Pick a schill a day

[RiffRaff]

Countessa. I have received a fake SCO on a motorcycle. Luckily, I contacted the original seller to check the authenticity, then sent the email to eBay. The items I have heard of in the past that are targeted by the scammers have been in the higher price range (eBay motors). BTW UHM.

Yib, that was my error.

[Poddy]

Yep my own real live account just to prove to ebay that the seller was a scammer.

I sent a mail to T&S before i did it and also talked to Live Help to tell them what I was doing, I had the email so it couldnt be swept under the carpet hehehehe

[tellomon]

Can I ask what sort of items people have bid upon to receive an SCO? Is it possibly electronic items?

Drum parts & accessories; cymbals, Hot Rod T-Shirts and DVDs.

[bobbybigbear]

You cant enforce the law by breaking it yourself. It's vigilante stuff and what dodgy and scambay was all about.

It also signalled one of the darkest periods of RT, when those ID's that were registered to do this, were turned on good members, simply because some of the morons with these ID's had found a way of controlling the forums by using their multiple ID's to report peoples posts, knowing full well the automatic reporting system would end up having them banned.

As noble as some think the cause may be, it leads to the temptation of using the method for other means, and that $hits me to tears, as a victim of it.
I have never met one person who does this that will ever admit to getting it wrong, yet I know many who were wrongly accused because of agenda's far removed from selling.  It has been used for category domination, and for those who are simply better marketers, who have sales well beyond a jealous competitor, who doesn't mind doing what you do.

Not impressed at all.

[Poddy]

Tello,

Would they have been Zombie DVDs by any chance?

[Poddy]

I broke no actual or moral law.

If the items that were adertised would have met the criteria of their description I would have honoured my bid.
But as I KNEW that they were fake I was not bound by any moral or actual law to pay for a fake.

The side effect of this was that a lot of people were saved from getting ripped off and it highlighted to eBay the bidders were being taken advantage of by a crook.

Some of the unwary bidders WERE impressed that someone put their neck on the line for them fo no gain.

[*Yibida*]

I broke no actual or moral law.

If the items that were adertised would have met the criteria of their description I would have honoured my bid.
But as I KNEW that they were fake I was not bound by any moral or actual law to pay for a fake.

The side effect of this was that a lot of people were saved from getting ripped off and it highlighted to eBay the bidders were being taken advantage of by a crook.

Some of the unwary bidders WERE impressed that someone put their neck on the line for them fo no gain.

Wherever there is injustice, you will find me.
 
Wherever there is suffering, I'll be there.
 
Wherever liberty is threatened, you will find... Poddy !!....LOLOL you da man !!

[Poddy]

How did I KNOW they were fake?

2Gb red iPods dont exist and never have done

[Poddy]

Hey Yibi do I have to wear a cape now and wear my jocks on the outside?

[tellomon]

Tello,

Would they have been Zombie DVDs by any chance?

I'm calling "Off Topic" !!!





C):-{= <" what do think, Winston?"

[*cupie*]

Wherever there is injustice, you will find me.
 
Wherever there is suffering, I'll be there.
 
Wherever liberty is threatened, you will find... Poddy !!....LOLOL you da man !!

Hi Ho Silver.......................

[bobbybigbear]

Poddy, I have seen that posted a thousand times, I have two hardrives full of posts where people boasted of such deeds.
My first visit to the Diner I read where one bloke (name supplied on request) admitted to having over 500 id's naru'd in less than a year, doing the same as you did.

This person's hatred grew of members on RT who spoke out about this type of action. One member was driven to the point of nervous breakdown, I have have pursued this idiot since he started his vendetta on me, he has vented his spleen in the most obnoxious way, to many members of RT over the years.

It always starts somewhere Poddy, and this mongrel taught others how to do the same things, and on it went as they followed in his games.  I agree, the problem is large, but if the same thing was done to you, and you were selling a genuine product, and it was done because someone didn't like you, or you stood up to a baiter on a forum, how would you feel.

It happens, has happened, and continues to happen, because people step outside the rules, and that's what the scammers do, and if the ordinary everyday members decide to take it upon themselves to use deceitful means to stop it, then it ecourages other forms of this behaviour, and then anarchy rules.

[Poddy]

Just by your description of person you have described i know you are meaning dear Bwoosie.

Bobby he and I have crossed swords many times.

You may have missed that I did inform ebay of my actions prior to doing then and that it was done with my real ID.

