Shill Bidding on Engagement jewelry on Ebay

[gemologic]

Has anybody noticed how many diamond rings are being sold with a $1 starting bid, no reserve, which miraculously come up to full value, and that''s assuming you can trust the descriptions, because they aren''t certified goods.

I smell a rat, and I don''t think it is good for the consumer or the jewelry industry in general.

There is some neat software out there that tracks bidders'' bidding & buying history and sometimes the results are remarkable. The same buyer buying two to three engagement rings over the month while they contribute as underbidder to about another 8 - 12 sales. And that same buyer only buying from two or three seller''s exclusively. Either these guy get''s engaged a lot or they are in the trade buying inventory at closer to retail than wholesale prices.

C''mon, give me a break.

 

[oldminer]

Shills on ebay? Could it be possible? I suppose Mark is totally correct and it is no surprise.

The tracking software with those interesting results of who is the underbidder and who is the buyer would make excellent expose' material someday. As far as doing harm to the jewelry business goes, I don't think it hurts jewelers as much as it destroys the belief of a pretense of honesty with on-line auction sites. I know ebay works to hold these frauds down, but one might guess their success rate is not enviable.

My understanding is that very little high value or fine jewelry sells on ebay. Junk and close-out stuff goes fine, but people are very careful when it is big money. There is just a ton of fraud going on and being careful is a good practice.

 

[captinproton]

 

[mohit_chopra1]

Can you suggest me if the rings sold on ebay that are real cheap have real diamonds or is there some kind of fraud.

 

[eyesoftexas]

A few of the dealers on Ebay are legit - Choice Carats, Diamonds By Lauren and SignedPieces (which sells real high end designer labels). I would go to the web sites directly and deal with these guys through the phone. There are a TON of junk diamonds on eBay that come with no certs or "appraisals" from their business. I would stay away from these for sure.

 

[valeria101]

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On 6/2/2004 4:03:36 PM gemologic wrote:




The same buyer buying two to three engagement rings over the month while they contribute as underbidder to about another 8 - 12 sales. [...]
C'mon, give me a break.
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This is advanced stuff! It's even funnier to see what those thousands of positive feedback listings come from... often from sales of anything but the more attractive current listings. I can understand why no Ebay diamond sellers can amass hundreds of feedback items for stones over 50k, but if most feedback comes from selling ring cases and loups, that's definitely not informative

It makes sense that Ebay's seller classification awards high status for a few high-value items as well as for thousands of small ticket ones. But "lots of feedback" still makes good bait - and it definitely is much harder to check hundreds of pages of feedback to tell apart buyers who would not give bad feedback for fear of receiving the same (given that 1 negative is 0.0001% for the seller and 10% for the buyer), from the really enthusiastic but clueless and so forth. It would be greta if even the return policy (something anyone can judge, as oposed to the diamonds and jewelry) would be validated by good feedback - but I wouldn't venture saying it does...

And then you get a one-time seller who wants to get rid of a piece of jewelry with no feedback behind - either the real bargain, of proof that it doesn't take much to register a fake identity on Ebay. What to do?

Ebay it's good fun though. I wish there was more talk about buying tips

Anyway, regardless how interesting Ebay is, the ring in your avatar pic, Mark, is even more

Any details

 

[Mara]

If you suspect shills, send the information to eBay, I have heard they take that pretty seriously as it compromises the community and their reputation.

 

[Rank Amateur]

It happens here with Leonid standing watch.

On Ebay, the honor system is the main safeguard. Yikes.

 

[aljdewey]

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On 6/3/2004 5:14:22 PM Rank Amateur wrote:





It happens here with Leonid standing watch.

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R/A, is there a specific instance you can point to to back this up? I'd really be curious to know.

 

[Rank Amateur]

Leonid quickly weeds out the occasional duplicate identity. Not too much action recently.

Still, I am a bit suspicious of any testimonial that comes out of nowhere and is penned by a person with just a few posts. Especially if it has an Ebay-like "A++" in the title.

 

[69gm]

good point rank amateur!

A++

 

[Meghane]

So I guess my first post ever titled "Dirt Cheap Diamonds A+" is considered suspicious? Not sure I follow the logic -- is it the title or the fact that it was my first post?

Meg