shills and snipers
Howard --
When multiple bids are placed by a bidder who has won few or no auctions (and therefore has essentially no feedback) , the suspicion arises that the seller, or a cohort of the seller, has set up an eBay account for the sole purpose of bidding up the price. By contrast, a bidder who has won many auctions and has good feedback can be presumed to be a legitimate bidder.
In the Skowhegan auction, there were four bidders who had each won hundreds of auctions and had 100% good feedback -- the winner, me, and two others. It is unlikely that any of these four were shills. There were also three bidders with histories of either 0 or 1 auction win. They may have been legitimate -- everybody has to start sometime -- but one or more may have been a shill. The repeat initial bidding appears to have had no impact on the outcome -- I based my (losing) bid on my estimate of the value of the canoe, not on the bid history. The first time this boat was auctioned, my snipe bid was not even entered, being under other bids that had been placed near the end of the auction. The second time this boat was offered, my slightly higher snipe bid was the highest bid, but was below the reserve. And the 3d time, with no reserve, I just came in second.
The Wisconsin boat had two bidders with several hundred winning auctions, and one bidder (the winner) with twenty auctions, all with 100% feedback -- not likely to be shills. But there was 1 with no wins, 2 with 1 wins, 2 with 2 wins, and 1 with 8 wins. The 0, 1, and 2 wins could be shills, but perhaps not. 45% of the 8 win bidder's bids were placed with this seller, but that probably does not indicate a shill, since he/she placed 17 bids in this auction alone, so probably dealt with 7 other sellers in other auctions. It looks like this person just got caught up in spirited (fevered?) bidding against the 0, 1, and 2 bidders, and certainly the price got bid up -- by shills? Perhaps not, but ???? Was the relatively inexperienced 20 winning bidder the victim of a price illegally bid up? Who knows, but one does wonder.
Roger --
I didn't miss the overall point of your comments -- I agree generally that eBay has changed over the years, is now less civil, and that a sharp eye must be maintained to avoid sellers who are ignornant, cheats, and scammers. Nor did I take your comments personally.
It's just that I have never understood the antipathy and hostility to sniping.
When an auction ends at a predetermined time, as do eBay auctions, the late bidder willing to bid high will win, and will, I suppose, upset an early, low bidder who was hoping for a bargain. But that's just the game, and does not make the late bidder incivil or unfriendly, even if he used a computer program to snipe. There is a rough and tumble aspect to virtually any auction -- and over the years I have participated in live auctions and absentee auctions (both commercial and philanthropic). It is not surprising that in the world of large-scale, impersonal electronic communication, electronic auctions might be a bit rougher and tumblier than small, local country auctions. By my experience is that in even the friendliest auction, people employ tactics and strategy in hopes of having a low high bid (the only exception being charity auctions where being the highest high bidder is sometimes a desirable position).
I, too, used to sit at the computer to place a final (and perhaps first) bid personally at the end of auctions , but found that delays caused by my computer or ISP often left me without having placed a bid at all. And of course, as I noted above, personal bidding is often inconvenient or impossible.
I take an active interest in trying to keep eBay sellers honest -- I was the person who told the recent seller of a mis-described model canoe how to withdraw his offering, after being one of several correspondents who informed him that his model was not an Old Town, but a cheap import. I am a bit less concerned with warning an eBay seller that the sow's ear on offer may be, in fact, a silk purse -- the seller has had ample opportunity to figure that out before listing an item, whereas buyers have only such information as the seller chooses to give. Let the seller, as well as the buyer, beware!
But I have always figured that there is nothing improper, unfriendly, incivil, or frown-worthy in playing by the well-established rules of the game.
In friendship -- Greg
