Obama-Clinton signed book bids look "manipulated"

[liberalnurse]

Hey E-Bay members and lurkers....look at these bids in this sales item....Looks like the seller has inside Trolls to boost-up the price.


24 hour auction.....

http://cgi.ebay.com/Hillary-Clinton-Barack-Obama-Signed-1st-Ed-1st-Pr_W0QQitemZ130150888481QQihZ003QQcategoryZ29223QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

Here are the bids.

http://offer.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewBids&item=130150888481

Does it look funny to you?:shrug:

Especially the screen names of the bidders...............too similar.

[Vinca]

1. It appears ebay has instituted a new method of keeping bidders

anonymous. If you look at other items in the book category closing soon, their bidders have similar names with the asterisks. The books "look right" in this auction, there appears to be 5 or 6 different bidders and the seller has good feedback, so I think it's okay. You might check the seller's other auctions to see if there's a pattern of these bidders bidding on all of his other stuff. This is one of ebay's changes I don't agree with. They make it very, very difficult to spot shill bidders.

[liberalnurse]

2. I'm really turned off by it

as a buyer............. I can't imagine exactly what problems they had to evoke such a change.

[Vinca]

3. I'm put off by it, too. You used to be able to get some sense

about whether someone was using shill bidders, but no more. I emailed them with my concerns some time ago and they claim they're "on it" with the policing of the site. Right. Even though I'm an ebay seller, I wouldn't buy a designer handbag off the site.