I've Been Grounded by Ebay!

[grayhank]

I need to do a little venting so please bear with me. I'm a nice guy, truly I am. I go out of my way to do the right things for people. But why is it that nice guys always get in trouble for the wrong reasons?

I have sold maybe 4 things on ebay in the 9+ years I've been a member. Last week I decided to sell an item that I had an extra of. My starting bid was $10.00 and because this was a heavy item I set the shipping at $18.00.

Well I had been watching my item all week and nobody was interested. Nobody was watching it. Nobody was bidding on it. So I was feeling a little down about that. My room-mate tried to make a nice gesture by bidding on my item. I did not tell him to, I never even suggested anything of the sort. It was a day or so before the auction ended that he said to me so has anybody bid on your item? I said I haven't checked. When I looked and saw that he had bid on it I realized that he was just trying to make me feel better. My item was at the starting bid of 10.00. He had bid $10.50.

So the end of the auction was coming up and a person here in my town sent me a message asking me if she won the item could she pick it up instead of paying the 18.00 shipping. I told her of course, I had no problem with that because that's just the way I am. I saw no reason why she should have to spend the extra 18.00.

So it gets down to the last couple of minutes and my item starts to go up in price and she wins the item at $32.00. I made arrangements to meet with her so she could pay me in person, rather than through Paypal saving me those fees, since I had waived the shipping. I drive the item to where she wants to meet, she gives me the cash and off we go our separate ways. I come home mark the item as paid and leave her positive feedback. All this is acceptable to me and it's a good transaction for both of us. Then I pay my listing fee right away.

Today I get an email from ebay accusing me and my roomate of shill bidding. We are both put on suspension for 2 weeks and have to go through an ebay online lecture tutorial thing. This thing just goes on and on about Seller integrity and such. How my roomate bidding on my item is misleading and is putting hidden fees on other buyers and raising the fair market value, and laws were broken and I could face lawsuit charges, etc.

Well the whole thing really kind of upset me. I had no idea we lived in a country where somebody couldn't do something nice for somebody else. Where they couldn't buy something if they chose to buy it. It all sounds very fascist to me. So I go and complete their tutorial thing telling me what a bad person I am. But I'm getting madder and madder as I read these questions and have to take their little quiz after each one.

So at the end of all this I decide, no, I'm gonna let them know how I feel about all this and what integrity means. I send them a message telling them hiow ludicrous that whole thing is and that if they want to talk about the integrity of sellers why not go after the sellers who list an item for .99 cents and charge 39.99 shipping and handling? Those are the people with no integrity. They know that they don't have to pay ebay a higher fee if they charge less for the item and more for postage. Why am I paying $10-20+ on shipping for an item that comes with postage paid on it at 3.50? Why isn't ebay looking into that?

Furthermore, I pay for everything I win on ebay Immediately! As soon as I know I've won the auction I'm at paypal checking out. Why is it I'm paying so much for shipping and the item is taking 3 to 4 weeks to arrive? I live in CA but am from RI originally. I know it only takes 3-5 days for an item Priority Mail to arrive to CA from my home state of RI all the way across the country. I know this, my family is back there. Shouldn't ebay have something on their feedback forum to reflect shipping other than the new little critique you can fill out but nobody else sees? Plus you can print out the postage on Paypal now which does not list how much you actually paid for it. Yeah that's integrity for ya right there! So I mentioned all these things to ebay but have yet to hear anything back from them.

I'm sorry about ranting about this but it helps when I write things out. So I'm on a 2 week restriction! Hopefully nobody is selling anything I've been seriously looking for. Thanks for listening!:wall:

[Hulk]

Obviously in this case, there was no bad intentions, but your roommate clearly violated not only their shill bidding rules, but could have been investigated for possible wire fraud. Friends, family and people living together are not only clear examples of what they warn against, but are among the easiest to detect, since the bid probably came from the same IP address, or you are both listed as living at the same address. I'd be concerned if eBay didn't have systematic policies in effect to detect and prevent this kind of thing. I definitely sympathize with your dilemna, but I am somewhat relieved they have at least this minimal protection for bidders in place.

[thunderbolt]

Don't do the crime if you can't do the time. Ebay really doesn't care if your roomate was trying to do something nice for you. I'm sure they've heard all the excuses before. Shill bidding is shill bidding.

[Meule]

I don't get it. How can you call that shill bidding? Your room mate was the first to bid and het bid 50 cents (!!!) over the opening bid. The final bid was $32 and by someone else. His bid had no influence whatsoever on the final result. It's not like he jacked up the price after someone else had bid. Personally, I don't call that shill bidding. If someone else had bid first (say $50 was their maximum bid) and he bid after that raising the price $5 at a time till the bid was at $45 or so, that's what I call shill bidding.
It's always the little people that get all the hassles. There are hundreds of members with 1,000+ feedback that do far worse than what you did (REALLY shill bidding, inflated shipping costs and sometimes downright scamming and fraud), but they get away with it because they make eBay money :wall:
Sorry this happened to you, but try to enjoy the 2 week break from eBay. Think of it like this: your wallet is gonna love it ;)
__________________________________________


Don't do the crime if you can't do the time. Ebay really doesn't care if your roomate was trying to do something nice for you. I'm sure they've heard all the excuses before. Shill bidding is shill bidding.

