Lou, I do the same thing to try and snap up what I consider deals or to squirrel away parts I think I may want/need down the road. That in my opinion is just smart shopping (some I'm sure would consider it dumb shopping, but we all have our different viewpoints) and is in no way shill bidding. A shill bidder is either the seller him or herself, or an agent acting on the sellers behalf, and this person has no desire to wind up with the item on auction (and they obviously won't, if they do win either a second chance offer is extended to the person that was "beat out", or the item is re-listed), their only goal is to run up the selling price.
John Wood Red Lodge, MT
On Feb 8, 2008 6:52 AM, <LouDeeter@aol.com> wrote:
> Regarding shill bidding, I suppose I could fit the loose definition of
> that
> on occasion. I see something that is going cheap and while I don't
> really
> need it, I'll bid to see if I can snatch a deal. Am I unnecessarily
> running up
> the bid? Probably? I do win a few items like that so it isn't like I'm
> doing it solely to help the seller. I do it at the Cirque auction for
> charity
> too. Doesn't bother me a bit if I end up with the item, even when it is
> something that I say to myself, "I can't believe I bought that". Plus,
> if I can
> force the competition to spend more of their precious dollars on items I
> don't
> want, then they won't have as much money to spend on items that I really
> want. That's part of the game, right?
>
> Lou Deeter, Orlando FL
>
>
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