iblog

As well as being the world’s biggest online auction site, it seems that Ebay is also one of the biggest places for fraud online. For example, many Ebay sellers are now using new ways to boost the prices at which their auctions end. This is being done by a process called “shill bidding” which means artificially driving up prices internally so that the items sell for higher prices. What happens is sellers will bid for their own items using fake identities, the idea being to encourage other legitimate customers of the site to bid more for the item (which now looks like it is in obvious demand). The practice is illegal on Ebay and may constitute a ban if found out. Trouble is, it is often very difficult to detect shill bidding and I’m not even sure if the punishment would be enough to thwart sneaky sellers, who by then may have made all the money they needed.

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 28th, 2007 at 6:59 pm and is filed under Internet, Business. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.