Definitely not Luke. I was referring to the Bidding. Then as an afterthought, it struck me that the “Fake-Makers” seeing the money involved, may see an opportunity to suddenly find one and offer it for sale through a third party.

Bids have now been retracted and its down to £190!

Definitely something very strange going on. I would be gutted if it was me selling it and the bid had dropped by £7,000.

Yeah of course it has. It’s the oldest trick in the eBay book. The bidder has various names and puts a bid on this cockmando badge for some huge amount and then with another name takes it right up to the limit. Then you give it four or five days so every anorak who is interested in it, will have seen it. Then the 1st bid is withdrawn and it then goes down to a sensible amount. (190 in this case)
Now everyone knows that they now need to bid nearly 8k to win this badge, so no point at all bidding. Now the clever guy gets it for a couple of hundred quid and there isn’t much at all anyone can do , unless one of you lot dare bid it up and also get it for a complete bargain but that only works if you call the high bidders bluff and the high bidding conman then withdraws his high bid. Of course there is limited time to retract, so it’s a great game of Russian Roulette.

Am I hallucinating or is the bidding now at £190 .?

P

I rest my case your honour.

I just looked and for me it is still showing £7863.00????

Terry

Like a yo-yo this Terry, back up as you say to £7,800 odd

I think I've figured out what has happened.

u***b withdrew his highest bid and this resulted in the bid going to the lowest bid c***a (the other person who has registered high bids) made before the bidding war between the two of them started.

The previous highest bid was £185 from e***7 (which was made 4 days ago) and, as c***a still had bids registered, the bidding went to £5 higher than this bid.

u***b has then, as he is required to do so by eBay rules, has then made a further bid and is now winning the auction at £7863.

I can only feel sorry for the seller who must have had kittens when he saw the bidding drop so dramatically.

The original high bidder was a private feedback account, 3***0 (private), see my screenshot post #10.

It does appear as you say all bids by that private bidder were withdrawn taking it back down to £190.

The new highest bidder u***b (768) appears to have only placed one bid and waded straight in with £7,863(+) whereas originally 3***0 (private) had placed numerous bids.

If the underbidder was the mark and target it makes no sense in a shill going back to high bid. As gas man said the underbidder c***a (1282) has had their high bid smoked out so could be targeted easily.

All very irregular now.

It certainly seems so, especially with a new bidder coming in with just under 4 days to go, when he could have swooped in the last few seconds in order to win the auction.

Something definitely seems amiss.

I'd like to think that in fact, eBay choose to force the high bidder, 3***0 (private) into revealing himself or his alias, c***a (1282) somewhat due to the attention and high price this lot is eliciting. It begs the long debate about why they allow "private" bidders in the first case which just raise suspicion among other bidders. At the prices we're talking about here, I think many would like to see more transparency and eBay preemptively obliged.

Unfortunately, I somehow doubt the buyer will eventually be posting the title for discussion on the Forum! :)

Private feedback is a function facilitated by eBay, so eBay would not need to ‘reveal’ the bidder as they know who he/she is.

It is possible to track bidders / buyers via their feedback score… I’m sure everyone on this forum has been sniped by an account currently with a feedback score of (36098) and knows who it is. Private feedback prevents this.

Another reason for choosing private feedback may be the type of items you buy, if personal etc.

This bidder twice placed a massive bid which was withdrawn shortly after.

Luc - when you say 'seller' do you actually mean the seller, or a different 'bidder'? please. It has all got me very confused. It certainly does not look like a straight forward transaction whoever is involved.
Mike

I meant bidder, not seller, sorry. Post now edited.

Indeed it appears that u***b (768) who was the high bidder last night on £7,863 has retracted their top bid only so they are now the underbidder.

c***a (1282) who would have been the suspected target of a shill bid is now, lo and behold, the high bidder at £7,690.

If this is shill bidding, as it certainly appears, it’s been carried out by dumb and dumber.

I have messaged the seller to ask what is going on.

Many thanks for the clarification Luke and Luc - any insight would be very much appreciated please - as a PM or publicly - whichever you feel comfortable with.
Regards
Mike

Yo-Yo
 

Will do Mike. No reply from the seller as yet.

Struggling to keep up with this, it’s now down to £215.

It appears that c***a (1282) has (wisely) got out of there.

Bidding is now propped up by u***b (768) and our old friend 3***0 (private) has put in another appearance as underbidder? Beyond confusing.

What a mess.

It seems that 3***0 (1282) and e***e (1552) are two different people as they bid on items listed in totally different categories, and 3***0 (1282) also frequently bids on ebay France and Germany.

c***a (1282) is back in with a flurry of bids, as of 13.41 Sunday.

I think if I was the seller I'd start again!

This was what I was curious about , the four top bidders have retracted their bids and it looks like all their earlier bids have also been removed . :confused:

I lost track of this about 2 pages back!!!!!!!!

you and me both

It amazes me that the plug hasnt been pulled by the site. Its started to get more bids on it from the very people that retracted bids earlier. Ridiculous.

Its not 7pm yet and its back up to £6678.00! And there are still more than three days to go!

Whatever is going on, the bidders seem to know exactly how to ‘game’ eBay. I’m still traumatised that the curtain was split up, it was an amazing thing. Will be interesting to see what this sells for, has anyone a record of another ever being sold.

I agree.

After pulling his bids Mr c***a (1280) is back in again with more bids up to just over £6.5k … makes no sense?!

New blood now with 2***- (702) as high bid on £7,950.

Absolutely loopy.

This patch is sullied by the shannagans happening in this auction.

Too true!

Another new bidder has pushed this up to £9,900.00!! If this a massive piss-take, the sham bidders should be shot!:eek:

A £10,000 bid was made 10 minutes ago and was then withdrawn less than 1 minute later. It’s crazy. :confused:

I am fairly sure to withdraw a bid you need the sellers consent?

Perhaps others can correct me if I’m mistaken.

But if so that is beyond suspicious a bid is placed then withdrawn with approval of the seller in such a timeframe. 57 seconds would be a completely implausible response time.

This is the process that eBay sets out, Luke. It gives clear instruction for the bidder to rebid, especially given that the other options wouldn’t apply within a 57 second timeframe.

I was selling a book on eBay a few months back and the highest bidder retracted his bid. There was s#d all I could do about it. A similar situation happened to a friend last week.

There have been several previous sales from this curtain by this seller that have had an unusual bidding pattern too. I'm not brilliant at analyzing bidding histories and knowing the retraction rules on ebay, but I've learned something on this thread.

There's something definitely amiss here.

Two £10,000 bids retracted in a matter of hours...

Thanks ajc347, having never retracted a bid I was unaware of that.

Yet more retractions from £9,900 last night down to £7,950 as of 10:30am.

Overall 7 retractions, some after less than a minute. I’ve reported the bidding on this item to eBay.

Who in their right mind is going to pay £10k for a bit of tatty cloth :confused:

Don't think my other half can see much difference between a bit of cloth and a bit of bent brass:D:D:D

3 high bids retracted again yesterday and price back down.:rolleyes:

Bidding
 

Anybody any the wiser as to what’s going on with the bidding as it seems irregular to say the least £k for a cloth badge it’s crazy