schill bidding

[jojac]

It was in the last 5 that I bid but as you know the bidding time extends for another 5 minutes with each additional bid and that's where he started tacking it on. Once you get within $10 of some ones high bid then you can see that the original bidder is maxed out. Once this bidder max's someone out he quits. I can understand that these things happen from time to time but to change your bidder name 3 times I think is very unusual. How many times have you changed your bidder name in the last 2 months???

[paul457]

I see it on NFL Auctions too. There are a few folks - 'drewwins' screen name comes to mind, that bid in $5 increments on EVERYTHING. Never seen them win anything, but they sure bid a lot...

[Steeleraddict]

Like previously stated. It's very easy to find out what their maximum bid is. He's just costing you hundreds of dollars. Some do it out of spite. Some have speculated it's because they can't afford it so want to waste your money.

I didnt know they were changing their screen names. How do you find that out? And what screen names have they used so we can all be aware.

[jojac]

Every time you bid and theres a change to your bid then MLB notifies you with an email. When I checked a previous email after some time where this individual ran me up then I could see he had changed his name. I guess once you change your bidder name it even updates in past history.
I'm new to this site so I don't want to start naming names right off the bat because I'm not even sure that would be appropriate but I will say it happened while bidding on Red Sox items. Only once did I have a problem with him but I've seen him do it to a number of people.

[Misha]

Sorry but I can't understand how you think the same bidder changed their name in the middle of the auction. Couldn't it just be that another person bid the same amount and their name is showing up in the bid history? Just curious

[jojac]

Sorry maybe I wasn't clear but it wasn't in the middle of a bid that he made the change. Its after he's run some one up and the bid has closed that he changes his name. He did it to me two months ago on a jersey and you tend to remember the name if its been done to you. Now every time I go back in my email history and open that jersey item I will see a different bidders name listed if he makes a name change.
Like I said before, he's only done to me once but I've noticed where he's done it to a number of other people and that's why I brought this up.

[earlywynnfan]

I can understand shill bidding from an auction house or ebay: the point is to drive up the price on an item you own.

But I'm mystified why someone would shill bid on MLB or NFL auctions. Nobody out there owns this stuff, except the teams. Are we implying the teams are shill bidding? Or that some jackass is just out there bidding people up because he has nothing better to do?

Ken