eBay Auctions Winning Trick?

justwii on 07/02/2017 - 15:40

Hi I wonder if this is something people have been doing to guarantee winning an auction.
Say you bid to your price in mind, then use a fake account to outbid yourself at an incredible amount, to make sure others will be outbid.
Then you wait for the auction to end, obviously your fake account wins but you do not pay, wait for the seller to offer second chance offer to you because you were the second last winner.
Is this a loop hole? How easy is it to create fake eBay accounts?
Any way to block this?

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Comments

  • Morien on 07/02/2017 - 15:48
    +62

    …

    I do this sneaky little thing where I bid an amount I am happy paying, and if I win, I pay it!

    If I ever put something up, please don't bid on it.

    • Scrooge McDuck on 09/02/2017 - 15:52
      -4

      Good for you goody two-shoes but that's not the point of this thread.

      • Morien on 09/02/2017 - 17:56
        -1

        Not actively being a dick isn't the same as being a "goody two-shoes".

        • Scrooge McDuck on 09/02/2017 - 18:49
          -1

          But you did actively and irrelevantly reply that you wouldn't do what the OP suggested.

          The vast majority of us wouldn't, but that's not the point.

          The point is to discuss the viability of the loop-hole, which is legitimately practical from a defensive viewpoint.

  • SeaSalty on 07/02/2017 - 15:50
    +8

    ebay sniping.

    • Morien on 07/02/2017 - 15:50
      +4

      This is the ONLY legitimate response to this.

      • Maglia Nera on 07/02/2017 - 15:55

        check out - goofbid

        • Switchblade88 on 07/02/2017 - 21:16
          +12

          Or try gixen.com, which I've been using for years.

          Having said that, I've not needed to buy anything at auction in a long time; my default eBay settings are 'Price + Pstage, lowest first' and 'Australian sellers only'.

          If I'm after a really cheap crappy item, AND in no hurry, i'll look international or on Banggood (i.e. like 30% of Australian prices, e.g. $1 instead of $3ea).

          Otherwise, I consider the Australia tax a fair value for fast and timely delivery. To rural Australia mind you; none of this 'drop by The Good Guys on my commute home' business!

  • gaz3342 on 07/02/2017 - 15:55
    +20

    Shame on you

    • Kangal on 07/02/2017 - 18:13
      +2

      We've all thought of this at one stage.
      But to take it to the next step and carry it out is a whole nother level!!

      (personally, I wouldn't waste my time on something like this)

      • tomleonhart on 09/02/2017 - 08:02
        +6

        I have never thought of it to be honest.

      • bejahi on 09/02/2017 - 08:04
        +2

        What's a nother?

        • Kangal on 09/02/2017 - 12:00

          I don't know…. all the cool kids say it these days SWAG!

  • mskeggs on 07/02/2017 - 15:55
    +26

    If you carry out your plan, you guarantee you will never win for less than your 'real' bid. If another user bids $1 more than your 'real' bid they will be the one who gets the second chance. You haven't thought this through, and your plan will just end up costing you more.

    • cypher67 on 07/02/2017 - 15:57
      +1

      This, for the dummy account value to go up other people will need to bid.

      • mskeggs on 07/02/2017 - 16:05
        +23

        No, because the other bidder will have the bid at $101, the fake account at $102. When the fake fails to pay, the 2nd chance offer will go to the $101 bid, nit your 'real' $100 bid.
        Stop and think from the point of view of other bidders for a minute.
        It is also bad for you, because if the only other genuine bidder has a max price of $90, your fake account just forced your bid up to $100.

        • Scrooge McDuck on 09/02/2017 - 16:06

          So use 2 fake accounts:

          1. Real account bids $100: Current bid is previous bid +$1, else opening bid.

          2. Fake account 1 bids $1000: Current bid $101

          3. Fake account 2 bids $1001: Current bid $1001

          4. No other legitimate accounts bid because the current bid is absurd.

          5. Auction ends.

          6. Fake account 2 refuses to pay.

          7. Fake account 1 refuses to pay.

          8. Real account could win for the price of previous bid +$1, else opening bid.

          Note: This is just a concept. I haven't tested it nor heard of anyone using it. eBay may well have procedures to disqualify this strategy.

        • syousef on 09/02/2017 - 17:12

          @Scrooge McDuck:

          The seller does not have to offer the item to the second highest bidder. They can simply relist.

          As an example, say you have a $3000 camera lens and the first bidder bids $2800, but pulls out but the second bidder has only offered $200. Would you take the $200? I certainly wouldn't.

