OBSERVING 'FAKE BIDDERS'

[madambuttefly]

I AM VERY DISTURBED BY THE METHOD OF BIDDING ON ITEMS WHICH USUALLY START AT A VERY LOW PRICE.THE TRICK USED IS SUCH.......THE ITEM IS LISTED.THEN LOTS OF GENUINE BUYERS START BIDDING FOR THIS ITEM.AFTER A FEW DAYS SOME 'FAKE BIDDER'COMES IN AND STARTS PUSHING UP THE PRICES OF THE ITEMS.THIS BIDDER HAS NO PURCHASE HISTORY BUT IN MY OPINION IS SOME HOW CONNECTED TO THE SELLER AS THE ID WAS CREATED A FEW DAYS EARLIER OR ON THE SAME DAY AS THE ITEM WAS LISTED.MY OBSERVATION TELLS ME THAT ITS ONLY HAPPENING WITH CERTAIN SELLERS WHO HAVE LISTED ITEMS UNDER DIFFERENT SHOPS.ONE SELLER PROBABLY OWNS A FEW SHOPS AS THE DESCRIPTION TERMS AND CONDITIONS ARE ALL THE SAME.ITS TOTALLY UNFAIR AS THESE ARE CHEATERS.WHY LIST AN ITEM IF SUCH FOOLISH GAMES ARE BEING PLAYED ON EBAY.ITS RATHER IMMATURE AND SUCH A WASTE OF TIME FOR THE GEBUINE BUYERS.

[sapana@ebay.com]

Hi madambuttefly,

I appreciate your concern about a seller bidding on his own item (shill bidding).

At eBay we are completely uncomfortable with this kind of behaviour. We proactively monitor the site and take appropriate action agasint sellers who indulge in such activites. However, if you feel a particular seller is indulging in shill bidding, I will encourage you to report the seller.

On the bottom of every listing page, there is a link called "report this item" >>> Fradulent Listing >>> Seller is using other accounts to inflate price >>> Continue.

I hope this helps!

Regards,
Sapana

[faayim]

Hi ebayers,
This is with reference to the comments made by madambuttefly and Sapana. The comments looked almost genuine and true on one hand. But if u see on the other hand, I'm being a seller, I do experience this sort of bidding activities; within a couple of days after listing, my item is filled with heavy load of members with Icon "less than 30 days". And when I check for his/her sign-up history, the date is exactly the day when he made the bid. So who is to blame now???


Sorry to say...the lack of identity-info verification of ebay has to be blamed!!

Members with less than 30 days should not be allowed to Bid/buy/sell unless their information is verified in hand.

If this lacking activity gets going unnoticed, then (again sorry to say) ebay becomes a clear-cut Nightmare to both Sellers and Buyers!

Please consider this issue; (we can only raise our voice by posting here;)

We all Love ebay!!

[faayim]

Pls omit the emoticon " 😉 " it was by mistake

[madambuttefly]

HI ALL.
I m sure this style of bidding by the 'fakes'has been noticed by many others as well.It appears to be a common practice on various items.I am very particular on my bidding and I can clearly see how prices are inflated.Some genuine bidders get fed up and stop bidding once they have picked up a vibe that there's a game being played.
I have noticed that once the bidding is over there is never a feedback for that particular item.The buyer never ever says'payment sent' or the seller 'payment received' I monitor every aspect of that item in the following weeks.I find this very strange and hard to digest.What a shrewd way of doing business .
IT IS CLEAR TO ME THAT SOME SELLERS JUST CANNOT BE TRUSTED NO MATTER HOW POWERFUL THEIR REPUTAION IN THE BUSINESS WORLD IS.

