Explain this auction to me...

[brian015]

Originally Posted by BrianG

I think it works like someone mentioned above. The seller has a phantom bidder (either himself with a different account or a friend) and if the item is not selling for what they want, the phantom bidder places an outrageous and artificial bid. The real bidder sees he is outbid at the $300 mark, and tries to incrementally win the bid by continuing to increase his max bid. Some people get stuck in a "I have to win this" mentality when doing this and keep on increasing their max bid. Anyway, then the seller retracts the abnormally high bid leaving the next guy as "winner".

True, but in this case there are two bidders bidding outrageous amounts. The real buyer willing to pay $300 has no reason to up his bid.

Another possibility: it may be the buyer(s) trying to scam a new seller, who gets a ridiculously high selling price, gets some fake payment and ships it out not knowing he got scammed.

[Bondonutz]

Somebody is smoking crack or Shilling, possibly both ?

Shill bidding is obviously more effective with hard to get items, out of stock items, etc, but I wouldn't bid more than it's worth. Atleast, not by much. Maybe 10%, maybe 30%, it depends on the items value. 10.000$ or 10$ will get different % increases for example. My question was directed to the people who bid 500% over, or regret it when they figure out they've been shilled. Like with this auction.

If you bid 1500$ for an E-revo that's worth 500$ in a store to keep up with the other "bidder", then it's nobodies fault but you. You should have stopped at 550$ and just bought it at another store... obviously..

[molak]

i´ll place a $2500 bid!