Ebay seller becomes first person in UK convicted for bidding on his own items

[Reilly]

Thought I'd respond to this in a separate post just to make it clear how you keep avoiding the point above.

 

What you're advocating here isn't a method of prevention. It's a method for revenge. And that's cool, if you want to go beat up a person who kept you from getting a good deal. It's kinda weird and sociopathic. But cool.

 

Wait, no. It's freakish.

 

You are a remarkable bullshit spinner. By this theory any kind of law enforcement is just bitter revenge.

[Black Rose]

My future wife gaining 40 pounds? You come out with the oddest analogies, seek help.

 

But again I'll say it, and make this post short so you can finally answer the question; why can't the auctioneer just put the item up for sale?

 

Because the seller is a cheap arse and doesn't want to pay any insertion fees and so lists for 99p or less and gets his seller account to 'bump' up the price

[Reilly]

^Well yeah that's the whole point, the sellers being a cheap-ass bastard. It shouldn't be allowed and it shouldn't be legal, if it was, then everyone would do it and there's be no consequences, and eventually there'd just be no point in doing online auctions because nobodies going to bid for something and meet an agreed price, only for their bid for the intended item to mean nothing as the seller can just go "Hmm don't feel like selling it now unless it's for a ridiculous price, so this teapot now costs 4 grand."

[Black Rose]

Some sellers will try and pull out of a sale if they didn't get what they wanted. The reserve price feature is there for a reason, stop being cheap and starting at 99p

[Reilly]

Do you mean auctioneers? They don't even have to pull out, like I said, they can just keep raising until they've outbidded everyone and the money just goes straight back to them.

[Black Rose]

Do you mean auctioneers? They don't even have to pull out, like I said, they can just keep raising until they've outbidded everyone and the money just goes straight back to them.

 

Apart from the ebay & paypal fees :P

 

They will try and get you to do a mutual cancellation which disables the feedback I think

[Saffire]

I see a few massive assumptions on the part of others here. The most glaring is that law enforcement can prevent this from happening.

 

IT CAN'T.

 

Police aren't magical utopia fairies that create a perfect scenario with the wave of their guns.

 

So just fess up and admit that you all are only attempting to seek revenge on the sellers.

 

But again I'll say it, and make this post short so you can finally answer the question; why can't the auctioneer just put the item up for sale?

 

This is a great question!

 

Ask Ebay. Or the seller.

 

Again, I don't have an endless stream of answers for how the world should work. Some inventor/entrepreneur will figure out a solution to this flaw in Ebay's system. Not the police.

[Reilly]

OK, fair point, the police can't do anything to prevent it from happening, full stop, but if the law wasn't enforced on people who are clearly doing something illegal and immoral, then the floodgates will open, and like I said, eventually everyone would be doing it and there'd be no point in doing an auction. All the buyers would know that it's not just the risk of getting screwed, it's a dead certainty, and anyone would be an idiot for getting involved.

 

That's what your view that this shouldn't be illegal would result in, if you don't believe in the process of auctions then fine, because this is the type of thing, as I said, that will never be 100% foolproof from cheats. But that's not the case, so where do we go from here?

 

Well, we can make it legal to do so, and only a rule that e-bay enforces so they can close down the accounts of people who are doing it, which would make absolutely no difference to anything as they'd open up new accounts over and over. And as soon as people realise that there's a risk free method of getting the absolute maximum amount of money from their items then they will expose it as much as they possibly can, even businesses could legally operate by getting their clients to constantly bring in buyers who are overpaying on items as a result of being hooked in. On-line auctions would be a total sham.

 

Or, we can make it illegal, and sellers will at least know that what they are doing could result in fines or imprisonment. So while some will inevitably always take that risk, it certainly prevents the situation from escalating beyond control.

 

So, which is better? Because there is no third option, and unless you can think of one or you've seen a great suggestion, I don't understand how you can think it should be legal to do this if you still believe auctions should exist.

[Cobalt]

I see a few massive assumptions on the part of others here. The most glaring is that law enforcement can prevent this from happening.

 

IT CAN'T.

 

NOR CAN EBAY. DERRRRRRRR.

[Reilly]

It's pretty ridiculous, he acknowledges that the police can't do anything to completely prevent it, but when it comes to e-bay then apparently there must be a solution they can drum up.

[Saffire]

I think the root of our disagreement lies in the fact that I don't find the "two wrongs make a right" approach very productive.

 

My thesis is that it's the job of entrepreneurs and individuals to figure out solutions to technical problems.

 

You guys are still playing in the medieval sandbox - "Well let's chop off his hand!" - stuff like that. I'm thinking beyond the powdered wigs and "50%+1 makes right" conceptualizations of arbitration services. So there is very little that I consider necessary or even desirable for government to do, particularly when it comes to non-violent voluntary interactions.

