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Hi all

I have bid on several auctions for what I see as quality lots recently and they have all attracted the same bidder o***r who has o feedback, bids on lots of occasions and pushes up the prices but never seems to win an auction. Does this seem a little suspicious or am I losing the plot!!

recent example - check the bids.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/GB-1929-Posta ... 5574797746

comments and thoughts would be welcome

cheers

Sounds suspicious, it could be the seller shill bidding to push up the bidding to your secret max. Are all the lots that attract this 0 feedback member offered by the same seller? Maybe you and Mr. 0 have the same collecting interests...maybe...

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Collecting Mongolia; Thailand; Indo-China; Mourning Covers; OHMS.
My online 'store': http://stampsfromaethelwulf.blogspot.com/

If you lose an item to Mr Zero, then get a second chance offer, be very very suspicious.

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A man might as well marry ... if he finds a good wife he will be happy ... if not, he will become a philosopher.
Collecting Greater New Guinea & Macropods (Kangaroos & Wallabies).

Anyone who bids on ebay other than snipe at last 5 seconds has rocks in their head.

If a lot is worth $50 to you bid $50.03 on a snipe program when it is 99c, and forget about it. If you do not know what it is worth you need to pay attention, and ask questions here.

Otherwise you are playing into hands of other bunnies who also are dumb enough to show their hand before end of sale, AND shillers which ebay openly tolerates and encourages these days, as they clearly make FAR more money when they operate. Ebay LOVES shill bidding.

The 'stamps' section is ebay's 2nd worse category performer this year mainly as they allow fakes and shillers to do absolutely what they like, whenever they like, with no penalty.

And even the dumbest bunnies wakes up to that after a while. And go elsewhere.

good responses - thanks - he bids on lots of different sellers so Idon't think is following one seller. No 2nd chance offers. Good advice on last minute bidding. i do that a lot
cheers

Loikroh,

From what you're saying, "he" just sounds like an optimistic newbie who's trying to snare a bargain but going about it a bit half-cocked.

I note that the underbidder on the item linked by the OP was b***1 who also has zero feedback, and a total eBay history of one bid.

Norm

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Geelong, VFA Premiers 1878, 1879, 1800, 1882, 1883, 1884, 1886, AFL Premiers 1925, 1931, 1937, 1951, 1952, 1963, 2007, 2009, 2011, .

Creepers ... bid for a bargain and hope to win.

Snipers ... bid to win and hope for a bargain.

Snipers usually do better.

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A man might as well marry ... if he finds a good wife he will be happy ... if not, he will become a philosopher.
Collecting Greater New Guinea & Macropods (Kangaroos & Wallabies).

Yorkshiremen ... snipe for a bargain

Absolutely!

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'Philately will get you everywhere!'

I would be so amazed if there were shill bidding there , they have the most loyal band of customers you could ever wish for plus a few of these newbies cropping up now and again, why would they ever need to shill

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Long interest in stamps from Great Britain. Avid collector always after good pre 1930 lots

Yorkshiremen make the Scots look profligate.

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With kind regards, Jim

Are you sure that's not "bargain for a Snipe"?

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A man might as well marry ... if he finds a good wife he will be happy ... if not, he will become a philosopher.
Collecting Greater New Guinea & Macropods (Kangaroos & Wallabies).

Absolutely, sniping is the only real way to buy things on eBay. You see something you want, you put a snipe bid in on what you believe is a good price, then forget about it.

I've put snipe bids on things way ahead of time and if the item reaches my maximum snipe bid prior to the item closing, I forget about it. Never chase a deal over your maximum, let some bunny have it or a shill bidder get caught with it is my motto.

Back to the original topic question, remember that everyone on eBay, even those with 50,000 plus feedback, started with 0 feedback

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Tony

Too true Jim....I have the (mis) fortune to know quite a few

Andy

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If it ain't broke.....fix it 'til it is!!

http://www.lanarkshireps.co.uk

BIBGANDYN



I am a Yorkshireman and I practically overpay for everything.

Kindest regards

Richard Debney

I'm finding lately that I'm winning less & less auctions, even when I DO snipe - seems that Ebay stuff is getting more & more expensive ??

D.

