Explain this auction to me...

[BrianG]

Originally Posted by Dj_Sparky

How exactly does the shill bidding on Ebay work? What's the logic? Why would someone go over their own budget, or a sane amount of money, like absolutely max 500$ for a revo on ebay? If I was bidding for a car that was worth 500$ at a store, I wouldn't go over 500$. Or basically, I wouldn't bid higher than what an item was worth.

I think it works like someone mentioned above. The seller has a phantom bidder (either himself with a different account or a friend) and if the item is not selling for what they want, the phantom bidder places an outrageous and artificial bid. The real bidder sees he is outbid at the $300 mark, and tries to incrementally win the bid by continuing to increase his max bid. Some people get stuck in a "I have to win this" mentality when doing this and keep on increasing their max bid. Anyway, then the seller retracts the abnormally high bid leaving the next guy as "winner".

[brian015]

Originally Posted by BrianG

I think it works like someone mentioned above. The seller has a phantom bidder (either himself with a different account or a friend) and if the item is not selling for what they want, the phantom bidder places an outrageous and artificial bid. The real bidder sees he is outbid at the $300 mark, and tries to incrementally win the bid by continuing to increase his max bid. Some people get stuck in a "I have to win this" mentality when doing this and keep on increasing their max bid. Anyway, then the seller retracts the abnormally high bid leaving the next guy as "winner".

True, but in this case there are two bidders bidding outrageous amounts. The real buyer willing to pay $300 has no reason to up his bid.

Another possibility: it may be the buyer(s) trying to scam a new seller, who gets a ridiculously high selling price, gets some fake payment and ships it out not knowing he got scammed.