schill bidding

[jojac]

I've collected baseball items for over 30 years now but am pretty new to game used collecting. I've seen a number of items recently on a MLB auction site that seem to get consistently run up by a certain individual. This bidder ran me up on a jersey and then quit when he matched my bid. I know that these things happen but since that incident 8 weeks ago I've seen this individual do it other bidders and the suspicious part is that he has changed his bidder name 3 times in that 8 week time frame. How do you deal with individuals who you suspect are playing games while bidding???

[onlyalbert]

I've collected baseball items for over 30 years now but am pretty new to game used collecting. I've seen a number of items recently on a MLB auction site that seem to get consistently run up by a certain individual. This bidder ran me up on a jersey and then quit when he matched my bid. I know that these things happen but since that incident 8 weeks ago I've seen this individual do it other bidders and the suspicious part is that he has changed his bidder name 3 times in that 8 week time frame. How do you deal with individuals who you suspect are playing games while bidding???

How would he know he has matched your bid? May just be coincidence. That is why I never bid on MLB auctions until the last 5 minutes. If you are putting in multiple bids while it runs then you are running yourself up at the same time in theory.

[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

[jojac]

The lesser of the 2 evils would be some idiot just running you up. The other side of it would be hard to take but the thing that bothers me is that its someones job to sell this stuff to us and the only way they look good in managements eyes is to get top dollar for it. A lot of the teams now have game used stores at the ball parks where they could get a premium prices on their items. If an item posted on an auction site isn't meeting what they consider to be fair market value expectation then why not have a shill run it up??? Worse case scenario is they win the bid and sell the item at a later date thru their store . I'm not saying this is whats happening just that it could easily be done.
You can understand shill bidding from an auction house or ebay then you should also be wondering as I do if is it happening here. Auction house, ebay or mlb are all doing it for money so why would one be any better than the other.