Whether or not eBay makes it easy to detect shill bids is irrelevant. I suspect some are harder to detect than others. Your confidence in your own abilities regarding this is noted. I too would like to play cards with you sometime.
Shill bidding is different than a hidden reserve for some obvious reasons, and there are good reasons why one constitutes fraud and the other doesn't.
Quote:
Originally Posted by The Donster
Shill bidding cheats buyers by pushing them toward the higher end of what they are willing to pay. Let's say there's a car for sale and I'm willing to pay a max of $30K. The reserve price is $27K. The market value of the car is therefore $27-30K. There are two other bidders, a legit bidder and a shill. The other legit bidder is willing to pay a max. of $28K, so I should get the car for anything over $28K. However the shill comes in and bids $29K, forcing me to pay another $1000 for the car, without exceeding my max bid. I have just been cheated out of $1000.
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I think I've already illustrated pretty clearly a scenario where a bidder is cheated out of $1000 without paying more than he's willing to. The point his
he has paid more than he would have in a fair auction. If you can't understand that, you probably shouldn't be selling things on eBay.