I would also help a person getting mugged without waiting for a cop to show up

[tellomon]

See what you did?

[bobbybigbear]

I would also help a person getting mugged without waiting for a cop to show up

Done that more times than you have had hot dinners, just where I grew up teaches you that.

My bet is ebay didn't approve of your action though.

I am not going to condem you for wanting to save others from being ripped off, but ebay will eventually close because of all the side issues like this as well.


Actually not Bwooosie, but possibly the bloke that taught him, back when he wasn't a bad bloke.


I have been so tempted to use the same tactics against them, but so far resisted the urge.

If they stick their ugly heads up again, you and I will talk

[Poddy]

hey Tello,

Any Zombies come out of the ground after that quake?

[Poddy]

Yes Bobby, there is a choice in life that you have to make, there is no middle ground, no fence to sit on.

That choice is , are you going to be a mugger or are you going to oppose muggers.

Some people think that they can live on a knife edge but a lot of people do the splits, pun intended.

OUCH!!!!

[*cupie*]

I've always viewed things from a big picture perspective....causative factors cannot be ignored in all this........I believe that Ebay is responsible for fostering the actual 'culture' and opportunity for shill bidding to exist, and as such, it is their responsibility to curtail it.... it follows therefore, that until they take responsibility for the shill culture they've created....then opportunistic people will push the envelope.  

So do you blame those who take advantage of a loophole that Ebay clearly do nothing to close? or do you consider Ebay responsible for enabling and perpetuating the culture of shilling in the first place via their indifference to it?  In this case, it's not a matter of the chicken or the egg....If ebay acted to curtail the practice by verifying members, and allowing only 2 accounts per member etc (amongst other things) then maybe the culture would change.

Extreme Commerce...Greed is Good....Anything for a buck mentality !!!

[bobbybigbear]

In the real world, I have had no problems in the direction I take. I hate bullies, and always took a stand against them.
Same with crooks, but in my days it was totally different. Crooks didn't worry families and deccent people, only petty crooks like thieves, and they were dealt with if caught.

The internet is something different, and those that have criminal tendencies, but are worried about retribution in the real world, don't seem to have much fear on the internet.

Anyway, the Tigers game is about to start so I'll be watching that, and drop by later.

[tellomon]

Any Zombies come out of the ground after that quake?

No.

DRAGONS, ya wonk!!!!

[ernest_price]

Well it's only 2 days until I get my next SCO and a daughter who will have the world's biggest grin as she gets her next SCO from this seller also.

The original items we both got our first SCO's from this seller are magically up for sale again now, after waiting an 'appropriate' time between ending and re-listing, of course.

Is bidfraud a decent site to pop their name on or ?

[Poddy]

Cupie that culture will never stop, morality has been bred out of, and the God $ bred into the generations, I can't see a reversal of that no matter how hard I look, all that can be done is resist the trend in the hopes that others may also become awae of it and resist as well.

Yibi and room om Mars for a small colony?

[Poddy]

ernest,

I think Phil Cohen had a link that you can use earlier in this thread.

As a matter of interest what is the iten that you will SCOs on

[ernest_price]

Camera equipment.

[Poddy]

big company?

[Philip.Cohen]

I’ve mentioned this 100 times before, too: I have never received a fraudulent SCO (maybe if I change my deodorant?); and the only “genuine” SCO that I have ever received resulted from a seller’s failed attempt to shill bid me higher. So, I too am extremely skeptical about eBay’s “fraudulent SCO” excuse for the introduction of “hidden bidders.” I believe absolutely nothing that eBay says; I assume everything they say is “spin”; everything they do (or don’t do) is aimed solely at improving their bottom line—in total desperation these days.

Poddy,

“The cryptic a***b that is allocated to a bidder is only allocated once and that is what you have fron then on regardless of how many items you bid on.”

Sorry, not so, these masked bidding aliases are being changed on a periodic (quarterly?) basis, and there can be no reason for doing this other than to obscure matters. (I have covered this point in my case study.)

Check your “logged out” status bidding ID across two quarters and you will see that it has changed. Devious aren’t they. They don’t want you to be able to track a suspicious bidder for too long.

The only way you can identify a winning bidder is by watching the seller’s feedback; but why would you want to id a winning bidder anyway, other than to warn them that they had been shilled?

