Bid Shielding

Bid shielding aims at defrauding sellers and not buyers. Here is how is works. You are watching an auction of one of your items and you notice that a couple of buyers are dueling it out for the highest bid. The bid has reached incredible heights when at the last moment the competing buyers suddenly retract their bids and pull out of the competition. What is left is a very low bid placed by another individual, a bid that was so low that most people would have jumped at the chance to purchase the item for that price. What happened? Bid shielding.

The buyers that were fighting it out for top bid were in fact raising their bids to scare off other buyers. Then they would pull their bids at the last moment to allow their low bidding scheming partner to win the item at a ridiculously low price. The result is that the seller has been scammed into selling his or her item at a low, non-market price.

This practice is just as shameless as shilling but working in reverse and against the seller. The mechanics are the same as shilling. It involves one person with several user IDs or several people working together. Like shilling you, as a seller, should determine who the bidders were and determine whether they have a history of engaging in bid shielding or even shilling.

If you feel that an individual or group of individuals have been bid shielding, then report them immediately. Online auction operators will not tolerate that type of practice and the individuals will be banned from the auction site. In the end if you can prove that you have been scammed, you will be able to cancel the bids of the scamsters and to re-auction your item. You can also ensure that in the future the auction operators take measures to prevent these individuals from bidding on your items. Be vigilant! Always keep a close eye on how the bidding for your items proceeds to detect this bidding shielding scheme.