Don't be fleeced by the Shill bidder!

Shill bidding, just what exactly is it?
Thousands of unsuspecting buyers on eBay may be getting ripped off every second of the day because some sellers are actually bidding on their own items - a term known as 'shill bidding'. This is the name that has been given to the deliberate act of placing more bids to artificially raise the price of an item that is for sale. Whilst eBay may call this 'Shill bidding' - we call it theft!

Whilst conducting our research we found hundreds of shill bidders on eBay and when you know what to look for, they're much easier to spot. In fact it's such an easy scam to carry out that one account we spotted had swindled well over 200 buyers. The way it works is that an individual sells an item under one account name and when the actual bidding starts they put in another bid ever so often, under a different registered name and drive up the price (and profit) on their own items. Just about every person who had ever bought an item from this one seller had been hoodwinked in to paying far more for the item they where bidding for.

So, how do you spot a shill bidder?
If you are the first person to bid on an item then that's fine, go straight ahead, but if you're interested in an item and one or more people have already placed a bid then it's prudent to check to see if the other people bidding are genuine or not...

How to check;
Go to eBay and go to search, select 'by bidder' by using the yellow tabs and enter any name that you're checking up on (all those who are bidding for the same item). Select 'Include completed items' and hit the search button. It's as easy as that.

If the list of sellers being displayed highlights the seller of the item your looking to bid on under another name, then this seller is a shill bidder. You should report this seller to eBay - this a fraudulent activity and even though it shows a higher turnover of sales and looks good on their books - it's something that they should be keen to stop. The whole point of eBay is to buy the item that you want at a fair price, something that shill bidding makes a mockery of. It's so easy for eBay to list any shill bidders - there are many people who think they should go much further - perhaps once they have been uncovered their account details should be removed for a lengthy period of time.