BE CAREFUL ON EBAY!!! please read

#17
I'm not a big fan of eBay either and try to avoid where possible. Basically I will buy small items from there such as my doggy monthly flee treatments, etc. as their prices are more competitive cf a retail store. However, for high-end items, I'm quite leery of eBay and will only resort to it if there's something I can't find anywhere else and must have.
 
#18
Let me elaborate on the shill bidding process and why ebay will NEVER step in and stop it:

Shill bidding is when a seller creates several different profiles and usernames, and when they post an auction, at some point they will use one of those different usernames to bid on their own auctions, thereby artificially raising the price.

There are several different ways to detect shill bidders, things that raise red flags, such as geographic location, and when looking up bidders and sellers' auctions if there are more than one auction of a particular seller that a certain bidder has bid on, and that a bidder hasn't bid on anything similar in other auctions.

If the auction is PRIVATE, you have no way whatsoever of detecting this kind of fraud. EBay CLAIMS it's illegal and against their policy, BUT... eBay's fees are based on what an item sells for, meaning no matter who bids on it eBay makes more dinero, so it's not in their best interest to curb shill bidding.
In the past, I've reported instances of OBVIOUS shill bidding, and they've done little if nothing at all, and frankly even if they actually cancelled a user's account, it's not the hardest thing in the world for anyone to set up another one.

Just so you know what kind of people are out there on eBay: There was one instance where I was looking for a car a few months ago, and I tried emailing a seller to look one car over, (they didn't put a phone number or any other contact info,) and when I got no response, I did some digging and found their photos hosted by an external website... as well as 5 other eBay usernames using the same website. When I did a WHOIS on that website, I googled the registered owner's name, and found out said owner was CONVICTED of rolling back odometers on 75 cars in the state of Pennsylvania, and yet he was shill bidding on all of his automobile auctions.

Ebay did NOTHING when I contacted them about it.

Caveat Emptor.
 
#21
Wow - now i'm COMPLETELY jaded on ebay!!! The other way to detect "shill bidding" is if the person that's bidding against you had little to no feedback. Not always an indicator - but often has been for me on auctions that I was watching or bidding on.
 
#22
Yeah, eBay is full of ppl who are looking to scam you one way or another. Shill bidding has always been a problem. It's really up to us to look out for the signs, plus not get carried away by the bidding. Keep our wits about us. And it's difficult to detect, if not impossible, in a private listing. Good idea to stick to sellers you trust like someone from tPF, for example. But yes, at the end of the day, it's buyer beware indeed.
 
#24
thank you, beauxgoris, for this post!!!

i've never heard of this fake second-offer scam from ebay. i'm amazed to this day how savvy fakers&scammers are becoming with all these new tricks. so terrible. :wtf:
 
#25
THIS JUST HAPPENED TO ME on the taupe city that I was bidding on (and lost), that was won by bid-2-win!!!!!!!!!! I noticed I didn't get it in my ebay messages (which is how you tell if it's fraud btw) so I emailed the original seller of the bag just to confirm if she sent me a 2nd chance offer. I CAN'T BELIEVE how bad this is...I mean it not only is fraud, but it gives us false hope and then crushes our hearts!!!!!!!!!
 
#26
OMG!! The same thing happened to me a few weeks ago! Thankfully I didn't agree to it because I'd just bought another bag but I believed it. Now that I think about it, I thought that it was weird that the seller didn't send me a second chance offer through ebay but I didn't really suspect anything
 
#27
didi78 said:
THIS JUST HAPPENED TO ME on the taupe city that I was bidding on (and lost), that was won by bid-2-win!!!!!!!!!! I noticed I didn't get it in my ebay messages (which is how you tell if it's fraud btw) so I emailed the original seller of the bag just to confirm if she sent me a 2nd chance offer. I CAN'T BELIEVE how bad this is...I mean it not only is fraud, but it gives us false hope and then crushes our hearts!!!!!!!!!
Click to expand...

:rant: :rant: these scammers are such :censor: losers!!! If you get any type of "second chance offer" through your personal email, definitely check your eBay messages. If there's not the same "second chance offer" there, the one emailed is not legit
 
#29
didi78 said:
THIS JUST HAPPENED TO ME on the taupe city that I was bidding on (and lost), that was won by bid-2-win!!!!!!!!!! I noticed I didn't get it in my ebay messages (which is how you tell if it's fraud btw) so I emailed the original seller of the bag just to confirm if she sent me a 2nd chance offer. I CAN'T BELIEVE how bad this is...I mean it not only is fraud, but it gives us false hope and then crushes our hearts!!!!!!!!!
Click to expand...

OMG!!! I can't believe this! This is really awful!!!
 
#30
beaux, so glad you caught that! that's really scary. thanks for the heads up. i always get "ebay" emails that say i need to update my cc info. i think they are scammers as well. i just delete them.
 
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