I aggree with Rod.
When you suspect a shill bidder you should check him out! Ebay allows you to do a little of this.
Go to the advanced search and search by bidder. Be sure to include completed auctions. Also those when bidder is not high bidder.
That will give you all the auctions he or she has bid on in the last month.
this one shows he has bid on 3 auctions by 3 different sellers.
Just a newbie IMO.
Also note that listmember Kevin Kruger has second high bid....
Ken Sanford
Kensington, MD
<chasds@mindspring.com>; <classicrendezvous@bikelist.org> Sent: Saturday, February 18, 2006 3:31 PM Subject: RE: [CR]ebay outing: mercian tandem--question
> Doesn't seem all that weird to me. A veteran ebayer bid $699 on 2-12, then
> a
> newbie tried to outbid him 4 days later. Newbies do strange things. Bottom
> line is what is the bike worth to you? Myself, I'd pay more than the
> current
> price, but he won't ship. I even asked him if he would be willing to take
> it
> to a LBS who sells tandems and have them ship it. His response was he'd do
> what he could, but he didn't seem inclined to do the legwork. Hence, no
> bids
> from me. It's probably just a tad small for me anyway so it's probably
> just
> as well, or I'd be begging Eric for help!
>
> Cheers,
> Rod Kronenberg
> Fort Collins, CO
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: classicrendezvous-bounces@bikelist.org
> [mailto:classicrendezvous-bounces@bikelist.org] On Behalf Of Eric Elman
> Sent: Saturday, February 18, 2006 1:20 PM
> To: C. Andrews; classicrendezvous@bikelist.org
> Subject: Re: [CR]ebay outing: mercian tandem--question
>
> Charles,
>
> I was the first bidder with the minimum amount; I do that sometimes when I
> want an item but want to try and prevent the seller from canceling an
> auction as a result of a request by someone to buy an item outright; I
> think
> sellers tend to be more reluctant to cancel an auction once a bid has been
> placed.
>
> At any rate, re. your comments on the bid up by a zero feedback buyer - I
> had planned to bid a reasonable amount at the very end of the auction but
> will not do so now. This bike would have been quite nice for my wife and
> I
> and the "pickup only" would be easy as the seller is located within very
> easy driving distance. This type of bidding is, in my opinion, one of two
> things. Either the bidder is a shill bidder or a newbie with little
> bidding
> experience - hard to believe that someone with zero feedback (so
> presumably
> never bought via eBay) would be willing to spend so much on a first
> purchase. Everyone I know, myself included, was fairly conservative in my
> bidding/buying when first getting started in the eBay arena.
>
> Eric Elman
> Somers, CT USA
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "C. Andrews" <chasds@mindspring.com>
> To: <classicrendezvous@bikelist.org>
> Sent: Saturday, February 18, 2006 3:02 PM
> Subject: [CR]ebay outing: mercian tandem--question
>
>
>>I was toying with bidding on this mercian, but the bid
>> history has me a little cautious:
>>
>> http://tinyurl.com/
>>
>> Note that someone with zero feedback incrementally bid up
>> the bike to its current price. Does anyone else here find
>> that at all unusual? Would any of you have some hesitation
>> bidding on the item because of this?
>>
>> The auction will probably end before most of you get this
>> post, but I'd be interested in how you feel about this kind
>> of thing, on or off the list. I see this from time to time
>> and I always wonder a little about it..
>>
>> Charles Andrews
>> SoCal
>>
>>
>> "The deeper I go in considering the
>> vanities of popular reasoning, the
>> lighter and more foolish I find them."
>>
>> --Galileo Galilei