          Meanwhile if you're caught by Ebay say bye bye to your accounts. And if they consider it serious fraud you could end up getting a police officer at your door.

  • shanakatak on 07/02/2017 - 15:56
    +43

    So your trick is fraud?

    • tromboc on 08/02/2017 - 15:34
      -7

      I see you got lots of upvotes, but this is the same OzBargain community that loves to use VPN and fake addresses to buy from overseas all the time.

      That is also fraud. Double standards for OZB?

      • ItsMeAgro on 08/02/2017 - 16:33
        +5

        It's a bit different when a wealthy corporation is already lying to you (Oh, you're Australian? Err yes, our price is… $1100! What? What do you mean you can see that it's really only $800!? How are Australians getting on to the American internet!?)

        Lying back seems a lot less unethical.

        • tromboc on 09/02/2017 - 10:57
          -1

          Nice one, Robin Hood (who in the stories is a lovable criminal btw). It's ok to defraud the rich, but not the poor common folk? That's called a double standard, no matter which way you want to spread the butter. Businesses that have the legal right to import a product have the legal right to charge what they want for it. Don't like that? Take it up with the ACCC or move to a different country, or just suck it up and pay the premium it costs to live in this country.

      • JordiUp on 09/02/2017 - 01:32
        +2

        hey man this is kind of a logical reasoning fallacy, but hey, i'm not here to start flame wars. nor do i think that op is an awful person

        idk if this is helpful to you / anyone but here's one:

        "Appealing to popularity or the fact that
        many people do something as an
        attempted form of validation." - bandwagon

        https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/system/App/Settings/a3poste…

        also it's kind of like "two wrongs don't make a right"

        "i don't feel guilty about cheating on the test. Half the class cheats on tests".

        have a nice day

        • ItsMeAgro on 09/02/2017 - 09:41
          +1

          That's pretty different, though.

          What we're talking about here is someone trying to cheat you, so you just avoid their cheating.

          How about a hypothetical: an aggressive stranger screams a racist slur and tries to stab you to death out of nowhere, so you punch him in the stomach and take his knife.

          Sure stealing knives and hitting people is wrong, and two wrongs don't make a right. Nor is the fact that most people would do this the thing that justifies it.

          But sometimes a small cheat to defeat a big cheat is justified, even if it's not perfect.

          We didn't ask to be ripped off. Hell, we could just pirate; we're going to a lot of effort to pay a non-insane price.

          We're just trying to be ripped off a bit less.

  • Axelstrife on 07/02/2017 - 15:57
    +2

    i think the winning bid is only slightly above the second guys bid so this wouldn't work.

    and the seller doesn't have to do a second chance offer.

    I certainly wouldnt if the gap between winning bid and second bid

  • [Deactivated] on 07/02/2017 - 16:18
    +5

    Sorry but sellers figured that out fifteen years ago. You won't get a second chance offer if the auction is smelly. You just end up wasting the seller's time and money.

  • Elnato on 07/02/2017 - 16:20
    +11

    As a very casual eBay seller I block anyone with a feedback score of 0 with no transactions, this ensures people don't bid and never pay, and stops scum from using dummy accounts to game the system, most sellers wouldn't bother sending out second chance offers they would simply relist it for a shorter auction period, plus you would end up paying more anyway

    • Omitsukasa on 09/02/2017 - 03:39
      +1

      You can't block people with 0 feedback or no transactions; only people with feedback in the negatives. It's to stop discrimination against new shoppers.

    • tomleonhart on 09/02/2017 - 08:06
      +1

      are you calling OP a s**m? because that would be … appropriate ;)

  • supnigs super skids on 07/02/2017 - 16:23
    +1

    Pretty sneaky trick that's for sure. It would be the seller that benefits most if they did it.

  • Ryanek on 07/02/2017 - 16:42
    +1

    For your logic to work you would have to be the first and second highest bidder. Who's to say someone won't bid more than your second bid?

  • derek324 on 07/02/2017 - 16:55
    +6

    eBay is setup to block this by design, thus this trick would not work (see mskeggs explanation above why). This is how:

    eBay implements FORCED INCREMENTAL BIDDING. E.g. when an item sits at $101 and someone enters $200, on eBay it does not mean: "I am bidding $200". It means: I am bidding next increment ($102), and, when someone bids higher, I am agreeing for eBay to keep increasing my bid by $1 increments up to max. of $200.

    It would work for most non incremental bidding auctions when a person is allowed to raise hand and say: "I am bidding $200", i.e. is allowed to bid higher by any amount.

