bclarkie wrote:Its not just you. He has been doing well on common items for a long time, far to long and far too many times for it to be just dumb luck. I have suspect something far more sinister myself for more thana year. As a matter of fact I just checked him out again for shilling just the other day but I really didn't come up with anything. I think that I am going to have to look a little deeper on this one. This happens far to offen to him for it to be just dumb luck. There is also no way in hell it has to do with the US only/Media Mail shipping thing either as thats really just silly. Some of the biggest buyers on Ebay nowadays are from Europe, so I fail to see how eliminating the better half of your buying base being some sort of a positive in any way shape or form. Also, as noted he seems to be an absolute magnet for only newbies which makes me think that it has to be a shill. He must have several friends/relatives bid on his auctions to help elimate a lot of the consistancies of other more lazy shillers, but believe me something is very very wrong there. Maybe he just has a very sophisticated method of shilling with multiple buying IDs that he uses to buy from other sellers as well, but something is not right at all with his auctions. Give me a few days to give this a really serious look see and I'll report back anything that I find here.
Badmike wrote: So I am with you this guy needs to be watchd, and anyone wanting to bid on his items needs to be very cautious is someone starts bidding up the item. The only thing I would disagree with BC about is his buying activity, I know in my case in particular it's not always an indicator of how much you sell on Ebay. I personally very rarely bid on or buy items from ebay, I find my items through other venues, perhaps this guy does also.Unless you meant something else and I just misunderstood. Anyway, keep an eye on this dude....Mike B.
bclarkie wrote:Mike, I wasn't indicating that something was necessarily amiss because he has very low bidding activity, but it could be an indication that since his buying under the Harper ID is very low that it could meant that he is using one or several other IDs to buy things up. If he has a mutitude of buying IDs he can use them both to buy things to resell and he also would have the ability to use thise same IDs to shill his auctions. I am thinking that the reason his shilling activity is hard to find is because if he is using a multitude of Ebay IDs to shill his auctions. What I am going to have to do is start checking out all of his bidder previous wins from sellers other than himself and match those wins up with the items that he is currently selling as that is going to be the only way it seems that I am going to be able to catch this guy shilling, if in fact that is what he is doing. This is going to be a long arduous process. Also Mike, you happen to be lucky. You live and aread where you have an opportunity to finds lots of things locally that most of us don't have the fortune to have. Like me for instance, I live in RPG blackhole of the universe, I mean there is nothing, and I mean nothing here what-so-ever. Oh and last thing BTW, I happened to noticed Aneoth popped a bid in on the last Tsojconth auction that just ended (nice win Jeff BTW ). http://offer.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll? ... 0059882920Does this mean he is getting back in?
deimos3428 wrote:Seems like Harper is either:a) extremely luckyb) extremely good at attracting rabid newbaysThe only thing I can think of that distinguishs him from other sellers is that he only ships to the USA. This means he can quote Media Mail shipping rates in his auctions and appear less expensive. I suppose it's possible he's runnning a massive shill network, but ask bclarkie to sort that out. I don't know.
bclarkie wrote:Oh and last thing BTW, I happened to noticed Aneoth popped a bid in on the last Tsojconth auction that just ended (nice win Jeff BTW ). http://offer.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll? ... 0059882920Does this mean he is getting back in?
Blackmoor wrote:Merry christmas to me
aia wrote:i dont agree with you: i´that's not a question of luck (of course you always need some luck in everything)... i had a look to the auctions you highlighted and what is extremely interesting is that 80% of his bidders are newbies...coincidence or not?
bclarkie wrote:Oh and last thing BTW, I happened to noticed Aneoth popped a bid in on the last Tsojconth auction that just ended (nice win Jeff BTW ). Does this mean he is getting back in?
WereSteve wrote:I nominate anything by this seller ... geez ...eBay listings