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eBay Sellers Fined For Bidding Up Own Items

from the so-much-for-that-plan dept

Mon, Nov 8th 2004 5:14am — Mike Masnick

New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, who can't seem to find enough high profile cases to keep himself busy, has now fined eight eBay sellers approximately $90,000 for bidding up the items they were selling. This is a pretty standard form of eBay fraud that's happened since quite early on. Unfortunately, the article doesn't go into detail about how they were caught. One good note about all this is that, unlike some other fraud fines, it sounds like much of the money from these fines will find its way back to the eventual buyers who paid too much for items on eBay.

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3 Comments

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RJD, 8 Nov 2004 @ 11:52am

Bid Smart and it doesn't matter
Glad they were caught and fined etc etc but there should be a lesson learned here in that when you bid for an item, your maximum bid should be just that, MAXIMUM.

One of the allures of Ebay is the bidding process and it's easy to get caught up in a 'bidding war' which is what these folks are counting on.

Be smart, place your MAX and forget about it. Then if the seller bids on their own item and out bids you, you may lose the item (which was never yours to begin with) but they lose the sale of the item as well as the listing fees.
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Alex Moskalyuk, 8 Nov 2004 @ 2:21pm

Seems dubious to me
As much as I hate overpaying for items, this kind of action doesn't strike me as criminal. If the person who actually purchased the item decided that what was paid was fair price, then there's little point in complaining. If the guy wanted to get back at fraudulent seller, he should've just stopped bidding, leaving the seller with eBay fees and unsold item.
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Auction Guy, 8 Mar 2008 @ 10:59am

I think that's great ... they should be paid back. Sellers should be punished for bidding on there own items. This is probably the oldest ebay scam out there but it still happens, its probably even happened to me.
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