Does Blind Bidding Make You Uncomfortable?

[benitez17]

I do background research as well, and I don't think that shill bidding is going on in the auctions I am participating in at the moment (or I would have pulled out of the bidding already), but Flippa's decision to limit the amount of information available makes me less comfortable with the auction when I see unusual activity.

I have seen auctions where I was interested initally until I saw favorable comments coming from accounts registered on the same day as the seller with a similar writing style, and/or a few quick bids from 2 accounts on an auction with a long duration. If I had access to more information that would help me feel more comfortable, Flippa might have made a higher success fee off of me than what they ended up collecting.

[Clinton]

In this thread, Luke said

We'll be adding a UserID search functionality soon so you should be able to see what other auctions they've had.

Would be useful if they had that for buyers as well.

[LukeMoulton]

@benitez17 if you suspect foul play, please notify support, we can check for tell tail signs of shill bidding. A lot of buyers wait till the end of an auction to put in a bid in an attempt to keep the price down so although the activity may seem suspicious, it's pretty typical to see last minute bidders.

I'm not sure that making auctions public would help. Flippa users don't have to enter their real name which could make a background check difficult - and if there were shill bidding I'm sure they wouldn't use a username they've used elsewhere.

[ClaytonL]

If they forced bidders to be public, then I could just set up a script that sent me all auctions that you guys bid in. No more digging through crap listings for me .

[Clinton]

Been there, had people follow me to see what I was bidding on, and found ways to mess with them

[tke71709]

There are some fairly easy ways to put some automated shill bidding checks in place, IP addresses, cookies, account creation dates/times, same accounts bidding on same users auctions all the time.

[benitez17]

Luke, I appreciate that you don't want shill bidding to happen and I don't assume that you are promoting it, but what qualifies as "suspicious activity"? Like I said above, I talked to the owners of both of the sites that I am bidding on right now, and I don't think they are driving up the price of the auction themselves, but how am I supposed to know when something unethical is going on? Flippa claims that their support is swamped and that is why they rely on users to police the auctions, but now Flippa support has time to respond every time I think I see something suspicious?

What if I were to make a bid just above the reserve, and then get into a bidding war with 1 other person that turns out to be a second account for the seller or a friend of the seller? Nothing would look unusual there, but it could cost me a lot of money. What about the auctions where the same person has made multiple bids in a row? Is that worth reporting, or is that just someone poking around for the reserve price? I could point out all sorts of scenarios where nothing looks out of the ordinary but there is a scam going on, and plenty of scenarios where something looks fishy but the auction activity is legitimate. Where do I draw the line, and why do I have to spend time guessing and spend Flippa's time responding to my guesses when the information could easily be made available?

I didn't start this thread to turn it into another rant directed at Flippa. I just had some uneasy feelings this morning, and wanted to find out if I was the only one who felt that the current setup is less than ideal. It appears that I am not.

Luke, can you explain the logic behind hiding the bidder user names? Who does it really benefit, other than people with something to hide? I can understand that some buyers don't want people following their actions, but if you were going to make a change from Sitepoint to Flippa, why did you make the change in the direction that you did? Also, are you currently using any of the methods that tke7109 listed above?

[tke71709]

Luke,

Can you do something about listings like this

No revenue is being claimed. - from Advertising Sales: Yes - from Product or Service Sales: Yes - from Affiliate Income: Yes
If no revenue is being claimed then should everything not be set automatically be No?

Not a biggie, it just annoys the beejesus out of me.

[Michelle]

Luke,

Can you do something about listings like this

No revenue is being claimed. - from Advertising Sales: Yes - from Product or Service Sales: Yes - from Affiliate Income: Yes
If no revenue is being claimed then should everything not be set automatically be No?

Not a biggie, it just annoys the beejesus out of me.

Oh I've seen that too and I agree it's annoying. I guess the seller is trying to convey how the site 'might' get revenue but that should be detailed in the description surely.

[LukeMoulton]

@benitez17 - we track accounts that have appeared on the same IP address as well as the telephone verification. Of course, there are no guarantees, people can always find a way around these checks if they're hell bent on being dishonest. Suffice to say, it's unusual that a seller would shill bid when an auction has reached his/her reserve.

In regards to hiding bidder usernames, check Clinton and ClaytonL's comments above for some good reasons.