 

but when it comes to e-bay then apparently there must be a solution they can drum up.

 

The way I see it is, you might as well have Gordon Brown hold Meg Whitman's hand while she poops. Ebay are big kids now. They can figure something out.

[Reilly]

Ugh you post like one of those annoying cheesy analysts who ham it up for the camera. E-bay are big kids now?

 

Like I said, it's not just e-bay's problem, it's everyone's, from other auction sites to real life auctions, in other words, the big kids are going to have to make a gang on the playground. *Shudder*

 

As you said, the police and government can't do anything to completely prevent the situation, so how do you expect e-bay to do anything? From what I know about the Data Protection Act in this country, employees of e-bay (And this goes right up to the top) cannot store any type of information on the customer unless they've agreed for it to be public, so apart from IPs, e-bay know as much as we do by looking at a persons profile. They can't know their names, exact address, date of birth, nothing to get a correlation and build a profile on repeat offenders.

 

Police can knock their damn door and question them.

 

That may be the 'medieval sandbox' to you but I'm just outlining the difference between the police- who have lots of rights and resources to follow up suspicious cases, and who you've said can't do anything to prevent this from happening; and e-bay, who can look at IPs and can close accounts.

 

So you expect e-bay to use what little clout they have and instil an equally effective system as the police?

[Cobalt]

eBay does have information, just that it's all stored away and encrypted, and they're not allowed to see it. Seeing as eBay owns PayPal they do at least have seller/buyer details somewhere.

[Reilly]

Fair enough, but even if they have all the information they could possibly need, all they can do is ban an account, it's nothing.

 

So, I'm presuming that by getting e-bay to do anything about it, they'll have to somehow find a way of preventing it completely? Because if they find out after it's been done, the penalty is completely worth the risk.

 

So, to completely prevent it, they'd have to cover every aspect, from a person using a proxy, to a person texting their friend who lives 300 miles away and telling them to bump up the price of their item and they'll get the money back if it doesn't work.

 

Quite a lot of ground to cover for just knowing IPs and usernames.

[Black Rose]

eBay won't stop it happening as higher finishing price = more fees

[Saffire]

Excellent point, Kite. I wasn't aware of that (oddly enough I've never used Ebay).

 

So it's currently in Ebay's best interest to allow this to continue. Maybe another website will pop up that offers the same service, but patched up the holes Ebay left open and charges a flat-rate for auctions rather than a commission rate.

[Reilly]

but patched up the holes Ebay left open

 

Oh those holes, like stopping people from getting their friend who lives in another country to bid on their item, for example. That's easily preventable.[/sarcasm]

[busybeeburns]

Paul Barrett claimed he was not aware he was acting illegally by shill bidding

 

Man fined over fake eBay auctions

 

A man has been fined £3,000 and ordered to carry out 250 hours community service after fixing an online auction on eBay.

 

Paul Barrett, 39 and from County Durham, became the first person to be convicted of shill bidding in April. That's when online sellers bid on their own items to artificially bump up the price or get friends and family to do it for them.

 

Barrett was sentenced after admitting 10 counts at Bradford Crown Court. The minibus hire firm boss pleaded guilty after an investigation by North Yorkshire Trading Standards found he had bid against himself on several items, including a pie and pasty warmer on sale for £127. Mr Barrett told the court that he didn't realise the practice was against the law.

 

Critics of eBay say shill bidding is a widespread problem on the site. eBay spokesperson Vanessa Canzenni denies that not enough is being done to prevent it. She said: "We spend £6 million every year to try and stop shill bidding from happening. The fact that we're the number one e-commerce site proves that customers can buy and sell with confidence."

 

She also claims eBay is able to spot when shill bidding is happening, although wouldn't provide any details about how that's possible. She added: "We have leading technology that enables us to detect when people are trying to do this."

 

However, Jo Boutflower, the trading standards officer who brought the case against Mr Barrett, does admit it's very difficult to prove shill bidding. She said: "We have to have sufficient evidence or suspicion of an offence before we can exercise powers to get eBay records for example."

 

Regular eBay user Rezza Faizee, 27 and from Workington in Cumbria, reckons it's a massive problem and something that has happened to him when he was trying to buy a mobile phone. "It's definitely something that happens regularly," he admitted. I've had friends, family, and the same thing's happened to them. I honestly don't know what you can do to tackle the problem, I honestly don't."

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/hi/technology/newsid_10500000/newsid_10508900/10508913.stm

[Black Rose]

I honestly don't know what you can do to tackle the problem, I honestly don't."

 

The answer is Simples, only bid in the dying minutes ;)