hello all,
i am seeking serious advice regarding ebays shill bidding policy and if anyone has a better understanding of the said policy then i would welcome some advice please.now it has always been my own understanding that shill bidding is where 2 seperate ebay accounts ( often found to be connected )has intentionally placed bids to inflate prices against other ebay members.this as i understand is a serious offence to which can lead to account suspension and is also a criminal offence.
now then, my household has 2 seperate successfull ebay accounts to which are run by seperate family members to whome sell different items, both ebay accounts are registered to our household and are fully verified/vetted
now very recently, i tried to withdraw an item from public sale because it i discovered there to be a problem with that item to which in effect meant the item was not as described and so i tried to end the item via the "end item" option from the drop menu next to the item i wanted to withdraw.
however to my amazement, ebay refused to allow for the item to be withdrawn from sale because the item was to end within 15 hrs and with this in mind i started to worry because i was now facing the possibility that the winning buyer would be unhappy if i returned any payment and refused to send the item and in turn the buyer could very well leave me unfair negative feedback and also report me to ebay for seller non performance and so i feel that ebay causes more problems by restricting sellers ability to remove their items from public sale.
in view of the above, i then checked ebay's shill bidding policy to which states the following:
Shill bidding is when sellers—or someone they know—place a bid on their item to drive the price up and create an artificial bidding war. Often the people placing bids have certain information about the seller's item that other shoppers aren't aware of. To make sure no one gets an unfair advantage, shill bidding is prohibited on eBay.
after checking ebays shill bidding policy, it was my understanding that shill bidding was when a price is artificially inflated in order for an item to sell for more money and so what we did was to use our other account to place a bid on the item to which i wanted to remove from sale so that our own account was the lead bidder.then i used my own account to end the item straight away to the lead bidder to which was our second account.
this in fact worked, the item was withdrawn from sale as i wanted and i feel no offence was committed in the process because no other ebay member outside our household had the chance to place a further bid on that item and so i did not believe this to be an offence of shill bidding.
now although we ended the item from sale as described above approx 2 weeks ago, ebay has only just taken action and in turn they have removed all 86 active listings and suspended both of our accounts for 30 days. in turn i have emailesd ebay several times and explained my beliefs that no shill bidding has taken place but ebay are sticking to their decision and have refused to answer our emails since.
i am truely appauled by ebay's decision especially to when they can clearly check that the item was ended to our second account within seconds of our second account being the lead bidder and this clearly shows that there was never any intention of inflating the price of the item to which i wanted to remove from sale and neither did any other ebay member have the chance to place further bids and so how can our actions be classed as shill bidding.
this matter really does cause me confusion and so i would greatly appreciate any serious comments,at the end of the day, any seller should have the right to withdraw their item from sale at any time without any interference from ebay whatsoever and if this was the case then i would not be in this situation. further to the above, i also noticed that ebay stated that any fees paid for the 86 listings i had active at the time will be forfeited. this in itself is criminal and if ebay think i am forfeiting £29 for ending my own item then they can think again.
many thanks to all for taking the time to read this.
i am seeking serious advice regarding ebays shill bidding policy and if anyone has a better understanding of the said policy then i would welcome some advice please.now it has always been my own understanding that shill bidding is where 2 seperate ebay accounts ( often found to be connected )has intentionally placed bids to inflate prices against other ebay members.this as i understand is a serious offence to which can lead to account suspension and is also a criminal offence.
now then, my household has 2 seperate successfull ebay accounts to which are run by seperate family members to whome sell different items, both ebay accounts are registered to our household and are fully verified/vetted
now very recently, i tried to withdraw an item from public sale because it i discovered there to be a problem with that item to which in effect meant the item was not as described and so i tried to end the item via the "end item" option from the drop menu next to the item i wanted to withdraw.
however to my amazement, ebay refused to allow for the item to be withdrawn from sale because the item was to end within 15 hrs and with this in mind i started to worry because i was now facing the possibility that the winning buyer would be unhappy if i returned any payment and refused to send the item and in turn the buyer could very well leave me unfair negative feedback and also report me to ebay for seller non performance and so i feel that ebay causes more problems by restricting sellers ability to remove their items from public sale.
in view of the above, i then checked ebay's shill bidding policy to which states the following:
Shill bidding is when sellers—or someone they know—place a bid on their item to drive the price up and create an artificial bidding war. Often the people placing bids have certain information about the seller's item that other shoppers aren't aware of. To make sure no one gets an unfair advantage, shill bidding is prohibited on eBay.
after checking ebays shill bidding policy, it was my understanding that shill bidding was when a price is artificially inflated in order for an item to sell for more money and so what we did was to use our other account to place a bid on the item to which i wanted to remove from sale so that our own account was the lead bidder.then i used my own account to end the item straight away to the lead bidder to which was our second account.
this in fact worked, the item was withdrawn from sale as i wanted and i feel no offence was committed in the process because no other ebay member outside our household had the chance to place a further bid on that item and so i did not believe this to be an offence of shill bidding.
now although we ended the item from sale as described above approx 2 weeks ago, ebay has only just taken action and in turn they have removed all 86 active listings and suspended both of our accounts for 30 days. in turn i have emailesd ebay several times and explained my beliefs that no shill bidding has taken place but ebay are sticking to their decision and have refused to answer our emails since.
i am truely appauled by ebay's decision especially to when they can clearly check that the item was ended to our second account within seconds of our second account being the lead bidder and this clearly shows that there was never any intention of inflating the price of the item to which i wanted to remove from sale and neither did any other ebay member have the chance to place further bids and so how can our actions be classed as shill bidding.
this matter really does cause me confusion and so i would greatly appreciate any serious comments,at the end of the day, any seller should have the right to withdraw their item from sale at any time without any interference from ebay whatsoever and if this was the case then i would not be in this situation. further to the above, i also noticed that ebay stated that any fees paid for the 86 listings i had active at the time will be forfeited. this in itself is criminal and if ebay think i am forfeiting £29 for ending my own item then they can think again.
many thanks to all for taking the time to read this.
