> I always wonder when I examine the bidder list and see one person with the
> little sunglasses icon (doesn't that indicate they just changed their
> nickname?) who made several bids during the middle of the auction which
> effectively ran the price up, but then didn't win the auction. Not saying
> the price was run up in this case, but it does make me wonder.
Known as "shill" bidding, it's a time-honored technique for inducing
"auction fever". Against eBay rules of course, which is why people use
newly-created accounts (which also get the sunglasses) to do it. But in
this case, IMO it's much more likely that this bidder was honest, and simply
taken by surprise by the two snipers, as he had the high bid with less than
a minute to go.
> Another technique that seems to pop up from time-to-time is what I like to
> think of as the "Buy-It-Now bailout". An item will go up for
> auction using
> Buy-It-Now, never get any bids, then within a day of the auction's end,
> presto, someone comes in with a buy-it-now bid. I think sellers use this
> technique to avoid using reserve prices and not have their stuff
> go for good
> deals. There are some bicycle parts I monitor on eBay sold by the same
> seller for which that seems to happen a lot.
Seems less likely to me, since the "Buy-It-Now" option disappears as soon as
the first bid is placed. To defeat it, all you have to do is place a
minimum bid early in the auction, then your "best" bid later.
Randall
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