Hi everyone - i would be very interested in your advice. I have just retracted a large number of bids on ebay (for the first time ever), as I believe there is some inappropriate activity. It is the series of auctions for NMilty SW modules. In summary, i bid on almost everything, and then another bidder with 16 feedback bid right up to my max bid on a large number of them, and then in 4-5 cases when exceeding my max bid immediately retracted and replaced a bid just under my max. Clearly pushing up the price.
I think many of you know that i am more than happy to pay top dollar for SW modules (if you have any you want to sell let me know!), but this one just seems a bit fishy and i wanted to figure out if there is anything I can / should do - or indeed if i have it wrong!
so any advice appreciated.
thx, Degassy

Degassy31 wrote:Hi everyone - i would be very interested in your advice. I have just retracted a large number of bids on ebay (for the first time ever), as I believe there is some inappropriate activity. It is the series of auctions for NMilty SW modules. In summary, i bid on almost everything, and then another bidder with 16 feedback bid right up to my max bid on a large number of them, and then in 4-5 cases when exceeding my max bid immediately retracted and replaced a bid just under my max. Clearly pushing up the price.
I think many of you know that i am more than happy to pay top dollar for SW modules (if you have any you want to sell let me know!), but this one just seems a bit fishy and i wanted to figure out if there is anything I can / should do - or indeed if i have it wrong!
so any advice appreciated.
thx, Degassy

Hey bud. I would have done the same thing you did. Especially when they retracted their bids that tipped over your bids, to just under your bids. That is just FAR too fishy for me, and I agree with you 100%. As an aside, and I'm not levelling any accusations here, but, just because somebody is a member doesn't mean they wouldn't ever do anything fishy or to help themselves out. When somebody retracts bids that go over your bid, that's the definition of shilling, so yes, you were shilled. And screw that.

Zen

I just sent Matthew a PM with info on the bidder who has outbid him.  

I can say that I have never shilled or done anything on Ebay to jepordize my reputation.  I believe my feedback speaks for itself.  

I have not used auction style listings in a long time, I guess this is another reason not to.

Neal

A quick glance at the bidding on those mods and that other bidder profile does not to me shout-out shilling so much as a bidder who is trying to make the high payer pay a bit more (for it to be a shill there needs to be an additional motivation). Lowish feedback, maybe someone relatively inexperienced. The problem is the retraction facility offered by ebay. You could - if you were so minded - try the same on him now. But I would not bother. What will happen here (as noted above), is some last minute bids.  

Either way he's all over the map which is disconcerting.

This is certainly interesting as I was confused on these auctions as well. When I first stumbled across them all. I knew it would be interesting. I picked a a few and gave a pretty good bid on them but was outbid. In frustration I bid high on one of them knowing I might not exceed the max bid.

I didn't retract any bids though, all my bids are still there. However, the next day I noticed most of the other modules I put medium bids on, I was all the sudden the high bidder. I actually didn't realize you could retract a bid, I thought you had to request it from the seller. Shows what I know. Then I noticed other ones no longer had the same high bidder and a buyer with tons of feedback (most likely a reseller) was.

When I saw this post I got more confused because I didn't notice what you said had occurred but I wasn't paying close attention either. I only bid high on the one out of frustration (silly i know) which is still there. I guess it will be interesting when the auctions come to a close. As usual I doubt I will get any of them but worth a try!

Share the love!! lol...

Nothing shady going on here! Technically he outed himself but I get the message. And don't put words in my mouth now, I said frustrated not pissed.  Obviously people can spend their dime how they choose I dont think that sets the "seriousness" level though. I meant to imply I made a "lets see if you'll pay this"  bid not a "I'll make you pay bid". Lol, I wouldn't do that as is evident in my bidding history.

So are you saying that I should buy this guy dinner whoever he is???

NMilty wrote:So are you saying that I should buy this guy dinner whoever he his???

Not saying that at all. But if you want, you can buy him this original shrinkwrapped Hall & Oates record for all I care. I'm just talking about bidders who run up other people's bids for no reason, and then retract their bids when they wind up becoming the high bidder on something they're not interested in.


** expired/removed eBay auction **