That's just it, Joe, he didn't do the crime (if you wanna call it that), his roommate did, without him knowing it

[ctc]

>How can you call that shill bidding?

Well.... technically having any associate bid on your item is schilling..... My question is: what if you've listed something and your roomate bids on it 'cos they actually WANT it? In an instance like that it'd be a legit bid.... but it'd LOOK like a schill to ebay.

Don C.

[English Paul]

My question is: what if you've listed something and your roomate bids on it 'cos they actually WANT it? In an instance like that it'd be a legit bid.... but it'd LOOK like a schill to ebay.

Don C.

My mates mum did exactly on an item he was selling - she wanted it and went through the correct proceedure of placing a bid. They both got a warning even when she won the item and the deal went through.

[Dave Mc]

People I know well here on the boards bid on an item or two I've auctioned, and vice versa. I always feel like I need to somehow make some announcement "Not schilling, really want the item!"

In this case, as much as the intentioned were good, your roommate did schill. Sounds like he bid on an item just to help you out or make you feel better. Nice guesture, but technically against the rules.

It is a minor infraction though, kind of like getting a speeding ticket for going 2 miles over, when there are drunks all over the road.

[Marvelmania]

I get where you're coming from and your room mate was just trying to be kind. In the end rules are rules so I think while upset you can see Ebay's point.
If you're luck is anything like mine suddenly everything you're ever wanted will suddenly appear on Ebay with low starting bids and no one else will bid.:smiley1:

[megocrazy]

I had the exact same thing happen. A friend came over while I was doing some ebay work and saw a figure that I had posted that he wanted. I told him to bid on it if he wanted it as I don't like to end auctions early so he did. Right from my own computer. Funny thing is I deal with computers a lot in my job and my neighbor is an IT director, I know and understand how the IP address tracking works but I just wasn't sneaky enough to even realize how they were going to view it. The whole system you need to go through to get re enlisted is no where near as easy as just starting over so I did. At least your friend bid .50 over mine only bid the opening bid as no one had even opened the bidding. I would have been better off if he had not bid and the auction didn't sell. Then I could have simply sold it and not relisted it. A week later started my war with Paypal that pretty much caused me to drop the whole ebay deal completely. It was an interesting two weeks to say the least. Best of luck. You'll need it. The sellers are the ones that pay the fees but they also get the least respect from Paypal and Ebay.

[toys2cool]

yup they check the IP address's,My best friends wife's dad works for ebay and he says that's how they know,the only way you're allowed to buy something from a person who lives in the same place is by using the BUY IT NOW option,if it doesn't have it,you can't bid.I know he did it with no bad intentions but it was shill bidding,if every friend out there did that,we'd all be screwed.Think about it...$1 from every item you win,and if it's a buyer like me who buys more then 100 items a year,it could be anywhere from $50-$100 I'm losing if every friend did that

[grayhank]

Neither I nor my roomate had ever heard of shill bidding. Like I said I've only ever sold about 4 items, it's not like I sell things on there for a living. I was not aware of ebay's policy but I also was not aware that my roomate was going to bid on my item. I accept the fact that what happened was wong. I know better now and we will make sure that it doesn't happen again. But I do feel how they handled the situation and the penalty is a bit extreme. Just giving us a simple warning explaining that what happened is against their policy would have been far more reasonable for a first offense. I don't feel that my or my roomate's integrity should come into question. He did not take the bid away from anyone else. He merely raised the bid to the starting price.

But I do still feel that there are far worse things going on with ebay which clearly show a lack of integrity on the part of the majority of ebay sellers and Paypal. But it's Ebay that is actually losing money on these sellers who list an item for such a low cost to save on ebay fees and then turn around and raise their shipping costs. If every seller did this I don't think ebay would be making much of a profit. But in the end I guess that's ebay's problem so they will have to deal with that eventually. I guess we will all have to look at the starting bid as being the shipping cost, and the shipping cost to be the price of the item from now on.

I appreciate the input from all of you.

[Dave Mc]

Well, that's the way it always goes. You follow the rules, you watch others blatently break them and get away with it, and the moment YOU unknowingly step out of bounds, the wrath of the establishment comes down on you. Of course the blatent violators continue their actions all the while laughing at you. It sucks.

[Adam West]

I wouldn't worry about it.

Honest mistake. It's normal to get irritated and I'm sure there was no bad intent but I'm sure they hear this all the time and am glad they are cracking down on this type of stuff.

A few years ago, a friend of mine asked me to place a bid on one of his items because it wasn't at a price he wanted to sell it at. I told him as much as I would like to help him out, I didn't feel right about doing it and basically told him to let the auction run its course and whatever happens happens.

The worst part about it was it was something he got for free anyway dumpster diving and then has the nerve to ask me to bid the item up because it's not selling for FMV....he got it for free!

