AW Daily - Tips & Tactics - During the Auction: Spotting a Shill

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The topic of shilling is always good for a heated debate among online auction enthusiasts. Before you know it, somebody starts advocating vigilante justice, while someone else yells, "Beware--Net cops!" No matter what side of the line you fall on, there's no denying that shilling happens. So without encouraging you to become judge, jury, and executioner, here are some tips on recognizing a shill in an auction in which you are participating. At the very least, this helps avoid questionable auctions.

Know Your Limits
While it's easy to get swept up in the drama of an auction, the simplest way to avoid a shill is to bid only what you think the item is worth or what you can afford to pay. Let this number--and not the number on your screen--be your guide. Even if the item gets shilled and the price is artificially inflated, you're in the clear if the amount is below what you expect to pay or above what you will pay.

Assumptions
There's nothing worse than being falsely accused or punished for a violation that you did not commit. With that in mind, avoid some of the easy assumptions you can make while trying to ferret out a potential shill. For instance, just because the same users have left a seller positive feedback on multiple auctions doesn't mean they are partners in crime. A likely explanation is that those bidders probably follow that seller's category and auctions. On the other hand, don't blindly trust sellers who have huge amounts of feedback. If you have suspicions, analyze their merchandise, item descriptions, and feedback. If there is no consistency to what they list and no coherent sales policy, and if their feedback comes from the same individuals exclusively, then it's possible that you are dealing with a shill. In the final analysis, feedback should not be your only metric in determining if a seller is participating in shilling.

Local Yokel
If you suspect a shill, check if the seller and suspected shill are from the same geographic region. Every auction site places the seller's region next to his or her name in the auction information box. You can obtain the bidder's information by requesting his or her information from the service with his or her username. (Be aware that this will trigger an email to the bidder, which identifies you by your username.) Also check if the seller and bidder in question have the same ISP or domain name. You can see this by simply requesting their email addresses from the service or accessing them from the auction info box.

Like Clockwork
There's never an auction a shill doesn't like if he or she is shilling up a partner's auction. With that in mind, shills tend to bid on everything their partners sell, revealing that they have no interest in any one category or set of categories. To spot these jacks-of-all-trades, load the seller's other auctions from the info box of any auction. You can also do a search on the seller to access his or her closed auctions over the last 30 days. If most of the closed auctions do not have bids, it's unlikely that the seller has cohorts shilling his or her auctions. If all the closed auctions have bids, look at the bid histories. Check if the same individual was bidding aggressively at the start of each auction. If so, you have reason to wonder.

Fold Early
Shills usually capture the high bid early in the auction. They set the table to draw attention to the auction and then cut bait as the auction nears completion. Also, they will step in late in an auction to rescue an item from a low bid so that the seller can relist it. In general, though, shills will bid high only when they are fairly sure they will be outbid.

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