Shill Bidding and 'dodgy' listings

Of late, i'll give ebay credit as its cleaned its act up with regards to shill bidding and also several layers of protection have come into force such as having to offer paypal on video consoles, which is a high value nickable item and i would imagine a fair deal of 'stolen goods' appears on ebay masquerading as genuine stuff.You need to be aware of the way fraudsters work, most have horrific levels of feedback, once hidden and then by ebays new policy for all to see. Sometimes you come across what seems a good item, the seller hasn't sold much but the feedback pattern shows some concern as to customer service and honesty, main items such as cameras and digital stuff are a 'hot potato' here for shill bidding, no one wants to sell a camera for a pound by equally they don't want to scare people off by listing with reserve.Enter the shill bidder, ebay KNOWS who is shill bidding as IP addresses are logged from the originating computer so you won't get away with it for too long, experienced fraudsters will use a friends computer to start the bidding off and once things are running smoothly, get them or a family member to bid over any way, way above the price of the item, I found this on an item today, the first bidder was a zero feedback (0) who had an account open since 2006, never bought a thing!Suddenly, they want a camera! The bidding is opened at 1.99 then the flurry of activity starts and people are bidding reasonable amounts, as of today its up to 41 quid and the first bidder is now the high bidder, with an item that is way inflated over the reasonable market value in comparison to other cameras. The sellers feedback has 3 neutrals of late all to do with out of date vouchers for Subway (what on EARTH?) so you can see that things look a bit iffy from the start, so you need to 'read the bidding', now of course there's nothing wrong with a zero bidder, we all have to start somewhere, but you HAVE to ask yourself the question as to why someone would have an account for over a year, and all of a sudden bid on stuff. There is just too much wrong (of course it could just be my paranoia!) with it, but you can see where I am coming from, its one of the oldest tricks on ebay to thwart the possibility of ebay catching you shill bidding on your own auctions, so don't fone a friend, use a friend (no, don't seriously - its technically fraud and THEFT).So, be careful, watch the listings before you bid, don't go galloping in, look who's starting the bidding off and if you see a row of different zero feedback bidders, there's something wrong. This also happened on an O2 XDA several months ago from China, registered in USA and selling on ebay.ie (Ireland), 10 buyers, all zero feedbacks but all bought ONE 02 XDA for 100 quid or so, immediate scam artist, all user ids were 'one across the keyboard' like '4j5k4j45' and 'vbvbvbvvb43' that sort of stuff, people create user ids that express themselves so random digits should suggest somethings not quite right. In this case I reported it and the listing was shut down and the 'seller' account closed, good job ebay.If you see anything strange or you don't think the bidding looks right, report it, you are an ebay user and you have the right to do this, even if you're wrong it doesn't matter, no one apart from ebay knows, and if you're right (like I was with the techno geek from China) then you've saved someone some serious money.Hope this helps, remember: before bidding check ALL the feedbacks not just the last 3 pages, in the case of my dealings with a seller recently I should take a dose of my own medicine, only after scrutinizing 36 pages of feedbacks did I find I would have been better off steering clear, as this seller leaves a negative in response to the slightest 'critique'. Not suggesting shill bidding but questionable ability to sell on ebay is a good starter and contrary to popular belief over x,000 feedbacks DOES NOT make you a super seller, all this does is prove you know where the local post box is and are able to fill it up, nothing more, some sellers like this are ADDICTED to feedbacks, the slightest slur that goes against them they come straight back with an immediate negative as you've denied them a positive if you leave a neutral (which is fairer and better than leaving a negative).SEVERAL THINGS EBAY **COULD** DO TO HELP PROTECT SELLERS AND BIDDERS ALIKE.1. Stop people adding the 'hidden bidder' option on a listing, i've seen this on a set of wooden chairs recently WHY the hell on wooden chairs? Diamond rings, Rolex Watches and other high value expensive stuff yes, i acn thoroughly understand why people need to be protected on high bid items but doing this on low value and obscure stuff, to me, suggests someone is HIDING the id of someone who is bidding for them. There is NO other reason why you would do this, you WANT to engender a bidding tally and get people bidding on your listings, not people sitting there thinking 'is it safe to bid on this?'.2. Removal after 6 months of inactivity of ZERO feedback accounts, a lot of fraudsters 'farm' these accounts and if you consider that a group of fraudsters could create 4 accounts to one property ( a family) now times that by ten and you have a possible FOURTY fraud accounts ready to use with the first bid - high bid scam, as detailed above, by removing these accounts ebay isn't losing money, its GAINING money as people will feel more confident to bid, it shows care, consideration and a safety valve for all concerned.3. There should be a 'quick fire' tab that shows ALL negatives and neutrals since the account was opened, no one wants to trawl through 40 pages of feedbacks just to try and guess whether someone is worth dealing with, lets get the bad, the inept, the incompetent sellers OFF ebay and dispatched back to the gutters and sewers with all the other low-lifes.4. If someone is consistently getting bad feedbacks for 'mis-description' i.e. 'superb condition' when actually its less than great or god forbid, broken, they should have a special tag attached to the feedback advising potential bidders to use caution UNTIL they've proved they can act responsibly with their descriptions.5. With the new firefox ebay tool what would be a GREAT add-on if someone does it is for a panel to come up and show ALL the negatives, neutrals and mutually removed feedbacks, so that everyone can make a better bidding decision, otherwise if you take your eyes off the ball you do what I mistakenly did and bid on a seller of less than good repute.there's a few other things but i think that should do for now, if you found this useful please tell me!johng7731