I Think I Might Have Just Been Shill Bid

I've been watching a few auctions on ebay and one was for a simple US Washington 2¢ coil pair. I plug my max bid into my sniping software, and notice later that with 20 minutes left in the auction there is still no bid. I check later to find out I did not win the auction which is fine as I entered the max I would pay for the item.

Fast forward to 1 hour after the auction ended and I get a 2nd chance sale from the seller. I know this does happen but so close to the end of the auction ? Why would someone place a bid and within 1 hour retract it ? The Stamps were XF MNH so it can't be a condition issue or something the buyer missed in the the description. Strangest auction that I've been involved with.

That smells funny. I'd tell the seller I'd accept, but only at whtever price would have been the final price without the potential shill bid.

Maybe not as sinister as it appears,the seller may have multiple copies, I've had this occur a few times, I purchased the items for my max bid.

I'd be wary. If he is offering you the identical item that was offered, it is shill bidding. Have a look at goofbay and you can see common links between sellers and buyers that identifies excess mutual transactions.

Like fredcobbs mentioned, it might just be that the seller has multiple copies of the same item.

Ram

Multiple copies are not the case here.

Does the winning bidder have a history with the seller?

Hard to tell. It was the first thing I wanted to see but the bid history is now gone from the listing..........

Without getting too far into the details, I have offered "Second Chance" deals within 5 minutes after the auction ends, more for books and DVDs than for stamps. Buyers seem to think there's something crooked about second chance offerings, so my acceptance rate is only about 1 in 3. Gotta get while they're hot!

If it is the same exact item I would decline. You would have to find out from the seller. The problem with the second chance offer is this. If the item was shill bid then your bid was raised to the max. When they retract an offer they usually want you to pay that amount. without the shill bid you may have gotten the item at a lower price. If you accept the offer then you are enabling the seller to keep up his bad ways. I would decline and tell them you may bid if they put it up for auction again.

It could be that the other bidder retracted for some legitimate reason. Or perhaps the seller decided not to sell to the other bidder based on his/her bad ebay history.

That being said, I would still back away.

be careful. I've had someone offer me second chance bid only to find out it was a scam.

Many times I have extra copies and give my underbidders 2nd chance offers.

I usually offer within minuter of the auction close, hoping the other bidders are still online.

Success rate about 50%

This just happened to me today with a Swedish Mauser M38 bayonet scabbard lock! They are hard to find and I waited till the few seconds to strike (so someone else wouldn't have time to outbid me), I was the highest bidder then literally at very last second I lost then got an email, checked it and it back up as a second chance to me? Seemed odd and I didn't accept it.

Jeff, you need to get with the times :)

http://www.gixen.com/index.php

Yes, it really makes one think when these things happen. The reason I know that in my case they were not duplicates is because the coil pair had an inclusion in the paper.

I would not accept a 2nd chance offer unless I already have an established relationship with the seller, or unless the seller sets up a special Buy It Now listing for me.

Otherwise, you are going outside the website rules, and if something goes wrong you may have a hard time getting your money back.

Also, the 2nd chance offer should be one increment above the 3rd highest bid. When the high bid is negated, then any increases caused by the high bidder should also be removed. If the seller is not adjusting your bid accordingly, then the seller is cheating you (I should note, the seller may not be doing it on purpose, they simply didn't consider the possibility that the high bid pushed up your bid).