Quote:
Originally Posted by The Donster
You guys seem to have strange ideas regarding what "market price" is.
Market price is not a single fixed number. It's a range within which both buyer and seller can agree on a price. On ebay, prices are either agreed on by direct negotiation or by auction. An auction by definition does not have a fixed price.
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, and don't even realize it.
This is how shill bidding works, and this is why it's illegal. It's also why shill bidding is rampant on ebay- it's extremely easy to have one of your friends place shill bids or else place them yourself using a different account and IP address. It's almost impossible to detect.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by The Donster
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.
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.
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You can say these things as many times as you want but you stay just as wrong. The guy decided that he didn't want to sell his car for less than $28k. He took a risk with his $28k shill bid in that possibly no one else thought it was more than that and it remains unsold this go-round. But lo and behold, there is a guy named Donster who thinks it's worth $30k! Of course Mr. Donster would like to get it for less, (who the fk wouldn't), but the guy doesn't want to sell it for less.
No one is holding a gun to your head forcing you to buy his car for $30k. You have the freedom to buy it for that, not buy it for that, buy someone else's car, etc...
And since you also do not understand free markets, the value of your hypothetical car is not "between $27 and $30k", you silly putz. The seller can ask anything he wants for it, say $50k. You can only be willing to pay $20k because you hate the color. Neither figure has jack schit to do with the value of the car. Do you understand this or do I need to go on?
Jesus...
