Interesting shill-bidding incident at REA

[kingjammy24]

over at MEARS:
http://www.mearsonline.com/news/newsDetail.asp?id=448

1) "The REA rule #12 states:
In accordance with the applicable FCC regulations, under no circumstances may consignors bid on their own materials."

note that it doesn't say in accordance with REA or MEARS or rob lifson's regulations. F. C. C. i don't know of an auction house in operation in america that doesn't have to follow FCC regs.

2) "The owner informed me that in previous auctions, others than those of REA, he has been permitted to bid on and win his own items if he paid both the buyer premium and the hammer fee"

if someone shill bid at an REA auction, then what are the odds that others have shill bid at other auctions? apparently, according to the individual in the MEARS article, pretty good considering they admitted they had done so at other auctions and those auction houses clearly permitted such actions.

rudy.

[DRILLINDK]

Anyone see the "American Greed" series on MSNBC about shill bidding between Sotheby's and Christie's auction houses?

[gingi79]

www.gamewornauctions.net had this issue. It was a giant hullabaloo and people who did it were condoned by the auction house. Apparently, the auction house knew and felt as long as they paid the fees, they were just as entitled to "re-win" their item as the next person. The proverbial crap hit the fan when the reason behind it came out (Seller was not impressed with the bids and felt the shirt was much more valuable. He was willing to pay the associated fees to keep it rather than get a less than acceptable price)

Coincidentally, people who stood up and said it was wrong......were lynched and banned from the site.

Thankfully, GUU isn't run like that

[kingjammy24]

at some auction houses, sometimes i'd see garbage items fetch unusually high prices and i'd wonder who possessed such a combination of wealth and ignorance. now i know that in many cases it may just have been the owner shilling up the bids, under the approving eye of the auction house.

rudy.

[10thMan]

I`ve Purchased Items from several major Auction Houses, in most cases my bid was maxed out. In one Auction during "overtime" I made the Mistake of raising my Bid when it was Matched. Big Mistake, I won the Item (paid a lot more) but had a strange feeling about it. I`ll admit it`s not necessarily Bid Shilling, but I`m not gonna say it wasn`t either.
This has gotten common on Ebay as well, make a HUGE Bid it gets maxed out, but not beaten. The scammers have learned though. I remember a few years ago (buying on Ebay) it was common to get shilled, beaten, then get a "second Chance Offer" The Immediate second Offer is what I`m talking about.
I had my account deleted from a major Auction House, possibly from Comments on the Forum. It won`t let me sign in, & they won`t Respond to e-mails etc...
Rudy I sent you a "PM" did you get it?
Sean

[PhilipCohen]

Shill Bidding on eBay: A Case Study

For anyone that is interested, a detailed case study of shill bidding on eBay, and a comment on eBay’s apparent attitude thereto, at http://www.auctionbytes.com/forum/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=24033