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Visit my Website - http://WWW.DJMSTAMPS.COM for Australia & World Stamps, Collections and Accessories

Same here - which is why I buy virtually nothing there any more. The longer I look at it the more I realise that they have had to buy the stock somewhere, so I find out where the stock has come from and go to that source.

If I have to buy a bigger lot to get a single item then so be it, I can either sell it on Ebay (and hope the bunnies come out to play... ) or swap it with some dealers I know for items I do want.

Remember the value of something is not what its worth but what you can get for it

Jon

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G.B, Barbados, Line Engraved, Intaglio & Recess printed stampshttp://www.barbadosstamps.co.uk

I feel that this requires some amplification, are we talking about perception or reality?

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With kind regards, Jim

So what is the end result?!

I had a look at numerous high value lots that finished recently and at fitsry glance didn't see anything untoward.

But I did notice these results. They look to be the same stamps. Unless the winning bidder was a non payer something is up.



http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/1964-Geograph ... 0508970517



http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/1964-Geograph ... 0535048526

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We sleep safe in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm.

Perhaps another non payer on the first of these.

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We sleep safe in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm.

My optimist says non-paying bidders and an effective internal management system to make second-offers. My experience says that large scale sellers' motivations need to be understood in order to make a determination about auction ethic. If this seller needs cash for some reason, there are no limits to manipulation. Money truly is the root of all evil.

They are beset with them.

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We sleep safe in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm.

traralgon3844

They had some Lakatois for sale I while ago all claimed to be Unmounted Mint, every single listing, anyway there was one that I was interested in and a sent a request for a back scan, more to check the watermark.

The response I received "Sorry we do not have time to send scans"

Needless to say I never placed a bid.

Cheers Robbo

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I am a Collector of all British New Guinea, Papua and TP&NG. Would love to talk to fellow collectors of same. Robbo

Paul ... good Detective work.

I smell shill bidding going on.

Looks very dodgy!

Can't be genuine non paying bidders - the seller would save themself some fees by offering second chance offers to the under bidders - Surely the final value fees these sellers are paying on all the shill bidding must be astronomical!

I think you're being too hasty here. The 4d error was mis-described on the first listing and corrected to a more common error on the second. Likewise, on re-listing the 2d blue strip description includes a crease that wasn't mentioned on the first listing. I suspect both were returned 'not as described'.

I've bid for lots offered by them on numerous occasions & never had any reason to suspect shilling.

Cheers, Mike

Ditto for me.

They had a large number of listings of unmounted mint from the KGV/KE7 era as well as the lakatoi's.

Seemed very unusual to me to see so much "unmounted mint" from this era.

Bill

I'd be astonished if these guys are using shill bidding. The sheer number of lots they post and the range of material they have been selling over the past year or so means that to shill this lot they would need a massive and sophisticated network to be set up.

I've bid from and bought from these over the past year and have had no problem - the items have been exactly as described. They seem to have an almost inexhaustible supply of good quality GB stuff going up each week at 99p starting price which mostly goes for pretty near cat values, and in some cases over cat. If it was a shill operation then I would expect to see more than 2 neutral and zero negatives over 8000+ listings in the last 12 months, and as they have virtually no unsold listings the opportunity for people to out them as wrong'uns is there.

Jon

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G.B, Barbados, Line Engraved, Intaglio & Recess printed stampshttp://www.barbadosstamps.co.uk

I bought from the seller, bygonesofbridlington, before, and they seem to have a huge amount of material week in, week out, for everywhere--lots of GB of course, then Empire and all.

Something I've noticed is that so much of the stuff they sell seems to get what seem like unusally high prices. Is it simply because they have a following of people who have 'bookmarked' them as someone to check back with? But I see lots of legit sellers offer items that get say $10, then bygonesofbridlington comes along with the same item and gets $15. Now extrapolate that to discussing a $500 item and I start to wonder, were they just really lucky at snagging Bunnies or?

Stupid of them to say "we don't have time to do a backscan" re the Lakatoi, well fine, they're the ones losing out on bidders. Is there time that valuable?

If all these many items they're relisting were unsolds or shilled relists, why would they change their stock/reference number as shown in the titles? Couldn't they just carry it over with the same number?

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Collecting Mongolia; Thailand; Indo-China; Mourning Covers; OHMS.
My online 'store': http://stampsfromaethelwulf.blogspot.com/