Bid shielding scamming members to block

[mkejacques]

Just had a buyer cancel a bid at last second to get a Kelenic auto for cheap. The accounts are loja7890 and mire923

[LittleJimmies]

Originally Posted by mkejacques

Just had a buyer cancel a bid at last second to get a Kelenic auto for cheap. The accounts are loja7890 and mire923

Cancel it. Totally within your rights as a seller.

[mkejacques]

I canceled it and reported both accounts to ebay.

[Baseball4Fun]

Maybe I don't fully understand the scam, but how do you know the 2nd ID was in on it?

[PDCCollectibles]

Yeah, I don't understand either....how would you know

[mkejacques]

Buyer one puts in a bid to take high bid. He then puts in a bid to increase highest bid. Buyer 2 puts in a really high bid that he knows no one will bid over. Buyer 2 retracts bid with seconds left so it drops all the way down to the lower bid with no time for anyone else to bid.

[mkejacques]

Winning bidder has 0 feedback 2nd account has feedback blocked so people can't see what other sellers have said.

[LittleJimmies]

Originally Posted by Baseball4Fun

Maybe I don't fully understand the scam, but how do you know the 2nd ID was in on it?

Originally Posted by PDCCollectibles

Yeah, I don't understand either....how would you know

No way to know for sure, but it's 99% likely a scam.

[slogue2]

Thanks for the heads up. Among the many reasons I enjoy this forum, the reporting of these bad actors is at the top of my list. My blocked buyer list grows every week!

[ucLAkers]

Its a new shady scam...been happening for about 2 years now and messes with the comps also.
Thank you for the update...blocked... I dont do auctions, but still... thank you.

[LittleJimmies]

Originally Posted by ucLAkers

Its a new shady scam...been happening for about 2 years now and messes with the comps also.
Thank you for the update...blocked... I dont do auctions, but still... thank you.

Blocking doesn't even matter anymore as they are basically burner accounts. It's a numbers game. Just keep creating fake accounts and winning auctions at half price. Some % will go unnoticed and voila, scammers win.

Only solution is to be diligent in monitoring bidding activity in your auctions and in items you're bidding on. I messaged a seller last week because this same scam was pulled on a card I was interested in. Noticed the ending price was well below where I would've bought at, but I hadn't bid because the fake bid was already entered over what I was willing to pay. He confirmed the withdrawn bid and canceled.

[ucLAkers]

Originally Posted by LittleJimmies

Blocking doesn't even matter anymore as they are basically burner accounts. It's a numbers game. Just keep creating fake accounts and winning auctions at half price. Some % will go unnoticed and voila, scammers win.

Only solution is to be diligent in monitoring bidding activity in your auctions and in items you're bidding on. I messaged a seller last week because this same scam was pulled on a card I was interested in. Noticed the ending price was well below where I would've bought at, but I hadn't bid because the fake bid was already entered over what I was willing to pay. He confirmed the withdrawn bid and canceled.

This is true but many of them will be reused over & over. eBay wont close these accounts because retractions are allowed. Then burner bot IP addresses confuses the eBay system making it look like it only happened once and these are not calculated as suspect.
Every account usually only allows 1 bank account per eBay account. Somehow they are bypassing this also.

I dont run auctions...but these retractors also buy things to sometimes build a solid looking account making the other retractions masked by doing it multiple times without any true purchases.

Private accounts on auctions should be blocked 100% if the time regardless of the $$. I dont have a problem with Private buyer BINS but for auctions its shady AF.

[discostu]

Originally Posted by LittleJimmies

Cancel it. Totally within your rights as a seller.

Do this.

[Baseball4Fun]

Originally Posted by mkejacques

Buyer one puts in a bid to take high bid. He then puts in a bid to increase highest bid. Buyer 2 puts in a really high bid that he knows no one will bid over. Buyer 2 retracts bid with seconds left so it drops all the way down to the lower bid with no time for anyone else to bid.

Thanks a lot for the explanation and the 2 userids to block.

