[Spridgets] ebay Shill was Holy SMOKES !!!

Dean Hedin dlh2001 at comcast.net
Wed Feb 4 20:10:58 MST 2009


I find it interesting that you feel that shilling is acceptable behavior
in an auction.   I don't mean that negatively but, as you point out, 
there seems to be a tradition of this in the old fashoned auctions
and some people take it for granted and toss it off as a "buyer beware"
type of thing.

A judge in New York feels differently.
http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/shills.html

So, knowing what you know now, would you shill bid if your
aunt placed some of her antiques on ebay now? 

Never understood reserves.  It's like a foriegn country trying to peg it's currency. 
You want to sell something and you have some fantasy as to what it's worth?
Unfortunately your opinion as to what something is worth is meaningless.
Put it up for a dollar and let the objective bidders decide what it's worth.



----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Gregory Groiss" <ggroiss at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [Spridgets] Holy SMOKES !!!


> I'm not sure why everyone is so against "shill" bidding.  I've been
> selling on eBay since the site started and although I never bid on my
> own auctions, I uses a reserve price when needed, I don't see the
> problem with it. When I was younger I worked for my aunt who owned an
> antique shop and every two weeks we would head to some local auction
> houses to buy and sell.  What you call "shill" bidding was very common
> there and I did partake one or twice.  The only real difference was
> buyers could see who was bidding and the regulars would know who the
> sellers were. So if a dealer/seller was consistently bidding up their
> own items people would stop buying from them. EBay is a little
> different.  However, there are tools on the web that will allow you to
> compare bidders across multiple auctions from a single seller.  Some
> of these tools you have to pay for while others are free.


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