Comments by "rockethead7" (@rockethead7) on "VINwiki"
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I cannot believe the number of people who think this used car salesman is the "good guy" for committing shill bidding, and eBay is the "bad guy" for enforcing their policies (as well as LAWS in most areas). Shill bidding is illegal in most places I know about. It creates a fraudulent market value. It results in ripping off buyers. It's against eBay's terms of service. eBay MUST enforce it, otherwise it would kill their own site. I mean, just imagine what would happen if it wasn't against the rules to shill bid. Just picture it. Every seller out there would shill bid the living daylights out of every auction they run. Nobody would be a buyer there, if they knew that the rules include sellers artificially jacking up the bids. Who would want to be a winning bidder for something, when knowing IN ADVANCE that they are going to overpay for it? It's preposterous. Yet, so many of the commenters in here SUPPORT this guy for it??? I mean, hey, if I'm the high bidder on an eBay item, it's because I was willing to place a bid higher than the 2nd place bidder. But, I don't want the 2nd place bidder to be THE SELLER HIMSELF. I truly cannot fathom why so many commenters cannot see this. Obviously, those people need to get ripped off by a guy like the one in this video a few times, then maybe they'll realize that shill bidding is wrong, and this guy deserves not only to be banned from eBay, but should go back and pay the delta in price to everyone he screwed over with his shill bids.
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Colm Farrel:
You just don't get it, no matter how many times it's explained to you. You keep falling back on this notion that shill bidding results in getting "market price" for something. That is completely wrong. It's creating a FALSE market price. If the final bid on an item is $100 (with no shill bidding) then that IS the market price. There are reasons that shill bidding is illegal. There are reasons that it's against eBay's terms of service. That is because it's creating a FRAUDULENT "market value." It is downright fraud, period. And, when you sign up for an eBay ID, you must agree to the terms of service, which includes NO SHILL BIDDING. Even in your warped imagination, let's say hypothetically shill bidding is legal/moral, if it's against the terms of service, then people should not be doing it. You can't come to my house and smoke inside, even if smoking is legal. If you want to sell on eBay, you have to agree not to place shill bids. And, furthermore, imagine for a moment if that wasn't the policy... just imagine the consequence... every seller out there would shill bid the living daylights out of all every one of their auctions. Guess what, that would KILL the market. eBay is OBLIGATED to get rid of shill bidders, else, they'd lose every buyer out there.
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Colm Farrel:
YOU SAID: "I do get it"
== No, you cannot possibly "get it" and hold the warped opinions you hold. You clearly do not get it.
YOU SAID: "and don't need it to be explained to me."
== Well, you're correct in that I shouldn't have bothered to try to explain it to you. A dozen others tried, and it went in one ear and out the other. I don't know why I thought I'd get a different result.
YOU SAID: "You keep falling back on"
== What the hell? What have I "kept falling back on"? I just watched this video for the first time around 15 minutes ago, and made my very first post to you. How can my very first message be "keep falling back on"?? What ARE you talking about?
YOU SAID: "the notion that whatever an item finishes at is its market value which is completely false."
== Ridiculous. You clearly do not know what the term "market value" means. In the eBay market, if it's played by the eBay terms of service, that IS the eBay market value. There might be OTHER markets somewhere with different market values. There are geographic markets, online markets, physical markets, whatever. In the eBay market, playing by the eBay rules, the final bid (with no shill bidding) IS the eBay market value.
YOU SAID: "And back to point 1 it wouldn't kill the market"
== Good fucking gods, what a moron. Yes, it would absolutely kill eBay if the policy was to allow shill bids. The system can't work that way. Buyer distrust would be rampant. eBay's auctions (the mainline type they run, not the little spin-off types) were set up under a certain set of rules. Those rules were designed to inspire bidding confidence, under the assumption that your winning bid only has to beat the 2nd place bidder (assuming it's NOT a shill bidder). If they changed the rules, and made it so that shill bidding was allowed, I don't think I know a single eBay buyer who would ever bid on that style auction again. If that's how eBay wanted the auctions to work, they'd have set up the rules so that your $100 bid is $100, even if the 2nd place bidder was only at $10. It would function more like a live auction. But, that's not how they set it up. Under the rules they set up, NOBODY wants to be the winning bidder, knowing that the 2nd place bid was the seller himself. That's RIDICULOUS. And, frankly, with the fervor that you're using in defending this indefensible practice, frankly, I'm pretty convinced that you yourself must be a practitioner of this immoral activity yourself, and everything you're saying is most likely a deluded attempt to convince everyone (including yourself) that violating the rules of the game is a GOOD thing to do. It's ridiculous. If you want the style of auction where the top bid is just the top bid, then that's the style auction to go use (not eBay). If you want the style auction where bidder confidence is inspired, and buyers are protected from shill bidders, then use eBay. But, you don't get to force-fit your own desired auction style on an auction that isn't designed to operate the way YOU want. You don't like the rules of the game?? Don't play. Oh, but not in your universe. In your warped universe, it's perfectly acceptable to agree to terms of service, and then violate those terms. You're an idiot.
YOU SAID: "because YOU Can't yes Can't force someone to outbid you."
== Completely irrelevant. Whenever I've been the high bidder on stuff, I do it under the understanding that I only need to beat 2nd place. I know, in advance, that sometimes this might result in me paying my maximum price. But, most times, I don't pay my maximum price. I only pay a little more than 2nd place. Those are the rules. Those are the terms of service. But, if I was to find out that eBay allows shill bidding, essentially guaranteeing that I will always pay my maximum price, sorry, I wouldn't use an auction site like that. And, I know nobody who would. That's not how eBay is set up to operate. The entire eBay market is set up based on the rules of those auctions. If a seller doesn't like that some bidder out there might be willing to pay more, but doesn't, because the 2nd place bid wasn't high enough to force that 1st place bid up, then that seller doesn't belong on eBay. That seller should go to a different auction that uses the format he/she wants. Sorry, but a seller doesn't get to violate the terms of service to artificially force the price up, on the basis that they want every single dollar that the highest bidders are willing to pay, every single time, violating the terms of service in the process.
YOU SAID: "And what part of I wasn't arguing that it was legal or illegal don't you understand?"
== It is ILLEGAL for a reason. Shill bidding is FRAUD.
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Colm Farrel: Yeah, my beliefs are congruent with the laws, the eBay policies, common decency, etc. Your belief is that it's ok to SHILL BID your own auctions, artificially raising the prices for the seller, violating the terms of service, breaking laws (albeit I know that's not your point). Yeah, but *I* am the brick wall here. Yeah. I'll tell you what, dumbass. I'll post something on eBay for which nobody else (besides you) are willing to pay more than $10,000. You go there, bid $20,000 for it. I'll shill bid $19,500, forcing you to buy it for the absolute maximum you're willing to pay, violating the terms of service, common decency, and laws in the process, you pay an extra $10K more than you should have to if everyone followed the rules as they are designed. Then, with a smile, fork over $20,000 to me, double the eBay market value. Then, I'll believe a word you say. Until that happens, as far as I'm concerned, you're a brick wall who practices this immoral act, who has come here as an attempt to try to justify your own criminal behavior.
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