eBay - is bidding on your own items to push up the price fair game?

Question

It's been in the papers recently so I thought I'd ask what people thought.
Is getting a friend to (or doing it yourself) bid on your items to push up the price a fair practice?
If you think it's unfair, do you still think it's acceptable?
Or do you think it's very wrong and unethical?
Or do you think it's fine and bidders only pay as much as they want to - why not push up your profits?

I should add, this is hypothetical...

Message to phoenix2frequent
Ive always wondered why it is people bid when there is ages left - hours/days/whatever. THIS is in fact what pushes the price up. I NEVER bid 'til the dying seconds. Im glad somebody else noticed this.
Dont mind it one bit when Im selling though! Ha!

Message to B C
You make a good point

Answer 1

Friend bidding the item up....OK
Unfair/ Acceptable....Acceptable
Wrong..... No
Is it Fine?....Yes , Bidders should stop bidding when it gets above the limit or value of the item.

Now for the logic behind these unpopular answers....Ebay is greedy to the hilt. If you are a seller they make $$$ based on the starting price of the item. Ebay hates for a seller to circumvent the system and cheat them out of a few cents by starting the item out at a penny. Now...What is the difference between starting a item at $100 and you friend bidding it up to $99? Either way the buyer is not going to get the item for $10 or something stupid.If you get stuck as the seller its your fault for getting greedy but at least Ebay is not getting it up-front. I never get upset if a item I am bidding on goes up at the last second higher than I was willing to pay...I just go to plan "B" and hit the search button again....No Sweat

Answer 2

Yes! Some times friends or relative help each other out. Some times they help themselves out. Although it is against EBay's rules it does happen. Some people set up alternate accounts with Ebay and Pay Pal using a PO box as an address. They often bid on an item to keep it from selling lower than they like. One reason they do this is because they are assessed a %fee by EBAY for the amount they list an item for. The more they start bidding for the more they pay, the less the lesser they are assessed. Never click on "watch Item". The seller knows how many bidders are watching. It is best to bookmark the item and bid minutes before the bid ends. Often they will bid on there item with the alias and set an auto bid to move it up to their more favorable price.

Answer 3

No, I do not think it is fair, especially from a seller's standpoint. And if you run up your own item, and wind up being the high bidder, it winds up costing you in final value fees, so you have now lost money. AND if you get caught, you will get suspended from Ebay. If you have an item that you want $50 for, then start the listing @ $50 not $1. Or set a reserve amount on it. Or sell at a fixed price. Then you can set the profit margin that you want to make. I have sold on Ebay for 8 years and this used to be rampant, until they started being more strict on registering an account. You now have register a bank account or a credit card. And they monitor pretty close, so I would assume they would close down a person with multiple accounts.

Answer 4

While it may not be the most ethical way of doing things, so long the pusher is willing to pay for and OWN the item should he or she inadvertently get stuck winning it... It would help further if the seller and the pusher were not related and did not know each other, then I think that makes it fair game.

While this may not make much sense at first, it happens frequently that a business owner bids on an item for the simple reason that he knows it will drive the price up: The owner in case here has no real intention of owning the item, does not know the seller and IS willing to accept responsibility should he win it, but has the experience to know that most likely he is simply making sure his competition ends up paying more.

Now if the pusher buys it, there's no exchanging money for item between pusher and seller afterwards: The pusher bought it, end of discussion.

Obviously, this rules out the seller or his / her friends pushing.

Answer 5

Bidders will pay what they want in order to get the item, but having your friends bid to push the price up is wrong, that's what the reserve price is there for.

Answer 6

The term used by ebayers is shill bidding. It's unfair. Absolutely unethical. Just plain wrong.

As a buyer you can proof yourself against it by
bidding once
bidding late (in the last seconds)
and bidding your max.
This proofs you against someone pushing up your bid by shill bidding. And if you're beaten, you know it was simply that someone wanted whatever it was more than you.

Answer 7

I think its unethical and uneconomic...!!

When you add up all the fees Ebay rips off, it comes to something like 6.6% of your final sale price, and then they charge you if you skim your account into the bank. (THAT SHOULD BE IN THE PAPERS)

So to bid on your own items and end up miserably with the winning bid.........you have to relist and this will cost you even more. No, I think its a bad idea.

Answer 8

I despise it.
Whenever i want to buy an item, when i think it's a bargain, i'll go bid, and then at the very second i'm automatically outbid.
So i bid again, then i'm outbid again right away.
So i guess they're driving customers away.
Good on them, if that's how they roll, but they're losing customers in the long run.

Answer 9

Its wrong when buying but right when selling, strange that !

As someone has already pointed out the annoying things are paypal & ebay fees AND sellers charging £ 20 postage for a £ 5 CD !!!!

Answer 10

It's not fair and it's technically against Ebay's Terms of Service. Auctions that are discovered to be doing this are removed and warnings are issued. Repeated violations and your account gets suspended.