yet ANOTHER eBay story!!!

[Govmnt_Lacky]

Was attempting to buy some headphones for my daughter. When I initially bid on the item, with 30 minutes left, the price was at $17+shipping.

I placed a max bid of $41.50 and the price was pushed to $17.50 and I was the highest bidder. I watched the clock count down and the auction ended.

Once the screen refreshed, it showed me as the winning bidder BUT..... the selling price was $41.50 + shipping 

I looked at the bidding history and, with 2 seconds left on the auction someone just happen to submit 1, single bid that happened to be $0.01 below my max bid! 

Has anyone else seen this before? Not 1 or many incremental bids but, a single bid which just happened to be one penny below my max bid.

Looked at that bidders history and their previous 25 bid histories have only been a single bid in each.

Am I crazy or does something smell fishy here?? It looks to me like someone uses data mining to push bids up by knowing max bids. It just seems that the likelyhood of this being a coincidence is slim and none.

[EBK]

Yes, it is fraud, and here is how they did it:

https://community.ebay.com/t5/Archive-Bidding-Buying/Suspicious-Bidding/td-p/26736032

Er... Or at least they did something like this (they'd have to be able to bid and retract their bid repeatedly).  Im guessing they used this mechanism to figure out your max, then retracted and waited until the last second to rebid the same amount.

Contact ebay.

[Govmnt_Lacky]

Yes, it is fraud, and here is how they did it:

https://community.ebay.com/t5/Archive-Bidding-Buying/Suspicious-Bidding/td-p/26736032

Er... Or at least they did something like this (they'd have to be able to bid and retract their bid repeatedly).  Im guessing they used this mechanism to figure out your max, then retracted and waited until the last second to rebid the same amount.

Contact ebay.

I can see this but, I put my bid in with less than 20 minutes left in the auction. Could they have done that much bidding and cancelling in that limited time? Also, that pin-point dubious bid was submitted with 2 seconds left. It smells more like a sniping tool but one that data mined my max bid.

[EBK]

I think it may be possible for the seller to cancel bids, as an alternative to retracting bids, but I am definitely not an ebay expert.  And, how could they do it quickly? Scripts made for this specific purpose.

[culturejam]

I can see this but, I put my bid in with less than 20 minutes left in the auction. Could they have done that much bidding and cancelling in that limited time? Also, that pin-point dubious bid was submitted with 2 seconds left. It smells more like a sniping tool but one that data mined my max bid.

Yes, I think you can do quite a few bids in 20 minutes. I occasionally do "limit testing" on auctions I'm interested in, and in that case I can do 4-5 bids in about a minute. Actually, I think it's a lot faster than that, but I haven't done it in quite some time. If you bid and aren't the new highest bidder, it immediately asks you if you want to increase your bid. Only takes a few seconds to re-bid.

So this guy kept upping the bid until he found your limit (max bid price), and then once he became the high bidder, he retracted his winning bid, leaving you as the winner at 100% of your max. Sneaky shit. Or maybe they used some kind of direct API script to execute a dozen bids and a retraction in a second or two.

[Rockhorst]

From my limited experience, I gather it should be very simple to write a program that does this.

[gordo]

Definitely fishy....

[reddesert]

I think if there was a retracted bid, it should show up in the bid history, so look there. If there is a last second retracted bid, you should file some kind of complaint.

I don't know of a way they could use data analysis to figure out your max bid, unless you had made similar bids on similar items.

I once had an experience where I was outbid at the last minute and then the seller offered the item to me as a second chance, as if the other bidder had backed out. This is shill bidding (there was something transparent about it too, like the other bidder was from the same town as the seller). I declined.

[lars]

Yes, it is fraud, and here is how they did it:

https://community.ebay.com/t5/Archive-Bidding-Buying/Suspicious-Bidding/td-p/26736032

Er... Or at least they did something like this (they'd have to be able to bid and retract their bid repeatedly).  Im guessing they used this mechanism to figure out your max, then retracted and waited until the last second to rebid the same amount.

