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February 15, 2010 at 7:39 am
chug
The way to not worry about shill bidding on eBay is to decide, in advance, how much you are willing to pay for an item, then setting that up on a sniping service. NOT by placing the bid on eBay – that is dumb for the reason you discuss above, among many others.
I do not engage in bidding wars, with shills or with other legitimate bidders. I decide how much I am willing to pay, set that price on a sniping service, and forget about the auction until I am notified that I won or lost. My snipes are set to be placed 6 seconds before the auction ends.
On more expensive items, my preliminary research into the seller includes looking at other sales and recently completed sales to see if there appears to be shilling going on. For items below $75 I only care about seller’s reputation and shipping cost.