This is why I don't bid until near the end of an auction

[MULTIPLEX]

Have you ever noticed eBay auctions with people driving up the price little at a time? I've seen this happen a lot recently and even caught one international seller doing this.

What it boils down to is These sellers have multiple eBay accounts and bid on their own listings to drive up the final auction price. They are easy to spot because they only bid the minimum increment each time. And they bid a lot.

In all my years eBaying (12 years, 300+ transactions), never have I seen a better example as below. NOTE: this auction was just posted today.

Here's an example of what I mean. Same bidder driving up the price.

Check bidding history here.

Anyways, just wanted to spread the word for those who are not too familiar with eBay. Don't feed into it. Be patient and wait till the end if you can. Just my 2 cents.

[RNSrobot]

I don't even understand why. You're driving up the price for yourself?

[Dangard Ace]

Only if they win. They're driving up a bidder to their maximum bid by not outbidding the bidder.

[eNdblu]

Well at least in this case, the person selling it is probably the person that ended up buying it...

Pretty lame tactics though.

Sniping eBay auctions has always been the way to go to make sure you don't get shafted and have people constantly bid up the items

[wervenom]

I don't think so. Someone was trying to outbid him in small increments to see how when they could reach and outbid him. When it fails his bid automatically goes up a little. His max bid was the 154.88 so someone finally did when it hit the 155. Unless you bid on it you would never see the bidding history. In essence it was just the automatic bids we see so it appears he just bid a lot

[Tekkamanraiden]

I've only ever bid my max amount in the last 5 seconds or so.

[Janitor]

Originally Posted by wervenom

I don't think so. Someone was trying to outbid him in small increments to see how when they could reach and outbid him. When it fails his bid automatically goes up a little. His max bid was the 154.88 so someone finally did when it hit the 155. Unless you bid on it you would never see the bidding history. In essence it was just the automatic bids we see so it appears he just bid a lot

Could be this. Or simply shill bidding, ain't nothing new. Someone wins their own auction? The "buyer" flakes and seller relists.

I personally haven't bought off evilBay in ages. They've gone completely down the toilet, especially for Canadians. "Import charges" that cost half the price of the item? GTFO.

[carissa]

That's most likely not shill bidding. That's the eBay auction system at work. And the user l***g trying to see what the other person has bid. A shill bidder will most likely have 0 feedback and be a new user.

(Former eBay CSR)

[Megatron75]

It's tough to say what actually happened with this auction but I agree with Multiplex about bidding at the last possible second. It's one way to keep the price from being driven up and in my case, it keeps me from making a higher (impulsive) bid since I literally don't have the time too. I love when dodgy sellers contact you after the auction ends for a "last chance offer" and want to see if you will still honor your highest bid, after they've artificially driven up the price.

[canprime]

I have to agree with werevenom and Carissa. Not all auctions with incremental bids are shill bidding buyers. Yes some are, but as they have pointed out, the system used on Ebay can easily make it look shady when one buyer starts being cheap and bidding in small amounts to get the high bid as low as possible.

As a buyer it frustrates me to no end when something I am following starts out low and over the course of a couple days it keep rising. WAIT until the end and let me believe for a little while that I might have a chance!!!