Contact ebay.

I would take the conspiracy a bit further. Since Ebay obviously makes more money the higher the bid goes, how hard would it be for them to "hire" people to pull stuff off like this and drive up sales? If they really cared about "fairness", I've always felt that nobody should be allowed to bid more than a couple times just before an auction ends anyway. If someone has been the "high bidder" for more than 90% of the auction duration, they should get some extra leverage as well (a few anti-snipes maybe?)

[Max]

One more reason to bid at the very last. From my experience (without going into conspiracies) most if not all the people that place a bid days in advance usually disappear and never win the auction, they only let the price rise (OK, room for conspiracies ). The winners are always showing up in the last minute or less, and it almost always worked for me as well.

[Zigcat]

Yes, it is fraud, and here is how they did it:

https://community.ebay.com/t5/Archive-Bidding-Buying/Suspicious-Bidding/td-p/26736032

Er... Or at least they did something like this (they'd have to be able to bid and retract their bid repeatedly).  Im guessing they used this mechanism to figure out your max, then retracted and waited until the last second to rebid the same amount.

Contact ebay.

I would take the conspiracy a bit further. Since Ebay obviously makes more money the higher the bid goes, how hard would it be for them to "hire" people to pull stuff off like this and drive up sales? If they really cared about "fairness", I've always felt that nobody should be allowed to bid more than a couple times just before an auction ends anyway. If someone has been the "high bidder" for more than 90% of the auction duration, they should get some extra leverage as well (a few anti-snipes maybe?)

So Ebay must have a warehouse of stuff they have won. Right?

[Govmnt_Lacky]

I think if there was a retracted bid, it should show up in the bid history, so look there. If there is a last second retracted bid, you should file some kind of complaint.

I don't know of a way they could use data analysis to figure out your max bid, unless you had made similar bids on similar items.

The bid history (that I can see) does not show retracted bids. Only manual and automatic bids. All bidding looked normal, at least, according to my experience. The questionably suspect bid was this bidder's only one throughout the auction and it was for exactly 1 penny below my max bid. Prior to that last second "guess of the century" I was the winning bidder with $17.50!

I have used eBay for 10 years at least and have never seen this before! Usually, if a bid is placed that close to closing, it is a sniping program. Even then, they typically show incremental bids until the program gets the highest bid. NOT A SINGLE BID, LAST SECOND, AND LOSING THE AUCTION!! Even if the "sniper" did set their max snipe bid at $41.49, it would still show the snipe program bidding more than once to try to get the best deal for the sniper. NOT A SINGLE BID OF THE MAX!

[Muadzin]

Isn't sniping, especially automated sniping another means by which a bid could go up very rapidly in the very last seconds? I know I've done it. In fact its how I usually do it. Mea culpa.

One more reason to bid at the very last. From my experience (without going into conspiracies) most if not all the people that place a bid days in advance usually disappear and never win the auction, they only let the price rise (OK, room for conspiracies ). The winners are always showing up in the last minute or less, and it almost always worked for me as well.

I've noticed it too. There's basically no point whatsoever to place a bid long before, as somebody will try to raise the price, and the biggest competition, the snipers, only come in at the last seconds. But I too have noticed that there are bidders, who usually don't win, but are still busy driving up the bids. Sometimes slowly incrementally by a single dollar or euro.

[Govmnt_Lacky]

Isn't sniping, especially automated sniping another means by which a bid could go up very rapidly in the very last seconds? I know I've done it. In fact its how I usually do it. Mea culpa.

Yes it is however, with automated sniping you would see more than one sniped bid as the programs goal is to get the item for the lowest possible price (up to what you deem to be your maximum bide). It is not a one shot deal. Also, the purpose of sniping is to WIN the auction. Not to be the 1st loser.

[culturejam]

The bid history (that I can see) does not show retracted bids. Only manual and automatic bids.

I think retracted bids are only shown in aggregate in the user's profile. I'll bet if you look at that user's profile, you'll see a lot of retracted bids.