction site - need quick advice please!

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Suspicious bid on an auction site - need quick advice please!
MadWild

MadWild

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I know this in the wrong place and will get moved, but I just wanted to post it were it would be seen and I can hopefully get quick replies.

I just won a pin on the Bay. When I bid, I set a maximum that it would bid up to for me. No one else bidded, until the last minute, when someone placed a single bid that was 40p below my top - so just enough to allow me to still win, but pay the maximum price I had put in. I find this really suspicious; the price they bid is an odd amount, and it seems very peculiar that said odd amount would be exactly what is needed to make me pay my maximum, but they didn't then bid again (despite there being enough time to) to win the item. I looked back at their visible history, and everything they've bid on, they've bid just once, only winning two items out of 10, and all listed within the collectables category pins are found in.

It seems to me like this may have been a bid just to push me up to the maximum, as though they knew how much I had put, but not an actual attempt to win the auction. Is there anything I can do about it? Should I say something to the seller? I haven't paid yet as it only ended a few minutes ago and I wanted to see what advice people can give before I pay. It doesn't seem fair for someone to bid just to push the price up, and I'm sure that's not allowed by the auction site's rules...

Any advice is greatly appreciated. Many thanks!
 
It was more than likely coincidence, unless you told someone your bid I highly doubt they could know your max bid. It is possible the seller has another profile or has someone who shill bids for them. I would contact eBay and see what they say but I'm sure this goes on more than we'd care to admit (and people get away with it).
 
To be honest, I wouldn't want to make a whole case of it. You won the auction and you're paying your max bid. You put it in so you were willing to pay it. That being said, +1 to what BamaBulldawg says. You can contact Ebay but I'm not sur what they can do, a bid is a bid.
 
I was just looking at the regulations about shill bidding, they claim to be pretty tough about it. I wouldn't be concerned, except for the fact that the bid was so exact in pushing up to my maximum, and a bid of such an unusual amount. Plus it was a big jump from the actual current bid, as I put my maximum just in case multiple bids came in. It was a big jump for them to make from what was currently winning to just below my max. It just seems strangely accurate...

Do you think I should pay anyway, and contact eBay, or contact them and pay later on?
 
By the way, I'm not trying to moan about paying my maximum; as you said, I put it in because I was willing to pay it. I just find that bid strange, and don't want someone to get away with it if they are shill bidding, otherwise they'll just go on and do it to other people too.
 
I think that if Ebay decides it's fishy, they'll refund you or solve it in any kind (I've never heard of this situation so I wouldn't know for sure what they can do). So I think you can do both, whatever you feel most comfortable with. Either way, if Ebay thinks it's against regulations, they'll help you, whatever you do.
 
OlafOlaf said:
I think that if Ebay decides it's fishy, they'll refund you or solve it in any kind (I've never heard of this situation so I wouldn't know for sure what they can do). So I think you can do both, whatever you feel most comfortable with. Either way, if Ebay thinks it's against regulations, they'll help you, whatever you do.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the advice :). I think perhaps I just panicked and got a little paranoid! I've paid now, but I think I will also contact eBay and say I found the activity suspicious, even if they only look into it and say it wasn't, it would put my mind at rest if nothing else.

It would be interesting to know if anyone else has ever reported something like this to an auction site, and what the outcome was, so I'll leave the thread open in case anyone can tell me about their experiences of it all.

Thanks again Olaf(Olaf) and BamaBulldawg.
 
Update! I contact them via their live chat help thingy, and a very helpful chap looked into it for me. He said he could see why I had been concerned, and that they do take shill bidding very seriously so they appreciated me letting them know about suspicious activity. Once he'd compared it to normal bidding patterns and looked into it, he decided that it wasn't shill bidding, just someone setting a maximum bid of a slightly odd amount that happened to be just under mine. So you guys were right, I needn't have worried so much, but at the same time, it is good to know that they take it seriously and will look into things immediately. I'm glad I didn't jump in and file a report, it's much better to talk to someone who knows what they're doing and can look into it more carefully rather than start a whole case when it might not have been necessary (as indeed it wasn't).

So, now I know that it was legitimate and no one is going to get bid up by that user, I can enjoy looking forward to my new pin arriving! Yay :D.

Once again, thanks for the advice. Mods, if you want to move/close this then please do :).
 
A lot of times I will watch an auction and wait until the last few seconds to bid and then make and odd bid (like 40.85) just trying to beat the other bidders. I figure that a lot of times people bid at set numbers like 40.00 and I am trying to win the auction. I believe it is called sniping. Usually it does not leave the other bidder enough time to increase their bids. Some times it works and sometimes it doesn't. I do not believe that it is possible to know how much you are bidding. Even the seller does not know your top bid. Now if somebody made a large bid and then retracted it to know how much you bid I would be suspicious about that.
 