Anyway, just chalk it up to lesson learned.

[toys2cool]

wow they took you completely off,when you click on your ebay sign nothing comes out ,no biggie though,you'll be back before you know it :grin:

[Meule]

One question tho: How did eBay find out? I know they could tell by the IP address, but they can't check the bidding history of every single auction, right?
Do they do random checks or do they have some sort of alert system that warns them when the same IP address is used to bid on an auction? If it's a random check you're really unlucky, but that means (real) shill bidding can happen without any real danger to the scammer. If they have an alert system I guess that's somewhat good news then.

[grayhank]

They probably have some kind of an alert system. As far as IP addresses, not really sure how that works. Although my computer is networked with my room-mates. I use AOL for all my internet activity, while he uses our Broadband carrier directly. He also uses a PO Box for his mail, while my mail comes directly to the residence.

[rikitikitavi]

I have to agree with Thomas (Meule). This was not shill bidding. Shill is to artificially inflate the value of something in an auction by a person who has no intent to buy the product. It is done with the knowledge of the seller. A bid of 50 cents to start off the auction does not constitute shilling because it had no effect on the $32.00 final value. A first bid cannot be a shill. A large first bid can be construed as shielding but not shilling. That was not the case here.

As I enter middle age I am amazed at how much culture and attitudes have changed since my youth. Just when did straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel whole become vogue again?

[batmanmc]

if there is something you want on ebay pm me and ill win it for you and you pay me and ill send it to you. i dont belive there was any foul play in what you dd . just my opinion. mike

[toys2cool]

I have to agree with Thomas (Meule). This was not shill bidding. Shill is to artificially inflate the value of something in an auction by a person who has no intent to buy the product. It is done with the knowledge of the seller. A bid of 50 cents to start off the auction does not constitute shilling because it had no effect on the $32.00 final value. A first bid cannot be a shill. A large first bid can be construed as shielding but not shilling. That was not the case here.

As I enter middle age I am amazed at how much culture and attitudes have changed since my youth. Just when did straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel whole become vogue again?

yeah but remember you could start something at $1.00 and bid $20 on the 1st bid,to try and get that,if that's the least you want,so yeah it's shill bidding to them

[grayhank]

I have now learned what happened for ebay to investigate my auction. First my roomate bids on my auction. I then get the email from the local woman in town who wins the auction. Both are Santa Rosa residents. Apparently there was a 3rd Santa Rosa resident who had also bid on my auction and lost. She apparently thought that the actual winner was a shill bid because of being in the same town. So she complains to ebay. Ebay then checks the bidders and comes across my roomates bid.

That just goes to show you how my luck runs. It really had very little to do with my roomate's bid but the other local winner. It was just coincidental that while they were investigating the actual winner, they stumbled upon the bid that had no bearing on the actual auction.

[toys2cool]

I have now learned what happened for ebay to investigate my auction. First my roomate bids on my auction. I then get the email from the local woman in town who wins the auction. Both are Santa Rosa residents. Apparently there was a 3rd Santa Rosa resident who had also bid on my auction and lost. She apparently thought that the actual winner was a shill bid because of being in the same town. So she complains to ebay. Ebay then checks the bidders and comes across my roomates bid.

That just goes to show you how my luck runs. It really had very little to do with my roomate's bid but the other local winner. It was just coincidental that while they were investigating the actual winner, they stumbled upon the bid that had no bearing on the actual auction.
wow that sucks,but in a way she was right tough.There was shill bidding ;) just messing with ya man,what do you have left like 8 days right?

[jemboy2004]

Well sometimes the reason people put in fake bids is to just generate interest. Ebay looks at it like that. He may have put in the first bid and didn't bid much but it looks like you had him bid in the hopes of generating interest.

I'm not saying you did this, I'm just saying that is what ebay may be thinking you did. It doesn't sound too bad though, After the 2 weeks you'll be fine and you now know better and so does your roommate.

[Mego Maverick]

My starting bid was $10.00

Totally unrelated to the subject, but I just thought I might point it out. With ebay fee structure your listing cost was 60¢ (starting @ $10). You could have set the starting bid @ $9.99 and the fee would only have been 40¢. So actually you paid 20¢ extra for another penny. I realize if you only sell rarely on ebay it doesn't make much of a difference. But if you do, those 20¢ fees can add up pretty quick. Besides, Why give them any more than you have to.

[toys2cool]

Totally unrelated to the subject, but I just thought I might point it out. With ebay fee structure your listing cost was 60¢ (starting @ $10). You could have set the starting bid @ $9.99 and the fee would only have been 40¢. So actually you paid 20¢ extra for another penny. I realize if you only sell rarely on ebay it doesn't make much of a difference. But if you do, those 20¢ fees can add up pretty quick. Besides, Why give them any more than you have to.

very true

[grayhank]

You know how people that can't read are illiterate? Well I am like that when it comes to math but I don't know if there's an actual word for that (Inumerate maybe). I am extremely Mathematically challenged so listing an item at even intervals is easier for me, but that's good to know. Thanks!