Possible Ebay Bid Rigging?

"They are sister companies, or the same company"
Stop repeating this falsehood.

Look rogdcam and mootermutt987 there is a reason I did not add a comment after the cut and paste. My body was jerking around too much to keep my fingers on the keyboard.



There are two philatelic sellers in the current top 100 sellers (by one measure) on eBay, one is nystamps (83), the other is goldpathstamp (59)as of today, Feb 10, 2022.

hungrypirana.

I have noticed the same thing with this seller, which is a shame as they frequently have items that at least catch my attention.

One trend I frequently see is the "bidder" who comes in and ramps up the bidding $3 at a time - 10 or 15 times. Then another bids $5 each, multiple times, etc. For some lots just look a the total number of bids. Crazy ratio.

Predictable trend across CK Stamps lots. I also pick a price I am willing to pay and don't go higher.

I see this all the time in my auctions and it is just amateurish bidding not shill bidding. Lately I've seen a lot of strange bidding. I have one bidder than bids with me 90% of the time and bids high but rarely wins. A couple weeks ago I had a bidder who would walk an item up in small increments until he was high bidder and then cancel his high bid. He's blocked now! Another bidder did the same thing but contacted me to cancel his high bid. I told him if he could take the time to bid 12 times he could take the time to learn how to retract a bidder. Eventually he threatened to call eBay and tell them how uncooperative I'd been.

My point is that if you're active eBay seller you see all sorts of crazy stuff and if you sell as much as CKstamps it is much worse.

Folks should also remember shill bidding is perfectly OK in the public auctions, and I believe every public auction allows the owners to bid on their own consignments. I'm not defending shill bidding on eBay but
I don't think it is as common as folks at SCF seem to think.

I am not talking about CK or NYStamps or others like them but there are a number of sellers of quality specialized material that employ shill bidding. They do not list thousands of random items of which they have no specialized knowledge. They list a couple of hundred items at once and use eBay as their SAN. I actually like them. Not one item is ever sold below market value. Not one. Ever. And when you look at bidding patterns you need to believe your lying eyes. I do not blame them, however. Many buyers have been conditioned to expect 99 cent starts in eBay world. I also do not expect anyone to let a true $5000 stamp sell for $500. We have to be real here. If an item is languishing usually because of a fault or being really specialized in nature or of very high catalog value, it will be pumped to a solid number as sure as the sun rises. Sometimes you will see the item listed again several cycles later. One seller in particular has taken to sprinkling a limited number of items throughout the auction with fair but real starting prices and the "Make an Offer" option. I take them up on it because the exact same item, if it goes unsold and is relisted at the next auction with a 99-cent start, will be bid up to at least the former higher starting price without fail.

As many other have stated, set your number, do not become emotionally involved and let the chips fall where they may.

PS: eBay stating that they have systems in place to detect bad behavior is amusing. Kind of like the ADT sign on the lawn of a house with no alarm system. It does work to an extent to warn off some. What are they supposed to say? " eBay has no system in ace to prevent shilling"? LOL

Quote @parcelpostguy: 9. I bid to support the market without a concern of winning or not winning. In stock terms that would be similar to dollar cost averaging.

With all due respect, that is in no way a description of dollar-cost averaging. What you've described is more akin to price-fixing, which, itself is akin to shill bidding, as you are not allowing "the market" to establish the value.

When you post a bid that is low, eBay so advises and then gives you three bid amount button to use and a fill-in space. For lower level prices, the three bids are the next whole dollar amount, three over and five over. Thus it is a simple way to bid which produces multiple bids.

Some folks don't shill, they just run a bidder up out of spite.

Now if I am selling a #whatever, at $10 to open, and seller sees some other seller with a #whatever at $8 the seller may be inclined to run up the price so the sellers $10 #whatever looks cheaper.






Well I though floortrader would slam me, but you did. What I am saying that once I have an item at a price, if a similar one can be had for 1/2 that price, I may buy it to average my cost for the pair, or three, or however many. This gives me a idea of the level for which to sell or trade the "average" item of similar items. Would a better term be buy on the dip?

By the way "the market" is not defined as everyone else who is playing except for me. Everyone is in the market and everyone plays games for their best interest based upon their situation (think game theory as mention before). Musk says he is going to sell a million units of stock, people will react. People heard Buffet takes a 5 or 10% stake, people react.

