Shawn; You can construct as many hypothetical ebay situations as there are readers on this message board ... but the bottom line is if you were comfortable with submitting a $150 bid ... and you got the item for $130 in the scenario you presented above ... you should be happy!

You don't know for "FACT" that a shill bidder was employed by the seller which caused the underbid to go higher. If you want hypotheticals ... maybe another legitimate bidder at $175 could not get his/her bid in on time before the clock expired... or if he/she DID get the $175 bid in on time, you would have lost the item, instead of getting it for $20 less than your $150 bid. You can change the scenario a hundred different ways ... but the end result is that you placed a bid and you have no proof that another competitive bid was from a shill or not.

The simple truth is that we don't always win all our items wanted on ebay. Sometimes there are folks who are willing to pay more than we think the item is worth ... and shill bidding had nothing to do with it.

Does shill bidding happen on ebay? Of course it does. But that shouldn't stop you from putting in a bid at a level you would be happy with should you be the successful bidder ... and maybe you'll be lucky enough to even get it for less.