eBay auctions sites (among others) is a feasting ground for a variety of scams and one of the more common and garden variety scam is shill bidding. Shill bidding means to place a false bidder (or bidders) in an auction in order to inflate the final price of the auction. Shill bidders are more often than not, created through false accounts by the seller himself or the seller may ask friends and associates to bid on the item. So, how can you protect yourself? First you need to look at the bidders at the auction.

• The bidder bids on one seller's auctions exclusively -- and almost never wins.
• The shill bidder has low or no feedback (or feedback only from the seller). The bidder might bid and win one or two other auctions just for show.
• The shill bidder also bids on auctions that don't make any sense. That is, auctions for multiple shows are being bid on -- a lot of people might collect Tenchi Muyo and Cowboy Bebop cels for instance but would every bidder also go for Kenshin, Fushigi Yuugi, Flame of Recca, CCS, etc? (and from only one seller when there are many auctions for most of these shows everyday).
• Unfortunately, ebay doesn't allow just anyone to view email addresses like they used to and this had been helpful in the past to determine the validity of a bidder's identity. I would recommend emailing a legitimate seller (someone you know) whose auction was bid on by this person and ask him or her for assistance. I'm certain that most people take this very seriously and would be willing to help out.
• Another way you can protect yourself is to limit your bid to what you want to pay. Don't get caught up in a bidding war with somebody with low feedback.
• If you suspect someone of shill bidding, please report it to eBay's safeharbor:

http://pages.ebay.com/help/rulesandsafety/43010002.html

You can also find more information about shill bidding on ebay's auction site:
http://pages.ebay.com/help/basics/f-shilling.html

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Last Updated: June 16, 2002