In a previous post I went over auction sniping and tried to show why it is not good for buyers or sellers in general, and how the Internet auction environment allows this to take place: http://www.thechipboard.com/cgi-bin/tcb/tcb.pl?read=374194 . This time I would like to go over another aspect of the Internet auction scene and indicate why internet auctions may be of value only when both the seller and buyer are knowledgeable, but that all bets are off when the seller resorts to illegal means.

On November 8, a Yahoo news item mentioned shills on eBay:
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=509&ncid=509&e=4&u=/ap/20041107/ap_on_bi_ge/ebay_phony_bidding
and this is probably a good time to go over that subject. The several shills reported to have been caught probably represent the tip of the iceberg. Their cases are more obvious as they were operating on items of higher value. I have come across suspected cases, which are almost impossible to prove without contact information, when I bid on even relatively small value items. Note that for some reason that escapes me, eBay allows both sellers and buyers to hide behind aliases (handles). Perhaps the buyer’s side may be justified in certain cases by noting that some people may be averse to their names appearing as a bidder of a fun item related to somewhat questionable moral standards, but eBay already has secret bidding (where even the handle does not show up) to cover this area. To be frank, I would like to buy from a seller who has open contact information (why not?), and as for the other buyers who bid against me, I may not know them personally, but, from previous auctions, I have a pretty good idea of who I am up against. Thus, if I bid on an item and very soon some buyer heretofore unknown to me ups the bid and then retracts it once the extent of my bid is exposed, I have good reason to be suspicious of foul play, particularly if this is followed by another unknown bidder bidding just below my exposed maximum. This is why I have tried to stick with sellers I know (therefore their handles are meaningless anyway) unless I come across an unusual item, when I take my chances. Due to my current business enterprise I have actually minimized my auction exposure since now they are the competition, but knowing that auctions have their place in the world I may still look for unusual items every now and then, only when I really understand what I am buying and know just how much I can open up my wallet for that very unusual item. If I get “shilled”, I am ready to raise my voice since now the stakes are higher and to dig deeper to go behind the other bidders’ and the seller’s aliases, since, the last I knew, their identities can be obtained anyway as long as you do not mind exposing yours.

It is my unqualified opinion that as the Internet auction scene matures, auction sniping and shilling will rise to much higher levels (somewhat similar to the spyware phenomenon which has gone from a nuisance to a scourge, since the environment allows it) and either Internet auction sites will have to re-invent themselves or restrict and modify themselves in important ways to avoid extinction. I, and probably others, would be interested in learning about your experiences in regard to sniping and shills. In my next post, I will try to examine non-paying high bidders and outright fraud.