That sure does look like some shilling is going on. It's really a shame they don't let you see the info anymore, as there are a couple things that could be legit. The recent changes also included one where they only calculate feedback percentage based on the last year. So a buyer or seller may have 0 percent feedback if they've been inactive for a year or more. I do sometimes see bike buyers/sellers who are only active in the winter. I'm far less active myself in the summer for selling, and the guy who owns the shop I work for only sells on ebay during the winter- Summer is just too busy. I think the changes were geared towards luring back buyers who weren't comfortable with the system, as well as guiding Ebay in general towards being more like Amazon etc. Most of it was just making everyone conform to the same sort of standards large businesses are held to. So I'd expect to see a lot more long inactive accounts doing some buying. Also if someone is considering selling, they need to have a certain amount of feedback to use certain features, so if the buyer is looking to raise his feedback to sell, buying inventory from one source would actually work, especially if he's buying local and can save shipping by picking the stuff up.
So maybe not, but it sure looks like shilling to me, enough so that I'd avoid the seller unless it was an item I really wanted until I'd looked at the bidding patterns for some time, maybe as long as 2-3 months.
Steve Birmingham Lowell, Massachusetts USA
Message: 13 Date: Fri, 11 Dec 2009 11:20:29 -0500 From: Steven Maasland <themaaslands@comcast.net> Subject: [CR] Shill bidding pattern?
About one week ago, I pointed out a Chesini frame that was up for sale. It was bid up to an amount that would still have made the frame purchase what I believe to have been quite a good deal. Oddly enough, the same frame popped up once more this week, even though it had apparently sold the last time. I therefore checked into the bidding pattern of both the last auction as well as the relisting and lo and behold a truly strange bidding pattern turns up.
In auction http://ebay.com/
In the relisting
http://ebay.com/
Am I reading too much into this or does something really stink here?
Steven Maasland
Moorestown, NJ
USA