# Bidding up your own items on ebay



## Carlos (May 6, 2002)

I've been bidding on some M3 wheels on ebay to use as trackday wheels for my 330d.

I suspect the seller is bidding against me under another id (or one of his mates is).

He is selling two items, one a full set of used M3 wheels, the other a single M3 wheel. Â A few days ago he sold the exact same (and I mean exact) items to an unrated bidder, then re-listed both items again.

I queried this and he said that the guys cheque bounced. Â Fair enough, but they _both left positive feedback for each other_. Â Why the hell would you do that if someone's cheque bounced. Â The "buyer" said _"Pleasure to do business with. Goods in excellent condition as described. V.Happy"_ - indicating that he/she had received the goods, either before the cheque had cleared, or after it had bounced Â ??? :-/

Now in this auction I am being bid against by a zero rated buyer "from Scotland" (seller is in Esher).

Anyone come across this sort of thing before. Â Am I being paranoid?

The link to the item is below, you can follow the audit trail as I did (if you can be arsed).

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2434030080

<edit>AND the non paying "buyer" from the previous auctions had also "bought" a mobile phone from the seller" 5 months earlier...</edit>

<another edit>Just looked at when the auctions ran, the new auction for the wheels (after the buyers cheque bounced) started TWO HOURS after the last one ended - blimey that cheque was delivered, paid in and bounced within two hours, all after the banks had shut...</another edit>


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## jampott (Sep 6, 2003)

You can report the abuse to Ebay who will investigate - although they do seem pretty hot on spotting that for themselves. I think its call "shill bidding"..

But all he is doing is costing himself relisting fees AND final value fees all the time.... because surely he won't be putting in a request for Ebay to credit his account with the final value fees (likely to be quite high) for non-payment, if he's left feedback saying he's been happy with the transaction...........


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## Carlos (May 6, 2002)

The "buyer" has just retracted his bid, leaving me in pole position.

This 45 mins after he had outbid me...then thought sh1t the guy (me) isn't biting.

Unsure what to do. Want the wheels, price is still good. Dont want to retract my bid and ruin my 100% record.


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## jampott (Sep 6, 2003)

Use the "ask seller a question" and put your concerns to him.

I would simply state the facts as you've seen them - that the seller had sold the wheels, had left good feedback (as had the buyer) and you are concerned to see the "same" wheels back on auction so quickly (not quickly enough for a cheque to bounce?) and with "happy" feedback left by both parties.

How can he be selling the "same" wheels if the previous sale fell through? The "buyer" states that the wheels (both lots?) arrived safely!!!

Just ask him to confirm that he still has the wheels, and proceed very carefully. If you get the opportunity to pay via Paypal, then do so. Its a high value transaction for him to be mucking around with, and you should NOT send any money unless absolutely happy...

If this becomes the case (and you don't send money) then I'd advise against leaving feedback (if your main concern is your own feedback record)....

That way, he might just drop it and not leave you negative feedback, knowing you'll go straight back and do the same to him.

Instead, you should simply report the auction to Ebay and get him warned.....


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## jampott (Sep 6, 2003)

Worth noting that the chap who supposedly bounced a cheque on him and (from feedback comments) has already received these wheels has bid on this auction too....


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## Carlos (May 6, 2002)

Yes I noticed.

Also, the current buyer has retracted his bid!

I have reported the seller to ebay. The auction ends in 4 hours and I am marooned as the top bidder.

I would be happy to pay the current amount but do not trust the seller. It will be collection rather than delivery so if I am left holding the baby I will pay cash on collection.


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## jampott (Sep 6, 2003)

by bidding and retracting, he is finding out what his proper "real" high bidder(s) have bid....

Say you put in a max bid of Â£1000 but you became the highest bidder at Â£600, he doesn't know how much you are prepared to pay.....

But by outbidding you with a friend's (or new) Ebay ID, then retracting the bid, he is abusing the "hidden" max bid.......

All he has to do later is stick a bid on (in my example, for something like Â£900) safe in the knowledge that he won't be outbidding anyone, just artificially inflating your bid further towards your max bid.