And we don’t want a different ID for every auction; that’s what we had before with “Bidder 1”, etc. We don’t even need these latest aliases; even if you can discover a user’s unique ID, what have you got? A user ID and a vague geographic location; you could send them a message via the eBay messaging system, but why would anyone want to do that?

Cupie,

Grays Online extend an auction by 10 minutes if a bid is made within a certain short period of the nominated time for the auction to end; seems to work OK there; although I prefer the “power” of the snipe on a fixed time ending myself. eBay is a different kettle of fish. I doubt eBay would try to change the existing system, for ultimately, neither the sellers or eBay can flourish without the confidence of the buyers (even though they don’t pay the fees); if they lose too many more buyers the whole thing will nose dive even further.

And, I tell you, I worry when I see a bidder with high feedback nibble bidding; I think only extremely naïve bidders or shill bidders habitually nibble bid.

Bobbybigbear,

I use my own (USD20) database sniping program so they can’t stop me sniping unless they stop me bidding. And anyway, it's still the highest bidder that wins.
Yibida,

Only on one other major forum have I come across the 30 minute limitation on re-editing a post; auctionbytes offers unlimited editing; as one guy criticizing my shill bidding thread pointed out that I had edited it over 200 times, and I responded, “So!” It is a “living” document; it grows a little more nearly every day!

[Poddy]

Philip,

I wonder who the editing person might be ??

Well I guess it keep him of the streets hahahaha

I'll have to check out thr periodic cryptic ID changes, it would be interesting to know the time frame

[Poddy]

well RL is tugging at my coat tail so thanks for the discussion and enlightnment people , I'll check back later

[*cupie*]

“So …”—it is a “living” document; it grows a little more nearly every day!

Nicely put.... much like awareness is a living thing and grows a little more every time that living document is amended.  Some people might view it as back peddling, but any objective person will always re-assess their view with each new piece of evidence in any analysis....

As I said earlier though....Ebay make no secret of the fact that they are trying to phase out the auction platform in place of BIN items.....so...I guess that whoever steps into the online auction void will inherit this same culture unless they approach it from another perspective.

[bobbybigbear]

I am assuming, that there are public access sites on the internet that track IP's, as I have read this on one site, and been threatened with it as my ISP IP was gained through a header on an email.

People have even posted it's possible for someone with the necessary skil, to tell who is on ebays forums from IP addresses, and some process of elimination.

One can assume that, unless a dynamic IP is used on every occasion, the IP from a sniper programme could be obtained and banned. I know I ban proxy servers from my forums, as this is what the ferals use to register filthy names on the site.

I do know the people involved in the vendetta gainst me have a high level of computer skills, or a high level of Bull$hit.

Either way, I have resited the temptation to use their same tactics against them, or indeed others.

It is a fact that I have registered accounts on forums in order to glean information, and return serve, but I have not done that on ebay or oztion.

I have often wished I could change suits, and do the same as they do, but no matter how I feel justified, I cannot bring myself to do it, or coerce others to do it.  It has taught me a lot about computers and the net though.

[bobbybigbear]

Incidentally, the old auction site Sold.com.au had extended auctions.  A bid in the last 5 minutes extended the auction by 2 minutes. I loved it, but that was pre broadband, and on dial up, you needed that time to place a bid and have it accepted.
In those days, bidding wars were the norm, and you would never put up a bid, because auctions gave you a higher return.

I still believe ebay should of stayed in Packer hands, and if it did, I don't believe we would be talking about the problems that we do.

The Answer to shill bidding is simple, join ebay NZ, there if there is a bid, it's a shill bid

[ernest_price]

big company?

1700+ feedback on that ID. So not large but at $XX extra per item that's a lot of $$$$ extra.

[Bellagina]

I received a SCO on some second hand baby clothes I had bid on for my daughter, about 5 minutes after the auction ended!

Now what's the chance that I was shill bid on that one!


Hubby used to get lots of fake SCOs when he was trying to buy a computer program under a certain price - this was before hidden bidders came in, so I guess at least this sort of thing has been slowed by the hidden ids.

[Philip.Cohen]

Hi Bellagina,

I think that anyone would have to be dopey to be taken in by a fraudulent SCO; does anyone know anyone who has actually been taken in? And, even if you were taken in, you at least found out pretty quickly that you had been taken in and you did not let it happen again. Now, you don't know that you are being taken in by a sophisticated shill bidder. "Ignorence is bliss" so they say, so I suppose that is an improvement—for eBay that is.