I googled to understand this scam a bit better, here's another example in case it helps someone else understand it better: https://community.ebay.com/t5/The-Fr.../td-p/24624041

[towerymt]

The ebay listing appears to be gone now, but this happened recently on a Luis Garcia clear parallel I was watching. High bid was a ridiculous $815 with ~15min to go. The 3rd highest bid was ~$300 from a legit bidder, but the two scammers bid $805 and at least $815 to push the high bid well above what anyone else would be willing to bid.

Literally with one second to go, one of those top two bids is retracted, leaving the high bid at $310 (min increment above the highest legit bid, I think $305 and a $5 increment puts it at $310). This prevents anyone else from bidding, let's say $375, since the auction sat over $800 until the very end.

https://www.blowoutforums.com/showth...r#post17013591

I think the same pair of accounts did this stunt again on another one of these, only they didn't retract at the end, so it ended at $700-800-something, and probably went unpaid.

I would think this would be attempted more on high volume consignment seller accounts where it may not get noticed as easily. I know when I had ~10-12 auctions running a week ago, and I got a bid retraction email, I went and checked it out and then blocked that bidder.

[rwperu34]

I saw this on a $600 item I was after. I even emailed the seller and told him he got hosed. My snipe was for over $600 but it didn't go through because they had bid it up to $2000. Then at the last second, RETRACTO and the price ends at $330.

I also noticed a few of these when I was doing my price index and didn't know what was up so I tossed them. Now I know and will be on the lookout.

[noaskiecards]

Sneakerbois

Sent from my SM-G970U1 using Tapatalk

[HarryLime]

I thought you couldn't cancel bids with 24 hours left? They did away with that?

Arthur

[Soxfan26]

Originally Posted by mkejacques

Buyer one puts in a bid to take high bid. He then puts in a bid to increase highest bid. Buyer 2 puts in a really high bid that he knows no one will bid over. Buyer 2 retracts bid with seconds left so it drops all the way down to the lower bid with no time for anyone else to bid.

The way I always understood it, there has to be two people involved. Basically the same scenario you mention with one little added item. The original buyer's second bid has to be artificially high and placed within the same time frame as the bidder.

So, let's say this:
Bidder A bids $2. Then he bids $500. Bidder B bids $525. Then, right before the end of the auction, Bidder B retracts, which makes the Bidder A $500 bid go away, and the auction sells for $2.

[Remmons22]

Originally Posted by HarryLime

I thought you couldn't cancel bids with 24 hours left? They did away with that?

Arthur

I thought this was the case as well.

[SupermanBrandon]

Originally Posted by HarryLime

I thought you couldn't cancel bids with 24 hours left? They did away with that?

Arthur

Must have. I was watching an Acuna BC Auto 9.5 last week. With 5 minutes left, the auction was at $4600. Ended at $2601 to a (0) feedback "buyer". I hit up the seller afterwards to make sure he noticed. He did. He said the $4600 bid disappeared w/ 1 second to go. And wasn't sure what happened. He hadn't heard of Bid Shielding. He reported it. The link to the auction has disappeared since.

[thenwhatjk]

Had you noticed your Kellenic was way too high before it had happened?

[deujr61]

As well as the above, timing is also important when retracting a bid:

• If there are 12 hours or more left before the listing ends, all of your bids can be retracted
• If the listing is ending in less than 12 hours, you can retract your most recent bid if it's been less than an hour since you placed it

[NYRE2PECT]

Originally Posted by deujr61

As well as the above, timing is also important when retracting a bid:

• If there are 12 hours or more left before the listing ends, all of your bids can be retracted
• If the listing is ending in less than 12 hours, you can retract your most recent bid if it's been less than an hour since you placed it

Yesterday I had seven mid-level card auctions ending and I have taken the approach that I will police my auctions until the end for this very type of thing. I had bidders on 3 out of 7 that had an unacceptable number of bid retractions. I would have two windows open where I blocked them from bidding and then canceled their bids. One had FB of about 250 with 60+ bid retractions.

Now, it was only 7 auctions and a total nuisance, but it is what it is.

Sellers be warned.

[rjahn98]

Even though we can cancel as sellers, I still hate these scams because it skews the average sale amount. Feebay needs to be better about these kinds of tactics.