If you aren't happy with the end price of the auction, you are well within your rights to refuse to pay it....... (as there has been some very obvious dodgy bidding and retracting taking place.......)


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## jonah (Aug 17, 2002)

Have to agree with Jampo, I would let it ride win the item and question the biiding and your concerns and suggest a reduce price with the seller if you really want them.
If he leaves negitive feed back E-bay can remove this as you have already reported the bidding as being suspect.
Jonah


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## Carlos (May 6, 2002)

Well now the original auction "winner" has bid the highest amount.

Bizarre!

I have reported it anyway and am no longer the highest bidder, unless this guy retracts his bid again :-/


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## jonah (Aug 17, 2002)

remove your bid B4 it ends else this guy will remove his and you'll be the winning bid again.
Jonah


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## Carlos (May 6, 2002)

But then I will have a retracted bid against my name.

Better to leave it I think. If I don't win then fine, if I do I have reported it in advance to ebay and they should deal with it to ensure no negative on my record.


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## jampott (Sep 6, 2003)

i don't think they can stop him leaving bad feedback unless they actually cancel the auction (or delete his account).........

anyway, noone bothers with how many retractions you have - its feedback that gets looked at as far as I am aware............


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## whirlypig (Feb 20, 2003)

A legitimate bid retraction is no big deal and won't make much if any difference. A neg or an NPB is going to be much worse so if your not happy retract your bid.

However as Jampo has highlighted some people will use "shilling" accounts to up the price and also to identify what a legitimate bidder's maximum may be. Certainly worth reporting this to eBay and they will investigate further.

It's a shame that someone who does get struck off can easily get back on simply by using slightly differing details to register an id. If you're only bidding then you don't need to register any payment details so you can setup multiple ids to your hearts content.

I know of someone selling laptops who has been neg'd by various auction winners for no justifiable reason. Each winner is new and has no feedback. He's sure that it's a rival setting trying to ruin his business. He's reported it to eBay who haven't been able to offer much assistance as the guy with the id does often reply from a hotmail or yahoo account with some made up story. eBay certainly need some sort of system for verifying new users.

I'd ask both the seller and the suspected shill bidder a question and see where their replies are routed from. Some people aren't aware that hotmail and others embed the client IP address in the message header.


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## racer (Feb 3, 2003)

Certainly an intersting thread about the grubby side of eBay. :-/


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## raven (May 7, 2002)

Yeah, I have always wondered about this. I didn't realise you didn't have to log your credit card details if you are only bidding. Surely an easy way to avoid such a thing would be to do just that - how many people have credit cards in more than one name? :-/


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## jampott (Sep 6, 2003)

Both the seller and his shill bidding ID are no longer registered users...

Ebay are VERY quick to clamp down on this kind of thing.....


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## whirlypig (Feb 20, 2003)

> ebay are VERY quick to clamp down on this kind of thing.....


That was quick, I've had to report a couple of sellers and usually it has taken four or five days to get news back. Good to hear they're getting slicker.


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## Carlos (May 6, 2002)

Got the following email from eBay

_Hello,

Thank you for taking the time to contact us with this information. I
have reviewed the information that you have provided and wanted to let 
you know that I have suspended the member that you alerted us to.

In this case, the seller has become 'not a registered user' since the
end of the listing, you are relieved of all obligations to go through
with this transaction. We recommend that you do not complete a
transaction with a non-registered user because of the potential problems
you could run into. Please note that as only registered members can
leave feedback you will not risk receiving negative feedback by not
completing this transaction.

I would like to thank you for your help in keeping eBay a fun and safe 
place to trade.

Best wishes,

Marcella Fox
eBay Trust and Safety_

I don't like grassing people up to authority, but this guy had it coming.


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## Widget (May 7, 2002)

Good work fella.

Knob jockeys like him make me mad 

Like Marcella said in her e-mail, ebay should be a fun and safe place to trade. But then you'll always get these herberts crawling out from under their rocks.