A share of stock is worthless until the company either buys it back or pays a cash dividend. Until that is happening people are assigning a mythical, but hoped for, "value" to a share. Collective fantasy keeps prices on non-dividend where they are. All a share of stock represents is someone some time loaned the company money with no guarantee of payback. Even then the first price was "fixed" when offered as an IPO. A floor price is fixed for the folks wanting to buy (loan the company money). If stocks and thus the market were not fixed, the stock would be offered at a penny or a dollar at an IPO and allow to set its own level but of course, that would kill the reason for stock in the first place, the company raising money via folks loaning money.

When the government limits a company's ability to buy back its stock that is price control (fixing). When the Hunt brothers legally purchase silver futures and then actually took delivery on the silver and prices shot up, the market cried foul and the government changed the rules because the "market" does not like someone smarter who takes control. (That is like the casinos providing '21' game tables but when there are folks smart enough to understand and beat the house, they bar the good players from the game.) The philatelic market can be controlled with just a small fraction of the Hunt's position in silver. Lastly when the government limits short selling, or high-speed computer programs, that too is "fixing" the market. The goal of the market and market regulation is to keep the fantasy value alive on the shares not yet bought back nor are paying a dividend. Markets are fixed by design.

Often persons on this forum post opinions that conflict with a previous post. That's not slamming, just offering a different perspective. I am currently reading De Tocqueville's "Democracy in America". He wrote in 1835, "everyone in America has an opinion.... And is willing to state it". Not a bashful people. It continues on this forum!
I acknowledge you as an expert in philately, your understanding of "the market" not so. No offense, I would recommend AAII, or a Morningstar account for clarity. Please do not take this personally. As a side note, I believe I remember that Nelson went to jail for his activity, I could be wrong.i also believe Bunky died prior to trial.... From memory.
Cheers mark
Edit for clarity, responding to mr. Parcelpost, Nelson and Bunky were the hunt brothers.
There was another brother but I have long forgotten his name

Parcel Post - I tend to agree with what you send, particularly about averaging out costs for stamp. I buy a lot of error material, where the total outstanding supply is say 50 stamps from a sheet. The first time I came across a 1 in 50 rarity, say at an auction, this was my only chance to get it. So I bid, and won. Say I paid $500. Say catalog is $700 for the stamp. I may have actually overpaid, but I can't help it. I needed it, and don't know if I will ever see the offering again. I have an addiction.

Now someone comes out on eBay, and has one, and it is available at $350, but no buy-it-now, only bid. If I bid on it, say to $475 these are the 2 outcomes.

I may win, and get it, and thereby gain control of 4% of the total addressable market decreasing supply a notch. If I lose, at the minimum, I have driven the price up to closer to where I paid for it, thereby ensuring my stamp retains its perceived value based on last time sold.

I understand your logic, now, @parcelpostguy. Thanks for the clarification.

One problem with drawing comparisons between equities and collectibles is that the collectible IS what you own. Equities on the other hand give you a share of ownership of a complex financial entity. You could corner the market on an error of which 50 exist but are there fifty people or two that want one. And how many people want that error at any given time. Have more people come along desiring that error or has interest waned? Will more be discovered? Are all of the errors exactly the same and equal? I think dollar cost averaging a collectible is a fool's errand. Joe buys ten US Scott "X's" and pays from $500 to $2000. He spends a total of $10,000 for the ten. Was there bad weather or somebody that missed an auction that drove a price down for a purchase? Did an emotional person drive the price up on another purchase? Is it no longer a popular area to collect?

I always look back at stamp auction records from 2008 when I want to be reminded of how crazy it is to try and predict the market. It was I-N-S-A-N-E.

Good post Rogdcam
Succint and well written. I agree with everything you wrote.
Regards mark

"Folks should also remember shill bidding is perfectly OK in the public auctions, and I believe every public auction allows the owners to bid on their own consignments."

It is not legal in every state, but dealers get around it by having a buddy bid for them.

"What you've described is more akin to price-fixing, which, itself is akin to shill bidding, as you are not allowing "the market" to establish the value."

There is one big difference between what parcel does and a shill bidder does. If parcel wins, he pays and takes possession of the item. A shill bidder does not (they may pay so eBay sees the "payment", but the seller then just refunds them outside the eBay system and never ships the item).

"Lastly when the government limits short selling, or high-speed computer programs, that too is "fixing" the market."

If you support high frequency trading you have lost me.