[*barny*]

Um, Philip,

I was not "taken in" but did take up an SCO, even though I believed the seller was using shill bidding..

I wanted the item, which is a rare one, and the SCO was the amount that I was prepared to pay.

I knew that I should have ignored the SCO at the time, but I just didn't want to wait a couple of years for this item, or another one to come up...

What do you, and others think the best thing to do is when confronted with a dilemma like this ??

 

[Philip.Cohen]

barny,

The point is your SCO, like the only SCO that I have ever received, was a "genuine" SCO that followed on from a failed shill bid attempt; but nevertheless it was a "genuine" SCO, not one of the totally fraudulent type that "hidden bidders" was supposedly introduced to stop. You chose to accept yours; that's OK; I chose not to and told the seller why.

I suppose I should rephrase that question: Has anyone ever received a truly fraudulent SCO, paid your money by some untraceable means, never received the goods, and never heard from the "seller" again?

[ernest_price]

The question was asked on the old eBay RT quite a while ago. Out of all the people in there, with some truly huge eBay length and breadth, there was maybe 10 fake SCO's.

I have received one, roughly 4 years ago, but it was so amateurish I nearly wanted to buy it anyway so as to reward the person for the humour they brought me that morning.

[Philip.Cohen]

So, what does that suggest? That there was some other purpose for the introduction of "hidden bidders". It certainly had nothing to do with the security of buyers that I can see. Then I know eBay to be a thoroughly unscrupulous and disingenuous organisation, so I am not surprised at anything that they do. They also seem to think that most of their users are stupid, and they may well me right in that assumption, as we have been putting up with their crap for a long time, although, looking at their 09Q2 financial results, less are putting up with it of late.

[*cupie*]

Hi Phil....the Hip pocket seems to be the only place it makes an impression on ebay....and I doubt they'll consider the views of their customers until it registers on their diminishing profits..........meanwhile, if they played fair, their popularity and consumer trust would grow....Getting rid of the founding niche market of collectors is going to be something they don't live to regret, me thinks......are they dumb or something?  Who get's rid of your founding niche market and lives to tell the tale?...dumb, dumber, dumbest move I've ever seen.

[bobbybigbear]

Most of this concurs with my assumptions that everything ebay does in the way of changing rules, is to aid shill bidding.  To play the devils advocate doesn't mean you believe it, but I do think that ebay's bosses see AU as a small country, that, under normal situations, would not make the return on the investment, they would like, so they opted for the alternative to honest trading.

When you think TradeMe was sold around 2 years ago for close to 700 million, to Fairfax Ltd, the originators of Sold.com.au in Australia, and we know that OZtion sold for $1 million in cash, plus $1 million in stock options, in an earn out situation, because it was only break even, then we must assume the Australian market, if run all above board, would not be all that profitable.

Ebay NZ, basically doesn't exist, it's forums are the US boards, and most of the listings are US sellers, so the cost of doing Business in Australia, with it's offices and staff, would need to be on comparison with other countries.  My opinion is that the only way they could do that is by shill bidding, and plenty of it.

Hence my theory, that it is outsourced to someone who is adept at registering many fake id's to bid with, and those fake id's in my opinion, would be in the names of existing members, who's information is gleaned from sales from those people associated with such a person.

I just don't see anything else making sense as to why a group of people would be all over the net gathering peoples details, and having thousands of fake id's on ebay if it wasn't for this reason.


When you consider the record of the person in charge of this group, you will know that it's a little more serious than a personal vendetta against ebay because they deleted his long running thread.

[mandurahmum]

I cant believe our shill bidder is back in the silver section, and I cant believe that ebay wont take any action.  If a buyer has 78% bidding activity with the same seller - was 100% until this week, and 3 bidding retractions in the last 6 months with the same seller, then surely anyone can see that something is not right.  Surely if it was fair dink then the seller would have blocked the buyer.

 260451264136   is one of the item numbers - the bidder being 0***i(26) - easy enough to work out who they are as they have left feedback for the seller in the past. 

It makes me so mad, I am an honest buyer and unfortunately this seller is one of the only ones selling the item I really want.

[Poddy]

mandurahmum

I went through the same thing ..................for 3 months would you belive.!!

only 2 vendors had the item I needed they each sold 2 of the same iten every week and after having followed those itend for 3 months I had proof positive thet both vendors were shilling their items.

I reported but they are still at it

I finally got one from a brivate seller at a fair price