Hi Jim,

After reading (and digesting <g>) most of these posts, I'd have to say that the scenario re the $20 item with and without a reserve serves the same purpose EXCEPT, as someone stated earlier, the EXPECTATION of the auction result is different. An example was given before but I'll state it again using your price.

If item A has a reserve ($20) then bidder A can ONLY expect item A to sell once the reserve ($20) is met. Outside of wasting a lot of time (which is why I like minimums rather than reserves), bidder A's expectation of the auction outcome is open and NO deceptive practice is being used (notice I said deceptive, not illegal). With no reserve and use of shill B, bidder A can expect item A to sell for lets say $1 IF no other LEGITIMATE bidder is interested in item A. It CAN happen!! In reality, this is a FALSE expectation since a shill will be used to bit-it-up to what the seller actually wants item A to sell for. See the difference!

I'm not advocating that sellers allow $20 items to sell for $1 but let's let an auction be an auction! Drop the deceptive shills, eliminate reserves and start the bidding at a reasonable level and move on! That's the risk of auctions and sellers have to realize that there IS risk in an auction. That's why we have SALES........

Steve