--SELLER FEEDBACK PADDING AS A BUYER WITH LOW $$ AMOUNTS: Going back to my comment that a seller getting a lot of buyer feedbackers is WAY more important than getting a lot of seller feedbackers, the seller padding his feedback AS A BUYER by buying 1 cent doodads or cheap $20 or less doodads is one of the many reasons a lot of people get fooled by these scammers. Scammers will buy a lot of low priced items 1 cent to $20. In the past, many ebayers would just look at overall general feedback but the details of the auction are important also and this can be related to NO OLD AUCTIONS TO COMPARE WITH: above.

CLICK HERE FOR SERIOUS ILLUSTRATION OF BIDPADDING

-SELLER FEEDBACK SHILLING: Shilling is seriously illegal on eBay and also a felony in the US. Bid Shilling means the seller bids (by using fake i.d.'s) or has accomplices (his family & close friends & other scam seller friends) who bid on his auctions with no real intention of winning but used as a GOAD so that naive bidders (who know nothing about shilling or how to spot a shill auction) keep bidding "against each other" or "against the shillers" resulting in the final value for the bidder (you or me) being at an extremely high value that the seller wants. The same way you can spot shills for shillbidding is the same way you can find it for shill feedbacking, but basically shill feedbacking means the seller is "shilling" or FAKING his feedback by selling and/or buying to many of his 100 many fake i.d.'s. If the shillseller has MANY FAKE i.d.'s, he'll more than likely have "shill bidders" and/or "shill sellers" with hundreds of feedback who are leaving him feedback which is hard to detect by even experienced ebayers. Make sure the buyer feedbackers are actually buyers and not just the seller's shiller friends and/or family or other account names by looking at their feedback numbers.

Many times the "shill bidders" and/or "shill sellers" may have hundreds of feedback but they are accumulated in a short FAST span of time like less than a month or so, get a couple of negs, and suddenly don't do as much business. The reason? The i.d. is 1 of 100's of fake i.d.'s by the MASTERSHILLER who used this I.D. to ripoff people. So the i.d. receives 2 negs and so instead of ripping off more people, the MASTERSHILLER uses this particular i.d. to shillfeedback his other user i.d.'s since most ebayers have more trust in users with hundreds of feedback than in users with 0 or low feedback.

0 or low buyer feedbackers are obvious indicators of the seller shilling his own feedback or auctions.

Do most of the feedback from feedbackers look the same, like "A+++++ Seller." ?? That's for sure a shiller. Everybody has a different idea of comments for feedback even if they kind of all look the same but COMMENTS THAT ARE EXACTLY ALIKE??!!

Sellers will trade feedback with each other and that's almost impossible to tell. Family and friends giving them feedback is hard to detect also.

One good way to check out the buyer feedbackers for this scammer is by looking at the LOCATION where the buyer feedbackers have SOLD in THEIR past auctions (if they have ever sold anything recently). If the buyer feedbackers' locations match the scammer's location, RED FLAG!!

Also, if the buyer feedbackers are leaving feedback too soon (for example, 15 minutes) after the auction, that's another sign. Unless it's a download site or download game the seller is selling or a next door neighbor or a frequent bidder who REALLY TRUSTS the seller from past experience, 15 minutes is impossible!! Most buyers leave feedback after they receive their item which even if bidder paid instantly by paypal after the auction and shipper ships fedex or 2-day (assume 1 day), it still takes a little over 24 hours AND MOST AUCTION BUYERS DON'T RECEIVE THEIR ITEMS UNTIL 1-2 WEEKS LATER . Why would a buyer leave feedback BEFORE they receive their item?? RED FLAG!! Some newbie bidders and even rare experienced buyers ACTUALLY DO LEAVE FEEDBACK BEFORE GETTING THEIR ITEM such as commenting on the seller's "Excellent emails", but if this is a PATTERN with the seller AND THE FEEDBACKERS ACTUALLY SAY THEY RECEIVED THE ITEM, then that's a RED FLAG!!

Look & compare the ad details of all the auctions for sellers & his feedbackers: Do many of the feedbackers' auction ads and the seller's auction ads look the same like same pictures, same word phrasing, same payment methods, etc.? On the seller's pics, right-click "Properties." Is the server the same that hosts the pic? that's a big giveaway.

THE CONCLUSIVE TEST: Email the other bidders and ask for their full name & phone number & address to call them up. Look them up in the phone directory to see these names/phone numbers/addresses MATCH EXACTLY. This is the conclusive test whether or not the feedbackers are shills. I'd email at least 80% of his bidders with the majority being feedbackers who have hundreds of FB and see if the feedbackers are just shills of the seller and the seller is too afraid of giving away the info or that the feedbackers may be family members or family in which case their LOCATION ADDRESS would matter. Look at THEIR feedback and see if THEY themselves are shillers or have shill-type feedback histories.

Again, auction details are important and would be hard to detect if related to NO OLD AUCTIONS TO COMPARE WITH: above. May be Related to "Money Laundering"

NOTE: Bidshilling & Feedback shilling in general is hard to tell. I'll leave a lot of the detection advisories for the experts. How do you know it isn't just a buyer, even a newbie buyer with 0 to 5 FBs, who is only comfortable dealing with a certain seller or who only deals with a certain seller because that's the only seller who has what he wants. On the other hand, how do you know it isn't the shill seller's alter ego or other friends giving him false FB's or the shill seller "selling" recipe FB's & the data about the recipes is not available after 3 months? There are cases, some so obvious, some not so obvious. The only obvious way to verify this is to email each feedbacker who is suspicious and contact/verify their name/phone number/address and check that the address is not near the Shiller's and ask each feedbacker WHAT he bought or sold from the seller..

