30 Sep
2010
30 Sep
'10
1:21 p.m.
On 9/30/10, William Donzelli <wdonzelli at gmail.com> wrote:
It can be, but my assertion is merely that it's more difficult than
that with a virtual auction. There, the only thing you have is IP
addresses and whatever eBay cares to let you know about the bidders
(less now, with their obscuration policies)
Of all the auctions of all time everywhere? Probably pretty few. Of
the items I've personally bid on? More than merely "a bunch of
times".
I don't bid on dozens of things a month - my habits are far more
selective (my eBay feedback count is under 100 and I had an account on
"AuctionWeb" before it was eBay). Very specifically, I rarely bid on
anything that isn't classic computer related, and much more often than
other products, on 12-bit DEC gear.
Yes. The
difference is that when everyone is in the same room, a
veteran bidder can spot signs, recognize familiar faces, etc.
In a real live auction with serious players, it can be very difficult
to see who you may be up against. The one thing that I will praise EBay for (and being
how much I hate
Ebay, that is saying something) - at least the auctioneer is
impartial. Just a few weeks ago I was at a radio estate auction where
the auctioneer missed a number of my bids, and banged the gavel a bit
too quickly for his buddies benefit.
That's certainly true. I have been to numerous estate auctions, and
the auctioneer has a lot of ability to control the flow of things,
push to get the bids up, direct the win at a particular bidder, etc.
When there are
3-4 bidders with 0-1 feedback that jump in and nudge
the price up in several increments to exhaust the max bid of the
present winner, that's not the same as someone with dozens of hundreds
of feedback _on similar items_ coming in with one bid that blows past
any competition.
Lets be honest - how often does that really happen? We have all seen
it once or twice, or maybe a bunch of times if you live on Ebay, but
what percentage of the auctions are really like that? This is the "overblown" aspect I mentioned -
for every auction you
describe with these potential shills, there are *thousands* that are
normal.
Across all of eBay, almost certainly. I'm not claiming that all of
eBay sucks for everyone equally. I'm merely pointing things that I
have personally experienced (vs repeating stories of others) and found
unpleasant enough to impact my use of their services.
One more thing - experienced shills do not register a
day before their
target auctions, but hang around for weeks before. Inexperienced
shills will register right before an auction - and they are the ones
that get caught.
No argument there. If I can spot them, they aren't that sophisticated.
-ethan