Having grown up on a farm with cattle, I have a lifelong experience with auctions from both sides. Cattle auctions, horse auctions, equipment auctions, farm dispersal auctions, estate auctions.

And I hear all the time from others, "I refuse to attend 'such and such auction', those [bleep] have shills in the audience.

I always looked at it as sour grapes. A guy is just pissed because he did not get the super good deal he had hoped for.

If I have something to sell, I hire an auction house to get me the best price they can. I care not if the auction house buys my item, hoping they can get a better price at a later date. That happens all the time. The Auction House bids on an item. Sometimes they end up buying it. About every six months, the Auction House has a huge lot of merchandise gathered up and they hold their own auction to dispose of it. Sometimes I see that some items never leave the lot. Apparently they even buy back some of their own merchandise.

As a buyer, I know what I am willing to pay. I do not get into "Bidding Contests". I have no problem passing when the price gets higher than I wish to pay. If it is the previous owner bidding against me, or the auction house, why would I care?

As a seller, it is a common occurrence for an owner to bid on his own livestock or equipment, if it looks like it is going to sell for less than he thinks it is worth. If the owner "buys it back" he still has to pay the auction fees.

What could be more fair than that?

With regards to GB and ebay, the shill has set up a throw away account. If I’m the only bidder on a no reserve auction that opens at say $100 and bid a maximum of $400, the shill comes along and runs the bid up. How’s that an honest auction? I’ve had that happen a couple times only to find my maximum and then magically the shill bidder goes away and suddenly a second one has bid right under my maximum. Cool trick huh?

If there’s multiple real bidders this is a mute point. In today’s sellers market, I doubt it’s happening much.

It is only dishonest if the shill somehow knows what you maximum bid is.

As long as the shill has the chance that you will drop the bid in his lap, it is an honest auction.

Are you accusing Gunbroker of bidding against you, up to one bid under your max? Or possibly accusing Gunbroker of informing the seller of your maximum bid?

I don’t have a problem if the shill gets the bid and ends up eating the fees. I’ve only had the scenario I described where he/they are screwing around to figure out my maximum happen a couple of times in maybe 20 years of fooling around on GB and that’s only been when it was a buyers market.

The best way to beat this is to watch the clock and bid right at the end of the end of the auction. On GB, they don’t allow you to cancel a bid once you get close to the ending so game on.

The online auction sites typically have a dim view of this and will ban someone if they determine this is what’s happening.

I grew up going to farm auctions, mostly equipment and livestock. If a seller was caught bidding on his own equipment or livestock, he was ejected from the sale, along with whatever he had brought to sell. There was no such thing as 'buying back' your own stuff. If it didn't bring the price you wanted, you "PO'ed" it and took it back home.

A shill has no intention of buying an item so the practice is dishonest. Price your schitt at what you’re willing to accept.

Shill
Person who publicly helps or gives credibility to a person or organization to assist in a fraud

When I see a shill at an in-person auction, I tend to bid him up and drop out just so he's left holding the bag. Once he knows what I'm doing, he may back off when I'm interested in something. I've had auctioneers attempt some fancy footwork to keep me from doing it, but they started the game and they should deal with the consequences. I generally, though, stay away from auctioneers who regularly use shills. Paying attention to bidder numbers helps. For example, one auction housenear here has all their shill numbers in the 60's, so you get to know what's going on if you're paying attention.

With on-line auctions, there's a wider potential audience and the need for shills should decrease, but as Ben eluded to, that's not always the case. Shills simply prostitute the notion of fair market value and arms-length transactions.

In some areas shill bidding is considered unethical and an auctioneer who knowingly allows it can lose his license. It is a dishonest practice.

Reserves allow a shadow bidder to run bids up without getting stuck with the sale.

Set a secret reserve price of $2000......shadow bid to $1999.99. If the legitimate bidder doesn't bite after that......the sale is not completed.

No more dishonest than sockpuppets.

WTF do sockpuppets have to do with shill bidding ?

Place a bid that you are willing to pay, if it sells for more move along. On the 24 HOUR CAMPFIRE I see some pretty high asking prices, if they asking price is more than I am willing to pay. I move on. If you don't want to continue bidding on an item listed on GB, just stop and quite whining. If a shill wills the auction the sellers ends up paying the broker fees PLUS the sales tax in most cases, witch can be pretty steep..I sometimes see people pissing and moaning about high prices here, so as above just move along. One man's trash is another man's gold.

BTW it is a seller's market and all gun prices are very high. I'm amazed at some of the prices paid for guns.If you want it buy it, life is short!

Absolute total agreement.

