Forum

Mistake Shill Bidding
 

Hi,

Have a huge problem here. I sell on ebay and have a business i usually charge 15-25% of the cost and i take care of all the listing shipping etc. I tell every one of them while I have no problem selling for you, you CANNOT and i mean cannot bid on my auctions.

Last month one of the idiots did without my knowledge however they won the auction and paid so i processed it took the payment shipped the item like a normal sale. I figured that was the correct thing to do. However, i get a notice about a week later telling me i violated the shill bidding rules and that im suspended for two weeks. I call them up and tell them what happened and they lift the suspension to buy it now listings only for two weeks. I in turn added anyone i sell for Ebay ids to my block bidders list just in case.

Today, I have a $3 item up and someone new i have been selling stuff for decides to bid on the item with FIVE SECONDS LEFT and wins it. They werent on my BBL cause they told me they didnt have an ebay id. I wasnt aware of this at all i was sleeping and i woke up look at my sold auctions and i see a completed and paid auction in one of the people i sell for names. I do not know what to do now. If i tell ebay of this they will probably ban me, if i dont they will probably ban me.

Im screwed aint i? Any suggestions. This REALLY irritates me because i can careless what my items sell for and i would never ever do something such as shill bidding.

Question: how does eb ay know that you are selling for this person in order to flag you for shill bidding?

basically when i sell stuff for someone if they are in another state such as this person is i put their return address on the shipping the label so it is the correct postage rate then email them the label and they ship it out. Therefore they will have seen i have used that return address before since it is her address.

It took a while for my post to show up here so i just called ebay and told them what happened and they said as long as i didnt physically login her account and do it it was fine since she paid for the item and will be receiving it. So i guess its ok but im still adding her to my BBL so she gets no ideas lol.

What's with the lol when YOU were not more careful with your business.

Are you acting as a Trading Assistance?

Why, when you noticed, as you allege in your opening post, you figured it was the right thing to post out did you NOT stop. Why did you not say to yourself, this is not in order. I might be in trouble.

Then out of the blue, another bidder wins a $3 item & you had not thoroughly checked. Seriously who believes a buyer :doh:

Shill bidding is always a mistake when the person gets caught by ebay.

Be a T/A. But re-do the business plan. Care MORE about what your items sell for, rather than care less. Or you will have no account. x2 strange transactions in the eyes of ebay will flag your account.

Sorry if i came off with the lol i was just letting off steam i was so stressed about this all day until i called them. I just could not believe how stupid the person was that i had sold things for.

Do I act as a trading assistant? If you want to call it that sure.

Im not one of those ebay trading assistants but I sell for people that i know and people they know that they like work with etc.

Anyone I sell for i give them a set of rules the first being YOU CANNOT BID ON THE AUCTION. The second rule is we agree on whatever % before hand. The third is there are ebay fees and paypal fees please take that into account.

I immeditely add the persons id to my BBL so they cannot bid on the auctions, their friends cant bid noone can bid. It is against the rules and I do not want to hear "oh well i didnt know" If you want something in my store tell me if it has 0 bids i can take it down and just sell it to you personally and not on ebay I tell this to every person. However, if it has bids im not canceling the auction for them that is not fair to everyone else.


Anyway first question. The first item a month ago i saw the person bidded and won it was a $3 item and they paid for it but no at the time i did not think that was against the rules since they won. I went thru this with ebay and it is in fact against the rules lesson learned like i said from then on i implemented that i will add every person I am a TA with to my BBL so there is nothing going on and they cant say i didnt understand the rules etc.

Now todays thing was compleltely out of my control. I have been selling for this girl for a month she is a friend of someone i personally know not some random ebay buyer. They both live around two hours away. I think she is a little lets say out there and didnt excatly understand the speech my friend and me both gave her that you cannot bid on my auctions. Was this one of the items I was selling for her? No it wasn't however it was still on my site and for such a small item I was very irrated she not only one lied to me and said she didnt have an ebay account and b. bids on this thing 3 seconds before the auction ended and didnt tell me her intentions. What annoys me the most is this item was a 5 day auction and there wasnt a bid on it at all for 4 of those days she could of simply said to me can i buy this off you and since it had no bids i could just cancel the auction and sell it to her personally. But she didnt do that she went and bid on it like an idiot which got me very mad and i posted on here because i didnt know what to do.

