AW Daily - Tips & Tactics - During the Auction: Spotting a Shill

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During the Auction: Spotting a Shill continued ...

Bottom Feeders
If you discover that a user is bidding early on all of a seller's auctions, take a look at his or her feedback. Typically, shills have very little feedback. Even more telling, they tend to be long-term users with very inactive accounts. On occasion, you'll see that the seller and shill have won each other's auctions. This is done to conceal their activity and suggest they are routine buyers and sellers. Dig a little deeper and you'll see they rarely leave feedback for each other and only win each other's auctions.

New Identity
If you find that several frequent bidders on one particular seller's auctions have recently changed their usernames, that's cause for suspicion. Most, if not all, sites allow people to change their user registration information and username, but this alteration will be noted next to a user's username during any auction activity. For instance, eBay inserts a sunglasses icon next to alterated usernames. Look for this if you are concerned that shilling is occurring in an auction in which you are participating.

Multiple Accounts
Some cheating sellers choose to shill themselves by opening multiple accounts with separate usernames with their ISP. While some might cry foul, a fair amount of shills come from AOL, where users can have five different user accounts and names! To investigate sellers who might be shilling on their own auctions, look up the suspected username and see if it shares the same domain as the seller. If both the seller and shill account have auctions open, see if their item descriptions share the same style, phrases, and policies.

Also, if a photo is attached to the auction, see if it is hosted on the same ISP as the suspected shell account in the same image directory. You can do this in Explorer by right-clicking on the image itself and selecting Properties, which will open a window displaying the host URL of the image. Using Navigator, right-click and select View Image.

Cancel Your Bid
If you have already placed one or several bids and suspect you are being exploited by a shill, you can retract your bids. This is allowed by all services, though it's not publicized in their rules and regulations. Before you can cancel a bid, you will likely have to provide the site with an explanation, which is then published in the auction's bidding history. Be aware that retracting bids can lead to negative feedback by honest and dishonest sellers.

Using Escrow
Recognizing Hidden Costs
Avoiding Excessive Shipping Costs