posted on April 17, 2001 01:50:18 PM new
I have been trying to decorate my son's bedroom in a Pottery Barn Chess pattern. These items have been discontinued by Pottery Barn and are no longer available in their catalog. So, I've been buying most of the set on eBay. There is one particular set of items that I am very interested in, but the Prices seem to really be soaring outrageously on this particular set of items.
So, I checked the bid history. The two last high bidders have almost the exact same eBay ID, and they're both new. I there any way to find out if this is shilling or I guess possibly bid shielding?
posted on April 17, 2001 02:46:23 PM new
It's not easy to be sure someone is shilling. Look at the bidding history for the two user ids - if they bid exclusively on one seller's items and seldom (or never) win, then you might have a shilling situation....but you may just have a couple of bidders who are also really into that particular pattern!
Now that I'm looking at it a little more closely I suspect it might be a case of bid shielding, not shilling. These two brand new bidders with eBay ID's only a few letters apart have bid this item up over $300.00. It usually sells in the $150.00 range, so now I'm just wondering if one is going to retract their bid at the last minute. I would bet that they are the same person, but they don't appear to have any connection to the seller.