I figured either

1. If i called they would tell me well thanks for your honesty but your banned anyway
2. If i didnt call they would track it somehow anyway

So after not getting a response here for a while i just decided to call tell them the situation and they said that since she won the item and paid for it just to send it to her as long as i didnt log in the account myself to sell it to her it was more than fine but not to do it again and obviously add her to my BBL

Well if you have any other suggestions of what i can do in the future to avoid something like this please let me know. However, i think I am clear with this case ebay claims since i didnt login to her account but i do not like one bit what she did.

I so understand posting & ranting ;) (You should see MY own deleted posts & some I do not delete. LOL.

Moving on ---->

Comes back to the business plan.

Buyers, regardless of who they are, present to us with compromised IQs.

A verbal instruction means zilch. You'll know the expression in one ear out the other?

From now, I would recommend that all buyers have a written statement from you outlining requirements. (Much like the FAQs on this forum). Tighten up the selling practices/

Because you need to take into account another's behavior, cover yourself. You might even consider talking to ebay saying this is what you plan. (Entirely your choice).

Next glitch, do not ship. From now your right thing is to not upset ebay. There will be another buyer. ebay will take so much.

Hopefully you manage to escape troubles. But ensure you safeguard the account from now.

Any future chats with ebay, get the staffer name & number as well....always have that for (future) defense. :fight:

Im confused? Please explain to me?

1. You have auction with bidding, but you only allow buy it now? Why not just put buy it now with no bidding and that will take care of you worrying about no bidding?

GB in full analytical mode. As for mistakes, live and learn - just operate much better. Not much more advice to give.

Sorry if this is confusing but what i was trying to say was. If someone I am selling for sees something they want in my store and them item has Zero bids on it and i personally know the person. At that point if they kindly ask me they want it, it makes more sense to just take it down and do your own non ebay thing.

However if it has bids im not altering the auction at all. What annoyed me was for 4 days this thing had no bids and was sitting at 99 cents with 3 dollars shipping. then with about 26 hours left some random buyer bidded it up to 2.50 or so and then like i said with 3 seconds left roughly she comes in and bids a hair over 3 bucks and wins .

I wish she would of just told me during the 4 days when it was getting no activity "hey i want this thing" than just bidding on it after i told her not to bid on anything and breaking rules

:nono: Still means you need to amend your business practise.

That's a hairy way to run a (now) flagged account.

Im a bit confused. Going through with the sale a month ago because i thought it was ok wound up being the wrong thing to do I understand that and learned the lesson there which is why when the second person did it the other day I was extremely nervous about what would happen and eventually wound up posting here and contacting eBay and resolving the situation. What im not understanding here is if you have a five day auction it has no bids, its getting no activity etc what is wrong with pulling the auction down at that point if someone you know wants the item instead? It doesn't have any bids on it, im still paying the listing fee, and at that point it wasn't going to sell anyway. Now I have never actually done this but im just saying if it happened I don't exactly see a problem with it. Once the item has a bid I consider it eBay's property but something without bids or any activity if the situation arose i think it would make alot more sense to just pull the auction at that point than run the risk of someone you know bidding on the thing without your permission.

My point is in this particular situation even though I have never actually done this for the four days it had ZERO BIDS on it and the starting bid of 99 cents was not even met at that point if she had told me oh i want this thing there is really not an issue of canceling the auction. If that had happened it might of avoided this whole thing of her bidding on it.

1. You're avoiding FVF.
2. A lot of ppl bid in the last min.
3. There's no listing fee for the first 50 NR auctions unless you have a store.

Your biggest problem is that you have no control over the shipping so you open yourself up to potential buyer complaints.

1. Tons of people bid last minute to get it at the lowest price they can. I suggest put it at the price you want it so you know it will sell if you can alter the bidding or whatever you do. It's not a good practice, but I mean if the seller does not want to lose then you gotta know what to do. I have had negative feedback due to not selling the item at a low price to a buyer because I did not alter anything either. I mean I learned my lesson and now I put the price at a high price and if nobody buys then I just put it on good until bought or list it for a long time.