Possible Shiller or Just Coincidence?

[The Great Zo]

I'll refrain from putting the person's username in the topic title, at least for now.

Here's the evidence. I was watching this auction, and thought the card sold pretty well -- maybe too well. I didn't think anything of it until finding the same card listed again, by the same seller -- busportscards.

I looked back at the bid history of the first auction, and found something strange. The winning bidder has 95% of their bid activity with the seller. So, they won the auction for that Tim Thomas card, and the original seller had it re-listed just a week or two later, with no feedback exchanged. Alone, this is pretty damning evidence.

However, the auction winner has a good feedback score (2698) and only one bid retraction in the past six months, neither or which are characteristics of typical shill accounts.

Anyone have any thoughts, or prior dealings with this seller to relate to?

 

[deepbluejacket]

There's customer loyalty, but that's kind of insane. 95% with one seller and with this sort of heavy activity? If I had that kind of relationship with a seller, I wouldn't be dealing with him through eBay anymore - I'd have a direct line to save us both a lot of fees.

A feedback of 2698 is VERY high for a shiller, but if it was a 2nd selling account (or a former selling account), it could get to those numbers.

[REMOVED a bunch of stuff that shows how little I know about eBay these days]

Man, when did eBay become such a black box?

Mike

 

[deepbluejacket]

Maybe I don't understand the stats eBay is presenting. When I look at the suspect's bidding history, he's got one where he made 30 bids and the last bid was in the last hour. I can't find that auction. The seller of the Thomas card only has 40 auctions going (and none recently completed) and none of them have that kind of activity.

Mike

 

[Fritz]

If anyone wanted to view my bidding history it could look similar depending how far back it tracks. I very rarely find anything I need on ebay that isn't BIN/BO and when I do find an auction I want to bid on I'll usually pick away at the high bidder early on in tiny increments to see how much I can expect to spend when the auction actually ends. I've seen auctions where I'll put 25 bids on one item which I assume would make my % way up with any particular seller since it would likely be the only card I've bid on in 3-4 weeks or more.

*edit* just noticed that you mentioned it was relisted... not sure what to make of it now haha

 

[gallinator]

Maybe I don't understand the stats eBay is presenting. When I look at the suspect's bidding history, he's got one where he made 30 bids and the last bid was in the last hour. I can't find that auction. The seller of the Thomas card only has 40 auctions going (and none recently completed) and none of them have that kind of activity.

Mike

That's this one here (just searched seller's completed auctions and I picked the one that had the most bids):

http://www.ebay.com/itm/STEVEN-STAM...ORABLE-NUMBERS-PATCH-AUTO-13-91-/181238935071

and a look at the bidding may actually reveal NO shilling - depending on how much intelligence you want to credit to shillers. I'll explain below, but let's see how the top two look (if this pastes correctly):

o***e ( 152Feedback score is 100 to 499) US $280.00
Oct-21-13 16:46:01 PDT

o***e ( 152Feedback score is 100 to 499) US $280.00
Oct-20-13 22:25:19 PDT

a***a ( 2698Feedback score is 1000 to 4,999) US $275.00
Oct-21-13 16:55:05 PDT

a***a ( 2698Feedback score is 1000 to 4,999) US $265.00
Oct-21-13 16:54:43 PDT


The eventual winner, o***e, puts in a bid of $280 on 10/20 at 22:25 and then puts an "insurance" bid on top of that (even though he is currently the high bidder, he is just increasing his top bid). a***a comes along on 10/21 at 16:54 and places his 29th and 30th bids on the item, at $265 (which makes him outbid at $270) and then the next increment 1-click bid at $275 (which then pushes the high bidder to $280).

If a***a then were to look at the bid history at that moment, he would see that there are still two bids at $280 or above - in other words, he could see the "cushion" that o***e created (I just tested this on a live auction) and therefore would have little reason NOT to add another bid (to $285) in order to squeeze another $10 out of the high bidder IF he were a shiller. Note the only way this wouldn't work is if the high bids were both less than the next bid increment of $285, in which case the shill bid would be winning.

Now (to paraphrase and adapt a Batman quote) we know that shillers are a cowardly, disgraceful lot, but they generally know what they are doing when it comes to shilling. I cannot imagine a shiller not taking another stab at it given the bid situation above, unless they decided that $280 was above the minimum price they wanted to get.

I could, of course, be completely wrong, but that's one interpretation of events.

Regarding the Tim Thomas, a***a placed one $30 (or higher) bid with 5 days left in a 7-day auction and no one else came along with a higher bid before it ended. If this is NOT a shill situation and a***a had buyer's remorse and asked for an out from the seller, I guess I could see the seller saying OK, given how much activity the seller gets from a***a. But it certainly looks weird.

I looked at a few other completed auctions where a***a has bids with that seller; there are a number of them where a***a is the 2nd-highest bidder but not all are that way.

So, it's unclear. Possible shilling, possible friend of the seller who likes to bump his buddy's auctions and maybe got snagged on the $30 Thomas. If I were looking at this seller's items and wanted to bid on them, I would probably contact the seller and ask for an explanation. That might get you onto his blocked bidder list, but you might get an answer you can evaluate. I would proceed with caution.

Cheers!

Paul

 

[The Great Zo]

Thanks for your comments Paul. Adds some insight into the scenario!

The Tim Thomas card ended yesterday, only for $18 this time. Although only for $7, a***a did bid on it again -- why the heck would a user who already "won" the card bid on the relist? This time, neither the #1 or #2 bidders have much of a history with the seller, so it doesn't look like it was shilled (and the price is much more in line with what I would have expected it to sell for).