# Am I descending into the murk of crappy ethics (Re: Phony Ebay Bidders)? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [November 9, 2004, 1:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-descending-into-the-murk-of-crappy-ethics-re-phony-ebay-bidders/273828 "2004-11-09T13:32:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Duckster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/duckster/32/1244_2.png) [@Duckster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duckster)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2004, 10:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-descending-into-the-murk-of-crappy-ethics-re-phony-ebay-bidders/273828/21 "2004-11-09T22:56:35Z")
> [@Edward The Head](#): > > Are you sure it’s illegal? I’m not sure about on eBay, but at other auctions the seller can and does bid on their own item if they don’t think it’s going for enough money. They then take it and try and sell it again later. I guess on eBay with a reserve they don’t have to do that, but I know people do it at normal auctions. [Shill Bidding: What It Is and Why It’s Not Permitted on eBay](http://pages.ebay.com/help/community/shillBidding.html) ---
**Author:** ![Trunk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/87869e/32.png) [@Trunk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trunk)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2004, 12:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-descending-into-the-murk-of-crappy-ethics-re-phony-ebay-bidders/273828/22 "2004-11-10T12:12:03Z")
> [@continuity eror](#): > > While it’s definitely in a murky area ethically, I don’t really think this is fraud. The way I see it is this: when you input your maximum bid, you’re fully aware that you might be paying that. If you get a little bit of a break at the end of the auction, that’s just a bonus; it’s not the way it has to happen. Ebay isn’t just a place where you can get “deals,” it’s a place where you can find rare items, and you have to be willing to pay a premium on that collector stuff sometimes. If you didn’t think the product in question was worth as much as the closing price was, you wouldn’t have bid so high. Especially in the case of proxy bidding, you can’t say something like “I let the high emotion of bidding on the auction get to me,” because in that kind of auction all you do is input your high bid and leave it alone. What these bidders did was crappy, and I can see why Ebay makes it against their rules (since a lot of buyers would get pissed about it), but if the buyers didn’t want to pay that much they shouldn’t have put their proxy bids so high. Sometimes, you’re just going to have to pay your maximum bid. Yeah, and that “sometimes” is when there are enough other buyers interested in the product to push your bid up. Not when the seller decides what he’s seeing isn’t high enough, so he pumps the price up. What’s his risk? He “wins” the item and just has to put it up for sale again. Like I said before, I just don’t eBay the way I used to because I was paranoid this practice was going on. I won’t proxy bid anymore because of it. ---
**Author:** ![Edward\_The\_Head](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ce73a5/32.png) [@Edward\_The\_Head](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Edward_The_Head)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2004, 2:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-descending-into-the-murk-of-crappy-ethics-re-phony-ebay-bidders/273828/23 "2004-11-10T14:25:48Z")
As I said, I don’t know about eBay, and I can see why they wouldn’t want you to do it. However, I do know that it goes on at arcade auctions, I think it’s called buyback, and people do bid on their own items to get the prices to go up. In those types of auctions it is normal and people expect it and no one seems to mind. I’m not one to go to auctions much but I have been to arcade auctions so I did look into them before I went. I can not say if this happens at other types of auctions or not. ---
**Author:** ![Velma](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/85e7bf/32.png) [@Velma](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velma)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2004, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-descending-into-the-murk-of-crappy-ethics-re-phony-ebay-bidders/273828/24 "2004-11-10T15:08:42Z")
I heard about this and now I have to make a confession. I have never bought anything off ebay before but a friend of mine was selling a piece of furniture. She entered her ad and put a reserve in of $500 but for some reason the reserve did not work and the item showed as not having one. She e-mailed me and asked me to bid $500 on the item to make sure it met her reserve. I did so and then did not bid any more, the item ended up being sold for quite a bit more than that. I had no idea this was not allowed as I am not really familiar with buying and selling on ebay. Since she meant to have a reserve I don’t feel too bad about it, but when I heard that people were getting in trouble for doing that I did have an “oops” moment. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-descending-into-the-murk-of-crappy-ethics-re-phony-ebay-bidders/273828.md?page=1)