Shill bidding on Bring A Trailer?

Yes I will be the 1st to say I think this is happening because you'll have a car go on there with no reserve or a reserve but there will be a very high dollar bid right out of the gate which is abnormal considering that these auctions are not put online at any point in time specifically They just pop up. So this would mean that a potential buyer happened to see a car come online right at that moment and bid a very high Dollar amount close to what a seller would ask. When you look at the metrics and feasibility of such issues It is almost mathematically impossible. Therefore I think that there's definitely a lot of shell or shill bidding.

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There will always be shill bidding at any kind of high $ auction. It's unfortunately a part of the game.

 

Amen to that!


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Could be for sure but it's a gamble. If the shill bid wins the buyer commission is charged immedietely at auction end. Most of the auctions I watch where guys battle it out at the end, if you search their history they are active members with many comments/bids and seem like enthusiasts.

Not saying that it's -impossible- those guys are shills but quite an effort to pull that off I think.

 

Yes no schedule to the listings but you can sign up for notifications for vehicles you're interested in. You'll get an email as soon as it's listed and could bid on it within a few minutes if you like.

 

Little risk if the bidder knows is not meeting reserve like 0 risk


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Right, "if shill bid wins". If it's not met reserve I suppose it doesn't matter anyway.

 

I bid on a No Reserve BMW. I bid $10k and the next bid was $20k. I presume it was a shill and they had to pay the 5% fee. I have also known people who listed with a reserve and have asked friends to bid it up close to the reserve. No harm in that.

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Except all these harmless (read meaningless/useless) bids give those wannabe “market hawks” (read lemmings) inaccurate perceptions of values, including one reflecting the given lot itself.

OTOH, those same lemmings use other auction results, whether real sales or not, and asking prices as some kind of “market value” indicators. Go figure.

 

Don't hate the player, hate the game?

 

Actually both.


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It's not inaccurate if the car is bid up and actually sells though. Like lots of folks have said before a product is ultimately worth whatever someone is willing to pay for it.

 

Absolutely agree. I’ve been saying this for decades.

I agree, but it just seems strange (I have other words to describe this behavior, but...) when “market hawks” quote such results as some kind of market/value indicators without acknowledging (or comprehending ?) the utter uselessness of no sale high bid or “asking price“ of something.

Perhaps this is due to my lack of formal education or maybe some people just need something to blindly believe and if it’s printed or published, it must be true, right ?

 

I don't like shill bidding, have seen live auctions do absolute ghost bidding even. I suppose you could argue as long as it only happens below a reserve it doesn't hurt anything but it just smacks of impropriety or even bordering on dishonesty to me. If it's ok to do below the reserve what's to stop the auctioneer from doing it above the reserve?

 

They do do it above the reserve when they know someone "has to have it". Also when the auction house guarantees a price to the seller. It happens all the time.

The reason it theoretically shouldn't happen is because auctions results are the only public record of where market prices stand. Sometimes if a car stops at well below reserve, it's an important "correction" to where prices should actually be. Of course the auction house loses with this, so they started this and chandelier bidding in an effort not to lose the sale. It's not illegal, but you can argue that it is immoral. Not that it matters too much when it's accepted to be part of the game.

 

I don’t see anything dishonest or improper for an auction house to do (shill) bidding for a lot ABOVE or on no reserve auctions, as their job is to not only to help sell it, but to sell it at highest achievable price and resorting to such tactics means they’re working to earn their commission by getting top money for the seller of the consigned item.
It’s on the (real) bidder(s) if they take the proverbial bait and allow themselves to be taken advantage of in that moment/setting.

What I don’t understand is this rather immature(?) nonsense of quoting no sale auction results (or “asking prices”, a la FML, etc) as some kind of value indicators, but apparently lot of people choose to believe or take them as such seriously.

I have wondered if these same individuals base their other leisure expenditures on similar logic (or lack there of) ? Like “Yeah, I really like to go on a vacation to Italy (or Bahamas or Hawaii, etc) but the prices right now are too high, so perhaps I wait awhile to see if they become much lower, because I don’t want to appear stupid for paying too much”

 

not by buyers

needs to be another user

yes it is happening

 

Edit:

OTOH, there are lots of other, “seemingly irrational” things people do ever day that I don’t understand either.

 

One reason I refuse to participate in auctions

 

Anyone who doesn't think shill bidding exists in every car auction is naive.

 

I think on BAT it might be more obvious given how much higher some cars go there.
It’s even more transparent as you see very early on some big bids whilst there are 7 days left and/or bidder just joined etc. Easier to spot I’d say.


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Is the auction house also not charging the buyer for their services? So getting the buyer to pay more by deceit is ok? I disagree.

Would you be ok going to your Doc and having him run up your bill for the insurance company he works for? Or taking your car to a shop and having the mechanic charge extra hours for the shop he works for? To me deceit is deceit.

 

When I think back on all the crap I learned in high school
It’s a wonder I can think at all
And though my lack of education hasn’t hurt me none
I can read the writing on the wall