I agree with David. When I use to frequent the Bay I would bid last minute and bid an odd amount as well for the same reason. My bid would be the max I would be willing to pay so if I did not get it, unless it was a grail, I would not bid again. Hope it makes you feel better.
 
docfish2u said:
A lot of times I will watch an auction and wait until the last few seconds to bid and then make and odd bid (like 40.85) just trying to beat the other bidders. I figure that a lot of times people bid at set numbers like 40.00 and I am trying to win the auction. I believe it is called sniping. Usually it does not leave the other bidder enough time to increase their bids. Some times it works and sometimes it doesn't. I do not believe that it is possible to know how much you are bidding. Even the seller does not know your top bid. Now if somebody made a large bid and then retracted it to know how much you bid I would be suspicious about that.
Click to expand...

I always put my maximum bid in for just a little less than I would like to pay. Then at the last minute if I can watch the auction, Ill do small increments if someone has outbid me. Sometimes whatever the least amount to place a bid is. Like 10 cents as an example. Sometimes its a weird amount too.

On the ebay app it will suggest an amount to increase your max bid to win and sometimes its a weird amount. So maybe thats what they did but just were not willing to pay up to what your maximum bid was.

Congrats on getting your piece though!
 
Haha, yeah count me in as one of those "snipers" too. What happened to the OP sounds exactly like my bidding practices. I'm glad the eBay support person was able to ease your mind about it. What pin was it?
 
I remember there used to be a site call bidsnipes or something that would bid on your behalf at the last minute. You would put in your maximum bid and then it would send that bid in at the last moment. It helped to avoid bidding wars for sure. i won many of auctions that way. Oh those were the days. LOL
 
In my experiences in turning in shill bidders to eBay (both cases with pretty iron-clad evidence), eBay says they care but they actually do not and don't take any accusations seriously. If eBay gets rid of shill bidders, ultimately objects sell for less $$ and eBay gets less $$ in fees. Why would they want to fix this?
 
Yeah, this just sounds like sniping... Websites that do this for you still exist (I use one for eBay bidding exclusively, I never bid directly on the site). I always put in a weird number too... If I'm willing to pay $30 for something, I don't want to be outbid at $30.01 (or even at $30 if the previous bidder was a high bid of $30), so I always add some weird amount of dollars to it (like $33.27 or something). Just makes me feel better... If I get out bid at that amount, I can fantasize that the winner really placed a bid of hundreds and I would have never won it. :) :)

Also, it could have been a US bidder bidding exactly $30 that would translate into some weird number in pounds...

But if it was just a single bid, and there weren't any bid retractions (people cancelling their bids), then it was just normal last-minute bidding. (You can bid a huge amount, and then see what the max bid is by the other seller, then cancel your bid and bid again just $1 under that amount. That's the kind of thing eBay will pay attention to.) The only other thing that would make it look weird (to eBay, since you can't see this), would be if the winning bid came from the same IP address as the seller. Then eBay would have reason to question it...

I've had people bid exactly the amount I bid before (even when it's something unusual), and thus had to pay my exact maximum... Happens occasionally, just part of eBay.

unibear said:
In my experiences in turning in shill bidders to eBay (both cases with pretty iron-clad evidence), eBay says they care but they actually do not and don't take any accusations seriously. If eBay gets rid of shill bidders, ultimately objects sell for less $$ and eBay gets less $$ in fees. Why would they want to fix this?
Click to expand...

They'll kick off people that do it a lot (if they find them) (and then they just re-register under a new name), but a one or two-time shiller wouldn't get more than a warning Email from eBay to not do it again (and tough luck for the person that won the auction).
 
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I knew about sniping, but it had honestly never occurred to me that people would do it in odd amounts. It makes sense though, now I feel a little daft for not knowing!

In answer to your question BamaBulldawg, the pin is the Kuzco-topia one. So excited to get it :D

Thanks for all the comments everyone, it's interesting to learn bidding tips.
 
if its something i really want i set up an auto Snipe. its a program that will automatically bid at any time. i wait till the last second to put in my final bid, that way if its the highest bid there is no time to get out bid. it may look funny but a normal thing with ebay now a days
 
I know that when i bid i often put an odd amount. Such as $41.98 or something. Many people think in even numbers, so they may place a max bid of $40.00. I like to do random amounts, I like to think it makes me more likely to win, having thought of a number that is just BARELY above what other folks might have typed in automatically.
 
I also do the random amounts (I am fond of .43 and .77 but pretty much use any number that strikes my fancy) and use a sniping service. I would guess that your situation was simply coincidence as I really don't see any way the seller could have known your top bid. As someone who has sold on eBay, I can't even see the maximum of the person's bid after the auction...only the bidding history and the winning bid.

The ones I get suspicious about are the ones that bid earlier and bid up bit by bit to get you to your maximum and then retract their bid.
 
I don't usually wait until the last few seconds, but I have. And lost sometimes when I was too early or a max bid was still higher.

I bid odd amounts, too, like $24.56. That way, when a bid beats me but it ends in $0.56, I know that their max bid is higher. It's up to me to decide how high I want to go.

Sometimes I just bid my max and hope for the best, because I won't going higher than X amount.
 
This isn't shill bidding. There is no way for anyone but you to know what you bid. This is a legitimate case of someone trying to outbid you at the last minute, and randomly choosing a number that was near to yours. Sorry you have to pay top dollar on it. But rest assured it's a legit bid, and you aren't paying more than you wanted to pay.
 
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