> I won an auction recently in which there were two bids.
> Mine, made a
> day before auction end, and the second bid 5 minutes before
> the end, for
> $.50 *less* than my high bid. Raised my winning bid by 400%.
> What made
> the shill obvious was that I usually bid odd numbers -
> $16.88, $27.92,
> etc. In this case my high bid (on a $4.99 starting bid) was $26.86.
> The other bid was $26.36.
I also bid odd numbers, mostly because if I bid ?10.01 on a ?0.99
item (so it shows as ?0.99 high bid) and someone later bids ?10,
I'm still winning *and* they have to jump by a whole bid increment.
If I'm bidding against a ?0.99 item where someone else has bid
?10 and I come in with ?10.01, I'm winning - if I'd tried ?10
I'd be losing.
I don't see how a seller could have known you'd bid $26.86
unless there was a high bid that was retracted. If the item
could reasonably have been expected to go for $10, then a
shill bid of $26.36 would be insane.
Is there any evidence of it being a shill rather than just
hugely unfortunate for you? Did the other bid come from
a zero-feedback buyer or a buyer who has made no bids on
anyone other than the seller or anything else that might
suggest a shill?
Antonio
--
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Antonio Carlini arcarlini_at_iee.org
Received on Sun Feb 13 2005 - 06:46:12 GMT