It's not much different from an auction with a hidden reserve. It just means that the seller is ashamed of his asking price and hopes to get you there without revealing it. I've had similar experiences in person where the seller won't name a price. They just want you to make an offer. They are hoping you don't know what something is worth and will make a stupid high offer. It is best to just walk away from those situations because you are just going to get bent over.

Jerry

Both are posing as legitimate while they are in fact frauds. It doesn't seem that hard to connect to me. Are you off your meds again?

More like the Seller and Shill(s) are trying to drive the price up by getting a person worked up over an auction. They are counting on the buyer trying to not lose the auction .

The last in person auction I went to was a couple years ago. It was a gun shop that the owner was retiring and selling out. It was towards the end and they were selling ammo and reloading supplies. I was bidding and immediately got outbid by someone across the room. I couldn’t tell who it was. I finally quit bidding and when the hammer fell, the spotter across the room ask what number was. I told him the spotter directly in front of me had my bid. The jack wagons had me bidding against myself, which is what I expected. I made it known that what they were doing was not honorable and they said it was an honest mistake. I posted a review and told what happened to several of my auctioneer friends and the word got out.

MIKEWERNER: Now you're getting it!
Shop in person for your gun needs - whenever possible.
Avoid the scams, scammers, dishonest sellers, dishonest condition describers, shill bidders and their ilk.
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy

I have never had a problem buying for the price I was willing to pay. There's a Marlin lever 22 en route I picked up a few days ago.

Damn right.


You want to see the prices at an auction plummet?

Make it known that the owner is bidding you up.

Place on item on an online auction, creat a few sock puppets, let unsuspecting schmucks (like yourself) start bidding, run your emotional dumb ass up and hopefully you get unassed of your max figure. If they ‘get hung’ they have lost nothing, they pay no fees, they get banned(woo that’ll teach em) no loss after all it was a sock puppet. And mostly created by the seller under a different email.

You have to be a real moron to be so naive as to not know how easy it is. So, that’s WTF sock puppets have do with it.

There are several Auctions up here that use shills to bid up items.If I catch one doing it I start yelling rigged auction and point the shills out.Nothing pisses people off more then a rigged auction.Most folks will leave when they hear those magic words.

Farm auctions... who really is “the proxy bidder on the phone” ?

I've personally witnessed an auctioneer apparently in cahoots with a bidder allow the bidder to pull off some real shady stuff once. Box full of assorted quality American Indian artifacts that had been laid out open for inspection on table before auction started mysteriously disappeared as auction started.

Eventually found it again hidden down inside of another box of wore out household junk with household junk piled on top of artifacts. Told auctioneer assistant about it but was basically ignored. Shortly after I watched a man pull the same assistant aside and quietly talk with him for a minute or two then the assistant did the same with auctioneer.

As that box came up for auction bidding started real low as one would expect and as usually done for boxes of common assorted miscellaneous odds and ends. Bidding stayed low but that same man that had talked with the auction assistant earlier kept ahead by raising the minimum bid each time. After what few that were bidding on that box quit bidding I jumped in and bid it up so high that he was obviously very pissed-off at me.

I let him win the bidding but he paid a whole lot more for it than what he planed on and also aroused the curiosity of others there as to why he would pay so much for what was basically a box of odds and end junk that normally would have only brought a couple of dollars at most.

If that works, the buyer must be a retard.

A lot of Auctioneers were law students who dropped out of law school. GW

There are more ways to screw over an auction than you can shake a stick at.

Auctioneers screw sellers and buyer, sometimes both.


I have seen many auctioneers buying while they auction,
And it's very bad practice. I would really not want to do it in their shoes.

At one time, the seller hired and paid for the auctioneer,
today they add buyers fees also. That makes the auctioneer an employed
aren't of both parties.

Conflict of interest?

If the auctioneer is buying, can you be sure he going to recognize
all bidders running up the price on "his" item? Or might he be inclined
to not acknowledge some?

If both parties are paying him, is it ethical to artificially affect
the price in anyway?

People like to get in the front of the crowd at auctions, they can see
better and are in the action.

I like the back. It's interesting to see if all bids are being acknowledged,
And if all bids taken actually happen. Auctioneers love the mystique
Of these real subtle bids people think are so cool. It makes their
unethical game so much easier. If they don't want to see a bid, they
have an excuse. If they are creating bids, people assume they just
missed seeing a subtle gesture.



Bet I have been accused of shilling at some auctions.
No patience for idiots or wasting my time, I often open bidding
Or jump in and push prices when people are gaming.

When a $700 gun isn't getting bids at $300 and they are dropping,
I jump in. Do these idiots really think that everyone is going to let
It drop to $50 and they will get it there? [bleep] no! Why waste time.
Never have I done that and ended up with the item for opening price.
It usually launches like a rocket.