I would like to hear from the sellers in question, what say we invite them to “question time”?
There are always two sides to every argument, no?
No doubt,....but, who's 'We'?
Brumby as usual, an intelligent post, demonstrating a sound knowledge of 'Retail Psychology'. Now I understand, that there is some incentive for a seller to make it look as though their items are moving....but that it's not seemingly an unlawful practice so it's fairly innocuous.......
By Comparison however, I don't think any of us here could say that Shill bidding doesn't happen on Ebay....but unlike best offer, shilling crosses the line to fraud because the activity itself is aimed at deceiving buyers into paying more than they might have done. In other words it is profit by deception.
I can't see the same analogy with 'Best Offer', because obviously no money is changing hands in that scenario....in the Shill bidding scenario, buyers are being duped into a bidding war, where they are deceived into paying more....so that's fraud, that Ebay do nothing to curtail...Phil's right in that regard...they completely ignore all levels of Proactive and Reactive Risk management.
Ebay ensure via their hidden bidder system that shilling is extremely difficult to demonstrate tangibly...and that's why most of the evidence one can amass on shill bidding is circumstantial.......
If ebay were serious about cleaning up all levels of fraud on their site, they'd be verifying sellers and holding them accountable for unconscionable conduct.....or at the very least, enabling consumers to hold them accountable under consumer protection laws. Anyone who has done their research on Ebay fraud, will know that one precedent study concluded that it is not in Ebay's interest to verify sellers or clean up fraud, because they profit from it. (NOT MY WORDS - the conclusion of a nation wide consumer fraud study).
This same conclusion was quoted again by the Supervisor of that study, in the ABC feature on Paypal, EBS and DDD in 2008. I can go and get the exact quotes if anyone is interested. It's not a new revelation by any means...as I recall 4000 consumers were ripped off by EBS...one of ebay's so called powersellers, a veritable 'Cornerstone' of the ebay community??????? and taking their powerseller guarantee into account, the average buyer would have considered EBS a safe bet right?.....wrong. They were one of Ebay's BIGGEST sellers in Australia, and yet even with many hundreds of negs, and an unpaid Ebay account to the tune of more than $200.000.00....Ebay aided and abetted that seller to continue trading....whether insolvent or fraudulent, it doesn't matter, they enabled them to defraud thousands of unsuspecting consumers, by doing ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to shut them down.
And some are saying they don't favour some sellers? dreamin.....if that's true, how the hell did EBS get that far in debt to Ebay (who by the way was one of the first creditors listed ahead of all ripped off consumers) without being shut down? I've had my account suspended for being late with $20.00....and yet EBS traded for 3 months after the first negs started, owing nearly $200,000.00? Explain that....lol
Ironically, ebay finally closed EBS' account a month after the owners had skipped the country, and by that stage with nearly 800 NEGS.....much more than circumstantial, and no doubt still happening. I can't agree that Ebay don't favour Powersellers, they do. The very fact that a PS has an account manager and phone access, whereas the average seller does not, aptly demonstrates that ebay do favour certain sellers over others.