  • spackbace on 07/02/2017 - 17:07
    +6

    Snipe bidding at an amount I'm happy to pay. That's the only way

  • Clear on 07/02/2017 - 17:50
    +3

    My way of snipe bidding is by having multiple bidding tabs open with different prices. For example tab 1 has $10.00, tab 2 has $11.00, tab 3 has $11.50 etc. Towards the last 10-15 seconds I'll drop one bid and if I get outbid I'll drop another and so forth. If I don't get outbid or no one else is bidding I'll drop another high bid every 5 seconds to ensure I win.

    • spackbace on 07/02/2017 - 17:51
      +3

      Meh, I just use an app, it does it for me :P

      • Clear on 07/02/2017 - 17:55
        +1

        I haven't professionally bid for nearly 2 years now. Gotta save those dollars.

    • Morien on 07/02/2017 - 21:29
      +2

      Why not just bid your highest bid once at the last moment?

      • Clear on 07/02/2017 - 21:37

        I do that too sometimes. Depends on how many other bidders.

  • ItsMeAgro on 07/02/2017 - 18:41
    +1

    How easy is it to create fake eBay accounts?

    No probs, all you need is to commit serious fraud by forging federal documents, to set up fake bank accounts or credit cards.

    Sorry mate, this idea was thought of and prevented like 20 years ago…

    • syousef on 09/02/2017 - 17:13
      +1

      People can and do collude though. Might not want to do that too often with the same friend. Still I haven't seen a scam on this page that would work.

  • foxmulder on 07/02/2017 - 19:27
    +1

    Seller only do second chance offer if the second buyer has a close price offer. Will not work if the second buy price is half or quarter amount of the first. Hey may just relisted the listing again. If seller can't do own bid I guess buyer cannot do bid on different account unless it's totally different IP and you never log in in each other IP.

  • sparkles on 07/02/2017 - 20:55
    +1

    OP's strategy will be a fast track to getting banned. Next they'll be suggesting proposing bid retractions as a means to win. Problem is, it's all been done before, it's nothing new, and thus eBay have had YEARS to develop algorithms designed to identify this stuff happening.

    • derek324 on 07/02/2017 - 21:06

      sparkles: one can open multiple eBay accounts using different credentials, use VPN to log in from different IPs — no mechanism exists to determine that such multiple accounts belong to one person.

      • sparkles on 07/02/2017 - 21:13

        Of course it's possible if you are tech savvy, but most people trying these rorts probably don't realise eBay is spying on you via you IP address, and think they're being clever by have two or more accounts and are the first "genius" to have thought of it.

  • Odin on 08/02/2017 - 11:47
    +4

    People use auctions very, very poorly.

    The only way to "win" an ebay auction is to bid at the very last minute. If you're bidding before the last minute you're just pushing the price higher.

    • derek324 on 08/02/2017 - 13:04
      -3

      This is not how eBay automated incremental bidding works. Bidding before the last minute would only push the price higher by the smallest allowed increment above another bidder (e.g. $1).

      Example (two bidders only):
      * an item is sitting at $100, however a person who made this bid entered max. he wishes to pay as $150. EBay shows this bid as $100, and DOES NOT indicate max limit set by this bidder,
      * I am willing to pay up to $200, and I enter $200 bid. But eBay DOES NOT show my bid as $200 - it shows $151, which is $1 above the previous bidder max level.

      It is irrelevant what you enter in the very last minute, eBay will automatically keep outbidding you on my behalf up to my limit of $200. The "very last minute" bidding works only on assumption that there is nobody else with lower bid displayed, who however entered max. bidding limit above what you intend to enter manually in the last seconds.

      • Odin on 08/02/2017 - 22:36
        +2

        Yes but the point still stands, bidding before the last minute only allows others a larger window of time to bid against you.

        If you want an item for $X, and that's a hard limit for you, wait until the last minute then bid that $X, if you lose. Good, you didn't want to spend more than that right?

        • derek324 on 08/02/2017 - 23:47

          While infinity of scenarios are possible, my point is: you will not manually outbid the eBay computer in the last minute if there are other autobids waiting. Yes, a turtle racing a jet fighter can win, but only if the jet fighter runs out of fuel.

        • Odin on 08/02/2017 - 23:49

          Sure, but I never suggested that you would. I simply am pointing out the poor auction practices of people which only drive up costs unnecessarily.

        • Jules_d1 on 09/02/2017 - 13:57

          @derek324:

          Your missing the point here. It reduces the time for others to add new bids if they become outbid. Psychology shows that when people are engaged in an auction, they feel part ownership of what they are bidding on. Emotion can take over from logic (as with many things in life) and its possible for them to bid over what they say is their limit.