BE AWARE THOUGH THAT BID SHILLING AND FEEDBACK SHILLING ARE RAMPANT ON EBAY AND MANY OF THESE SHILLERS WILL HAVE 100'S OF DIFFERENT USER I.D.'S WHICH FRAUDBAY ALLOWS. As posted one day on ebay:

.....I know a lady selling a certain collectible. Reliable sources tell me that she had some 85 - 90 different user IDs at the time of her last suspension. I think she was suspended 3 times. She's still selling.

I checked her feedback, and found what I was looking for. One of her "Best Customers" now has a feedback # of some 550 - 40 or so unique feedback - 500 plus from the aformentioned lady and another Seller, who sells the same collectible.

Champion, World Class Shill Bidding.
It has been going on for YEARS ( 6 to 8 )

So you think you know how to analyze FB? Well, let me introduce 2 wrenches into the mix:

--NEGATIVE FEEDBACK SOFTWARE REMOVAL: it's not very well known or publicized but some legitimate but bad sellers or even scam "sellers" CAN DELETE NEGATIVE FEEDBACK THRU SOME TYPES OF COMMON AAUCTION SOFTWARE so you're not seeing an accurate feedback profile.

--FEEDBACK REMOVAL BY EBAY INSIDERS: Early in my ebay "career" as a buyer, i saw a post where a buyer cried that a bad seller who he dealt with had friends inside of ebay who deleted his feedback and so all his feedback for the many years on ebay were instantly removed including his user name. MAKE SURE TO BACK UP YOUR FEEDBACK by printing it out and saving them in your hard drive so you have proof if ever you have to complain to ebay. THIS ALSO AFFECTS YOU AS A BIDDER SINCE A BAD SELLER OR SCAMMER CAN JUST GET AN EBAY INSIDER TO HELP HIM WITH DELETING HIS NEGATIVE FEEDBACK.

SUMMARY:

• NEVER BUY FROM PRIVATE FB SELLERS.
• NEVER BUY FROM PREAPPROVAL NEEDED SELLERS.
• NEVER BUY FROM SELLERS WITH LOW OR 0 FB.
• NEVER BUY FROM SELLERS WHO HAVE LESS THAN 3 MONTHS OF SELLING HISTORY ON EBAY.
• EVEN WITH 98% OR MORE POS. FB, ALWAYS CHECK WHAT THE NEG/NEUTRAL COMMENTS ARE.
• LAST 3 MONTHS---IF THE 100% POS. SELLER HAS NOT SOLD MANY ITEMS IN THE LAST 3 MONTHS THAT ARE EQUAL IN PRICE AND CATEGORY TO THE ITEM YOU WANT TO BUY FROM THEM SUCH AS they sold recipes or used books in the past 3 months and are now selling Playstations, DON'T BUY FROM THEM--THE EBAY/PAYPAL ACCOUNT OF AN HONEST EBAYER COULD HAVE BEEN HIJACKED BY A SCAM SELLER.
• UNDERSTAND THAT WHEN EVALUATING SELLERS, FB FROM BUYERS IS VASTLY MORE IMPORTANT THAN FB FROM SELLERS.
• ANALYZE THE SELLER'S FEEDBACK FOR FB SHILLING--IF THE SELLER IS SHILLING/PADDING HIS FEEDBACK SUCH AS BUYING/SELLING VERY LOW PRICED DOODADS TO OTHERS, HIS FRIENDS/FAMILY OR HIMSELF, DO NOT BID.
• UNDERSTAND THAT EVEN IF A SELLER HAS 100% POSITIVE FB, THAT ANY FB PAST THE LAST 3 MONTHS WILL HAVE TRANSACTION DETAILS DELETED. IN ORDER TO KNOW THE DETAILS LIKE THE PRICE OF THE ITEMS AND WHAT THE ITEM WAS, YOU HAVE TO EMAIL THOSE PAST BUYERS OTHERWISE THE SELLER MORE THAN POSSIBLY COULD HAVE JUST BUILT UP HIS FB THRU BUYING/SELLING LOW COST DOODADS.
• SOMETIMES BIDDERS MAKE MISTAKES OR AFRAID TO LEAVE NEG FB, SO DEFINITELY READ ALL FB, EVEN THE POSITIVE FB COMMENTS.
• SELLERS WHO SELL PAGES AND PAGES OF EXPENSIVE OR RARE ITEMS ARE SELLERS YOU SHOULDN'T BE BIDDING ON, NOT UNLESS THEY HAVE MANY YEARS OF HISTORY ON EBAY SELLING MANY LIKE ITEMS WITH GREAT POSITIVE FB.
• SMALL PAST AUCTION DETAILS MATTER: If the seller sold beanie babies from California a year ago and now is selling Computers in Nevada, you have a problem!! This may certainly be a hijacked account!! DO NOT BID ON THIS TYPE OF AUCTION.
• FB ANALYSIS IS NOT 100% GUARANTEED--IF THE SCAMMER IS GOOD, YOU CAN STEAL LOSE YOUR MONEY!!

abbreviations for many ebay terms

Index page

Updates page-contains any major updates after 6/8/04