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## garyc (May 7, 2002)

> Some people aren't aware that hotmail and others embed the client IP address in the message header.


How do you reverse-trace someones IP address from a mail?


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## droopsnoot (Sep 5, 2002)

I don't have a hotmail mail to look at, but you can see the header information for any email by right-clicking it in Outlook and choosing 'options'. This will display the internet headers among other things. A lot of internet connections use a dynamic IP address, so this isn't always valuable information, though.


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## whirlypig (Feb 20, 2003)

Reverse tracing the IP address isn't too tricky but as mentioned it isn't ideal. However if it's part of a criminal investigation then I believe the ISP can reveal to the authorities which client/user the DHCP address was assigned.

Some guy conned me on a TFT panel on eBay, described as 18" and turned out to be 17". He ignored my emails and calls (mobile number) and eBay were no help. So I checked his hotmail emails and checked the IP addresses. He was stupid enough to send one of the emails from work, a quick trace and it turned out to be a very large computer company near Portsmouth. Even found his direct line through the companies people finder on the web site and gave him a call. He was certainly surprised and after a bit of gentle pressure I got my refund.

To track the IP you can do a simple WhoIs query or to make it easier use an online trace, plenty of sites that offer a web based query, e.g. http://home.webkorner.com/scottp/pages/tools.htm


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## Peter_TT (May 6, 2002)

Why does it matter if someone wants to bid up his own items? Pay the price you want to go upto and leave it at that ... theres always something else to buy ! If he over bids his own items he can always email you later to offer them to you at your max bid price anyway?

Peter


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## Peter_TT (May 6, 2002)

On a more positive vein .. have you tried the BMW M owners forum? .. www.bm3w.co.uk .. they have a trading post on there

Peter


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## raven (May 7, 2002)

> Why does it matter if someone wants to bid up his own items? Pay the price you want to go upto and leave it at that ... theres always something else to buy ! Â If he over bids his own items he can always email you later to offer them to you at your max bid price anyway?
> 
> Peter


Hmmm. Slightly defeating the whole point of ebay. You put a max bid, but you _hope_ you're going to get a bargain ie pay less than your max bid. The fact that "there's always something else to buy" doesn't strike me as justifying being ripped off by a dishonest seller. Totally irrelevant in fact.


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## Carlos (May 6, 2002)

Just had a "second chance" offer from the seller. His membership has obviously now been restored, and shock horror, the buyer has dropped out so I can now buy the wheels as I was the second highest bidder.

Three courses of action come to mind.

1) Ignore
2) Send him an abusive email
3) Attempt to buy the wheels from him at a ridiculously low price.

I think 1 is the most sensible. I am tempted to email him to say I notice his membership had been revoked and wondered why...

yes I think I might do that.


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## master_t (Sep 23, 2002)

buy them at a low price.... just pick em up in person!

Offer him Â£200 or something stupid like that!


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## Carlos (May 6, 2002)

> Hi there, many thanks for the mail. The wheels for sale are from my E46 M3. I have recently purchased some other wheels, therefore selling these to claw back some of the cost etc.
> 
> If you are interested, I have a brand new front wheel & tyre (never been on a car) that I am selling also on ebay. I bought this as the M3's dont have spare wheels and I thought it would come in handy. My new wheels are bigger so no need for it now.
> 
> ...


Ooh I think Nicky-wicky is telling porkies


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## garyc (May 7, 2002)

Walk away the are probably hot anyway.

I presume you were going for a set of 19"s? Â I had them on my M3 and they were kerb magnets since centre dish stands proud of rim. :-/

Besides your suspension is set up with 18"s in mind.

Tuning Box is going greeeat. Â Let's fix up that meet. Â You will want one - I unplugged it today and thought I'd left the handbrake on. Economy has gone up 1mpg over 1000 miles ;D


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## Carlos (May 6, 2002)

I'm not going to buy them.

They are 18s, I was going to use them as track day wheels then get the refurbished and flog them.

I have ordered a tuningbox, should be here today. Want to get it fitted in time for Castle Combe on monday.


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