          Lets say the auction is at $125 and someone has put a max bid of $150 in. If they REALLY want the item and they get outbid, there is a chance they will bid again because they really want it. If you use the sniping tactic, you don't give them a chance to up their bid again. By the time its hit $152.50 its too late for them to react.

          Yes its common for you attempt to snipe and be automatically outbid but I have won more auctions that I can remember back in the day from sniping.

  • 2ndeffort on 08/02/2017 - 22:58
    +2

    As a seller you can block this tactic. You setup your auction to only accept bids from bidders with a certain feedback score and you also dont accept bids from bidders with no previous transactions. Theoretically you could arrange a few dummy sales to your shill to get your feedback up but you would have to weigh up the fees for those sales against the savings you would make from your fraud. Assume that your account will be blocked and certainly wont be getting any good feedback from your tactics.

    • derek324 on 08/02/2017 - 23:59
      -1

      It is trivial to jump over all obstacles you listed. This is Internet - it is very easy to pretend that you are someone else, or to be many personas.

  • Jase83 on 09/02/2017 - 01:26

    Gixen.com - free sniping tool. Set your max you want to bid up to and then leave it and it bids automatically in the last couple of seconds.

  • ialam99 on 09/02/2017 - 07:04
    +1

    The tactic i use is not bidding till the very last minute and not give other buyers time to react. Downside is that many times i forget to login at the very end and miss out all together.

    • derek324 on 09/02/2017 - 07:27
      -2

      You are assuming that other buyers also do it manually. You will loose against a buyer who entered very high max. limit, and eBay system is auto bidding for him in small increments.

  • derek324 on 09/02/2017 - 07:47

    There is no single best tactic, and no such thing as "the only way to win an eBay auction". It all depends on how many other bidders are, and what they do. It also depends on what is your priority: get a bargain, or get an item at any cost. For fun, and to confirm that there is no single answer, have a quick look at two eBay US forums that discussed sniping and the timing of the bids (about 600 pages - and yes, there are more materials):

    Here the snipers win - "The Sniping Revival : Ye all come":
    https://community.ebay.com/t5/Archive-Bidding-Buying/The-Sni…

    …and here the early bidders win - "Earlier Proxy Winners Versus The Snipers":
    http://community.ebay.com/t5/Archive-Bidding-Buying/Earlier-…

  • cybapete on 09/02/2017 - 09:18
    +4

    i could not be bothered with sniping or any other tricks to win an auction i put in a bid for what i am prepared to pay and if i get outbid so be it

    • derek324 on 09/02/2017 - 12:01

      ^this
      Thus all tricks described so far would do nothing for me (or against me). Of course I may not get the item, so be it.

  • OzzyOzbourne on 09/02/2017 - 11:51

    Placing the highest bid is guaranteed to win the auction

    • derek324 on 09/02/2017 - 12:06

      …this is from eBay advertisement?

  • jerjergege on 09/02/2017 - 13:19

    Have lots of money.

  • HoneyComb on 09/02/2017 - 14:48
    +1

    It won't work.

    Why? because i am an ebay seller and i've been selling on ebay for 6 yrs and I do not offer second chance offers.

    why don't i offer second chance offers i hear you ask? well i used to years ago but not 1 single person has ever taken it up. I've offered 2nd chance offers to maybe aprox 50 times and not 1 single taker. it was then i realized it was a complete waste of time.

    when i do get a response to a 2nd chance offer. the person usually asks me why i am offering them 2nd chance offer and wants me to give them some explanation and then accuses me of sniping and using a fake account (winning bidder) to drive up the price when i have done no such thing. They where all unpaid buyers

    So after either getting no responce or getting accused of driving up the price which i didn't do. i stopped offering second chance offers years ago. It's a huge waste of time. it's quicker and easier to just relist.

    Ask any seller. Most sellers don't bother with second chance offers because they know it's a waste of time and my experience is what most sellers would experience.

    Maybe it might work with a newbie seller who hasn't figured out that offering 2nd chance offers is a waste of time yet or that people will start accusing the seller of trying to drive up the price.

  • neonlight on 16/02/2017 - 08:47

    I hardly bid on eBay anymore. The only way was to use a software to snipe few seconds before auction ends with a price you willing to pay

  • [Deactivated] on 18/02/2017 - 20:48

    Have a fast internet connection, set an alarm, do not bid til last 3 minutes, bidding my max bid in last 30 seconds. Snipering basically.

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