(OT) Re: Is This A Shill?

[Tapley, Mark]

> On May 2, 2018, at 10:22 AM, Chuck Guzis via cctalk <cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
> 
> On 05/02/2018 08:06 AM, Eric Christopherson via cctalk wrote:
> 
>> When you say you snipe with a bot, do you mean you use eBay's highest-bid
>> functionality to do it? Or do you use third-party software?
>> 
>> I've never been clear on how the built-in highest-bid functionality works.
>> I often see things where the same person has several consecutive bids,
>> which doesn't make any sense to me in the absence of other people's bids in
>> between them.
> 
> When you submit a bit do eBay using the traditional method, your bid is
> really a proxy bid--it's increased by specified increments until it's
> outbid by another bidder.   If you prevail, you win by the minimum
> winning proxy bid.
….

If the successive bids are at a constant ratio (is it still 5%?) that is eBay making public higher and higher portions of the not-to-exceed (but still private) value that person originally entered. 

The other possibility is that the original bidder, on being outbid, lets their competitive instincts get the better of them and enters a higher not-to-exceed bid … and then a higher one …

if the successive bids have a minute or two between them, or a non-constant ratio, that is likely what is happening, and it’s a *great* reason shills exist in the first place. I think the original intent of the eBay system, and my recommendation, is that folks dispassionately, calmly, decide what their true ceiling is, enter that value the first time, and then walk away. eBay doesn’t promote that behavior now, though. The “you’ve been outbid! But there’s still a chance!” email they send seems pretty calculated to stampede you into competitive behavior. I suspect that leads to regrets.
										- Mark