The Shill Bidder
Catching and Prosecuting
The Hunt
If a shill bidder knows your on to him the hunt is over. He can dissapear and reappear as another entity to continue cheating honest bidders. The basis of the hunt is pure stealth, and a lot of luck. I lucked into a position to study a shill bidder and thus profile his mo. The mo can vary and this is why luck is important. A good shill bidder has some rules that he follows meticulously. He is a separate person in all respects like the old confidence man who is resposible for an error in judgement in the part of a mark-victim-bidder etc.
He enters an auction at some point to (1) get an auction going (2) be a third bidder in the middle of two determined bidders and possibly(3) a person who takes a bid to keep it from going to cheaply.
I've taught honest bidders how to spot and beat shill bidders. I rarely denounce them even when they are a direct relative of the seller or they have the same address or even use the same computer. Once suspected a person has no problem verifying a shill bidder on ebay. Ebay cant police several hundred thousand or more auctions but their records provide enormous help in weeding them out.
Oh, incidently, I discovered a new weapon in the arsenal of shill bidder hunters. If a shill bidder wants to keep up on his game which cost us $1 billion each year in overpaying at auctions, he would probably be interested in how to keep from being caught. If he gets caught and he's scammed over $1000 either in small amounts or big amounts it's grand larceny and 5 years + restitution for the victims.
The new weapon is an automatic trace system of anyone who visits you web pages. It tracks your computer and even the phone number you are using to get online with. Even blocked calls and cellphone calls from laptops can be traced. The phone companies co-operate %100 since they don't wan't to be sued for aiding and abetting the commission of a major felony. Unless a person is getting a totally free ride, someone pays for the bills and they are legally responsible for the illegale actions of their equipment.
Let's say a suspected shill bidder accesses a web page that has "backtrack" provided by his isp. When the nosy shill bidder comes to his site the Hunter has all the info he needs to catch him. The Hunter collates that info with the alleged shill bids and the account of the shill bider at say ebay and, "BAMM" he's caught. All the stupid SHILL BIDDER has to do is go to the site for about 10 seconds for "backtrack" to get his stuff.
Cool? Oh, Yeah! I love it!
Later: Prosecuting a Shill Bidder.
Ciao,for now.