Ebay: Safety Through Education

At a first glance, Ebay seems to be a fairy tale land of savings.Of course this is true, since this avenue of savings contributes greatly to Ebay's success. But this fairy tale is meant only for those who are educated on Ebay. Users should be aware of sellers better known as ""Shill Bidders"" who swindle naive users out of their savings by increasing the product price artificially. Everyone can spot the red flags of these forms of ‘shill bid’ auctions along with a few general online training from a excellent tutorial(s) as well as the information from this post.



Terms to know:

Reserve Price Auctions: A variation of a normal auction, you are able to set a price you will not sell your item below, giving an insurance to the seller that they are not obligated to sell if the desired price is not reached.



Shill Bidder: Someone who creates fake accounts or employs friend to bid against their own item, inflating the price.



Shill System: The intricate relationships between false user accounts, created by the same seller to dupe authorities from discovering their operations.







Shill Bidder Motive:



First you must realize the motive powering a shill bidder. Each time a Shill Bidder goes to generate an auction, they are going to more often than not produce the auction with out a reserve value, beginning with a surprisingly low value (e.g A XBOX for $1.00 beginning bid). This in turn draws in tons of customers, who believe they'll be in a position to win the XBOX for maybe... $30.00. These types of buyers might start bidding in opposition to each other in a frenzy.







The System:



Once this frenzy of bidding wars have begun, but the price has yet to reach their desired level, the Shill Bidder will then create a system of new accounts, under false credentials or employee friends to bid on his item. The Shill Bidder will then bid (or have his friend bid) on his own product, while other bidders bid against someone who has nothing to lose (or in fact does not exist). The Shill Bidder simply hopes that a real bidder ends up winning the auction and paying the ultimate price.







Spotting Shill Auctions:



Now you may be asking... "How do I spot this?". Beginning at a rudimentary level, one can spot this trend of ‘shill bidding’ by seeing who the winners were from past auctions. If the previous winners of the seller's past history is desolate of activity and feedback, that is a red flag. At a more professional level (which is tougher to spot) the Shill Bidder will have friends bid on their items, making it increasingly hard to pin point (as there are many factors that go into this). Or worst, they may have created accounts that have a high level of feedback specifically done to dupe the bidders (Professional level). Ebay training and help websites are a great place to begin your beginner or in depth knowledge on Ebay.







Here are some tips to spot shill bidders on eBay:



The vendors account has existed for less than one year.



The vendor has earned little or no feedback whatsoever.



The vendor has continual good feedback from one user in specific, correlating to a suspiciously extensive range of products, like a plasma Television in 1 transaction and a stuffed animal in the next. Be sure to learn how to better sell items on ebay with a variety of training sites out there."





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