Ebay Shill bidding

[MargeB]

What's the story on this? Can your friends bid on your items? Family? If family do so without your permission, is it reasonable for Ebay to ban you without checking it out first? You have, after all done nothing wrong as a seller if someone, family or not, bids on your item.

[Hermia]

If your friend was bidding on the item intending to buy it that would be fine. I think it's against ebay's policy if you do this purely to push the price up. If you did this a lot other bidders may notice something weird was going on and report you. Also there's a danger that the shill bid would win the auction!

[MargeB]

Thanks for that Hermia.

That's the funny thing. They state somewhere that if friends bid to win then that's fine! But has no mention of family! Ebay should know that people who shill bid are always trying to avoid the dreaded 'win', so if a family member comes in right in the last hour of an auction with a good price to win, and wins...they should just leave it alone! My Dad saw something of mine that he liked, really wanted it, bid on it to win, and won (without telling me, first I knew was post auction). Ebay shut us both down! I mean, the cheek! What am I supposed to do? Ban all my relatives? And they didn't approach me about it. They actually sent me a message saying 'YOU HAVE BEEN SHILL BIDDING, YOU ARE SUSPENDED INDEFINITELY'. Grrrr. I don't know if I have a damages or defamation claim against them.

[Hermia]

Was he using the same computer or postal address? That's probably why ebay took action. If the seller and bidder have the same IP address than that is going to set off alarm bells!

[dodgyshirt]

Oh dear Marge, what's going to happen to the gourds and the bow & arrow now.

[MargeB]

:-)

Oh that's easy.

Answerbank auctions!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Gourd. Start price: �2. No reserve.

(My Dad and I have a small collection going of 'the worst descriptions on Ebay. Top of the list so far is 'It looks blue in the pic, but really, it's black' followed by 'It looks nothing like what it does in the pic.' Riiiight...