[madambuttefly]

Faayim.YOU HAVE A SMALL OPERATION ON EBAY WITH VERY FEW ITEMS ON SALE.I RATE YOU 10/10 FOR YOUR HONESTY.MY CONCERN IS ABOUT THE 'BIG GUYS' WHO HAVE 1000'S OF ITEMS ON SALE.THEY ARE PLAYING THIS GAME BECAUSE THEY MAY HAVE A PROBLEM SELLING THEIR ITEMS AND IN ORDER TO MAKE SOME BUCKS ARE LISTING AN ITEM @Rs 1 AND THEY ARE AWARE ITS AN ATTRACTION FOR BIDDERS.ONCE THE BIDDING STARTS ITS WATCHED BY THE SELLER AND THEN THE 'FAKE BIDDER'PLAYS HIS/HER ROLE....
BIDDERS ARE SHY TO REPORT SUCH ACTIVITY FOR PERSONAL REASONS BUT I BELIEVE IN TOTAL HONESTY AND I DONT THINK ITS ACCEPTABLE.HOW COME ITS NOT HAPPENING ON OTHER EBAY SITES?????????? JUST ON EBAY INDIA.
SOME SELLERS FEEL THAT THERE'S NO SMART BIDDERS AROUND BUT THEY WILL HAVE TO GET SMARTER BECAUSE I AM ONE OF THE 'SMART' ONES WHO IS WATCHING THEIR TRICKS.

[emailswarup]

Hi,
This is a very common problem in eBay. You may report those as mentioned by Sapana, but with the different User IDs the sellers use for such biddings, its difficult to relate them.
Sometimes to avoid those I check the biddings in the other items of the seller. Then put my bid at the last minute. If the seller has not put a very high auto bid then I win. But its rare.
Mostly I prefer to avoid such sellers.
Hope eBay will come up with a better & more secured system. .
Best Regards 😄
Swarup
Kolkata

[nbc_international]

Hello !

This reply is in reference to post by madambuttefly and Sapana.

I completely agree with the point of faayim.

I myself being a seller experience the same problem as faayim.

There are many fraud buyers in eBay, who place a high value bid than the actual price of the item.
And these bidders are mostly registered in the past few days of bid placed or on the same day.

It becomes very difficult for us sellers in such cases.

I have a habit of calling the buyer immediately as the listing ends.Out of 10 buyers, only 1-2 come up to be true in purchasing the item.

Remaining other provide such an illegitimate reason like "Bid was placed just for fun, bid was just to test eBay, no funds to purchase the item" and many more like these.

Sometimes, the buyers have a weired address like below :
305, Choclate lane,
Cadbury house,
Banglore
Tel : 9820098200
Now in this case, it appears that the buyer is fraud as the address and the contact no are completely wrong.

Additionally, we sellers have to wait for 14 days to gain the FVF for these Fraud Buyers.

Now when other buyers like madambuttefly make a precise study on the sellers items, it is obvious that it will pinch their mind with a reasonable thought of shill bidding by the seller.

Precisely, eBay is completely responsible for all these problems.

Firstly, there are thousands of new members registered on eBay per day.
eBay must improvize the Registration method for each and every new member.
Secondly, the details must be verified and then new buyers must be approved for bidding.

And the most important point, eBay must have a Telephone Customer Care service available.
Because, whenever we face any problems, we are required to write an email to eBay.
Till this date, i have never ever received any reply within 1-2 days for the querry.
We even understand that it takes time to reply due to loads of querries being posted in a single day.

But almost every buyer and seller will appretiate if their querry is resolved in few minutes by a telephonic conversation.

Hope eBay does look into the above mentioned suggestions and improvize.

Thanks you.

[snrama]

Hi,

This is a common problem with the Auction Listings. Reporting all listings takes time and can't do by a single member.

This is because most of the sellers (who are from Baazee) haven't changed their marketing style and also the competition at eBay is quite more than Baazee.

All new members aren't fake. Almost 50% of my buyers are new and almost 70% are honest.

nbc_international, you are absolutely right. Some users have wrong address and phone numbers. This should be take care from eBay team by verifying all new users and I hope they do.

I suggest to avoid those immature sellers. ---------------
With Regards,
Navaneeth (snrama) 😉

[vikram93]

Hi! you`re absolutely right!I too have the same problem.
Everytime I sell an item,the buyer would be a new ebay user registered on ebay not less than 2 or 3 days!
I am going to write an email to the ebay head office and report this problem!