how to spot shill bidding?

[jonnyboy666]

recently a muddy fox seeker was outed in the ebay watch section.

i contacted the guy and asked a few questions, he sent me his mobile so i phoned him up, chatted and said muddy fox don't tend to go for big money but i was interested (i had the same bike exactly BITD so i would like it) seemed a decent chap and i offered £80 collected from him. he said he'd keep the auction going as it had a lot of watchers, fair enough.

i then put in a max bid of £75, i didn't win, it went for £82.

then i get an email saying he's getting no response from the winner and doesn't want to offer it to the 2nd best winner as it involves packing it up as it's in yorkshire and would i be interested for the £80 i offered.

i looked at the bid history, it looks dodgy to me, what do you guys think?

being honest, i'd like the bike but if it's been shill bidded i don't want to stick to my offer as i thinks it's out of order.

here's the link to the item:-
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll? ... 1120532858

it's this 66% that makes me think it's dodgy:-
http://offer.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dl ... r_ViewLink

thoughts? advice?

 

[Pyro Tim]

JB, he placed 4 bids on this item, out of 6 bids recently. This accounts for the 66%. It may or may not be shill bidding. Try him at the £75 you bid up to, and you will still get the bike you wanted, for the price you were willing to pay. The other bids look legit to me

 

[The History Man]

How badly do you want the bike? Hard to say looking at the probable snipe winner. Offer him £75. You can always go to £80 if you really want it.

 

[jonnyboy666]

i just looked through a couple of his older sales, there are 2 users with the similar names both "a***a" but with different transaction amounts but both have done alot of bidding on his stuff, coincidence?

 

[highlandsflyer]

Are you planning on collecting it from Yorkshire yourself?

 

[jonnyboy666]

sorry, to clarify, the bike is in alton, not too far from me, the 2nd best bid was from a yorkshire buyer and he doesn't want to post it hence offering it to me to save him the hassle "otherwise he'll relist it"

it just seems dodgy to me, i offered £80, he doesn't accept because there are loads of watchers but then the top 2 don't respond or he doesn't want to send to them but he knows i'd give him the money, which is why it rings the dodgy bells.

 

[Pyro Tim]

you want it Jon, or you'd have walked away by now. You were happy to pay that amount at the start, so at the end of the day you are getting what you wanted, at the price you wanted to pay. Admittedly it may be more than you had to, but...

you pays your money, you takes your choice

 

[Russell]

If you disregard the bids from y***e and a***a as he suggests, the final selling price of the bike would actually have been £55, which was 7***j's highest bid before the other two waded in.

 

[highlandsflyer]

On the other hand, if you were happy to pay £80, (and the bike is as described), is it a huge amount of money?

 

[jonnyboy666]

yeah, that's what is bugging me, he wanted an auction so i put in a max bid, then it conveniently gets outbid. if it is not dodgy i could have won it for 50ish quid, if it's real i'm no worse off but i don't like being fleeced and it just looks dodgy hence my hesitation.

i'm the sort of person that won't buy off someone if i think they are a dodgy git, even if i want the item.