Anyone heard of a Gunbroker bidder manipulating autobid to keep price low?

[ddm]

Not sure this topic fits here but didn't seem to match any other forum topics. Has anyone seen or heard of a Gunbroker bidder cramming autobid with so many bids that it rejects new bids and sticks at opening bid.? Friend had a gun listed. Opening bidder entered the same bid 20 times. Weird but not conclusive. A day or so later it was 30 bids by same guy,, same amount, top bid still the opening bid amount. You could tell by the different times of bids that other people were probably trying to bid. Emailed GB but no response and site wouldn't let seller cancel the auction. Auction ends at the opening bid amount after 35 bids. Buyer admits he spent 2 hrs entering same bid and he did it to prevent other bidders from bidding. Don't understand why autobid didn't increase bid amount. Seller still waiting to hear back from GB after 7 days. Has anyone seen this before?

 

[Sevens]

I would tell your friend to just ignore the "winning" bidder. He will still owe Gunbroker fees but otherwise, worst he gets is one negative feedback by a cheater.

 

[Beemerguy53]

If I was the seller, there is no way I would honor that winning bid.

 

[handejector]

Post a link to the auction.
What was the opening bid? Was there a Reserve?

It works like this-
You can enter 30 bids on an item, but each bid will have to be higher than the last one by at least the minimum bid increment or the system won't take it. The bid will NOT go up when all bids are from you unless there is a reserve. If there is a reserve, the bid goes up till the reserve is met, but it won't go higher than the reserve, even if you have 10 more bids stacked up higher than the reserve.

When another bidder bids against you, the bid will increase. I have to assume that no one else bid on the item. Multiple bids from one bidder do NOT block bids by other people.

 

[LVSteve]

IIRC you can up your maximum bid without autobid advancing if no one else bids against you. As for attempting a denial of service to other bidders, I'm not buying it.

 

[ddm]

Yes, autobid should increase the bid when someone else bids and no, it shouldn't block other bidders unless there's a really big flaw in their programming. That said, it still smells funny when you look at the bid history . Why would buyer spend an admitted two hours plugging in separate bids when he could just enter his maximum bid and let autobid take it from there unless he thought he was gaining some type of advantage? And Gunbroker shouldn't be radio silent on this for 7 days when it goes to issue of the trustworthiness of their system. They sure didn't wait 7 days to collect their fee. Anyway, not trying to solve this, just wondering if anyone else had heard of any thing like this happening.

 

[handejector]

Are you going to give us a link to the auction?
If we can't look at it, we can't explain it further.
As to why the bidder did it with multiple bids instead of one large bid- maybe he is just a dummy that thinks it gives him some kind of advantage.
Can we get that link?

 

[ddm]

Sorry, folks not my sale/listing so i don't have link and not my place to post it even if I did. Seller trying to get GB to decide if legit auction or not. Like I said I just wanted to know if others ran across anything like this before. Not looking to try and solve this here because I don't have all the facts. That's up to GB. Buyer did say that he did do it to "block other bidders" and he's evidently done it before because he said "sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't". Looked Buyer's GB history up and username less than 6 months old with less than a dozen transactions. Makes me wonder if he's new to GB or had changed usernaes. That's why I posted here, to see if there was anyone here he had done it to before.

 

[handejector]

Sorry, folks not my sale/listing so i don't have link and not my place to post it even if I did.

Good grief!
It is public knowledge and still up on GB! You are NOT giving away anything that is private. You brought a strange tale here that is not possible in my belief, and I have run thousands of GB auctions, but you won't let us look at the auction?

Just because some idiot believes he has a system that blocks other bidders does not mean it is so. Think about how illogical that is because it would cost GB money in lower commissions, and that is what GB is all about.
I suspect that your friend had a high enough opening bid that others simply would not bid on it.
Expecting us to deduce what happened without even being able to see the auction is ludicrous.

 

[ddm]

Thought I made it pretty clear that I was not asking anyone here to believe, deduce or explain anything or play armchair detective for that matter. Leaving that up to GB and Seller to work out. I simply asked if anyone had heard of anything like this happening because I also find it hard to believe that GB has such a flaw in their software. I use GB as well and I wouldn't if I thought such manipulation of bidding was possible. As to the why the seller doesn't want me to post link here, that's her business and I am going to respect her wishes. Sincerely, Dwain

 

[Tom S.]

Thought I made it pretty clear that I was not asking anyone here to believe, deduce or explain anything or play armchair detective for that matter. Leaving that up to GB and Seller to work out. I simply asked if anyone had heard of anything like this happening because I also find it hard to believe that GB has such a flaw in their software. I use GB as well and I wouldn't if I thought such manipulation of bidding was possible. As to the why the seller doesn't want me to post link here, that's her business and I am going to respect her wishes. Sincerely, Dwain

If a seller on GB asked that I not post a link to their auction I wouldn't do business with them on a bet. Anyone who is afraid to have their auction looked at is hiding something. After all, as Lee pointed out GB is a public site. Otherwise, they would want links posted everywhere to draw in more prospective buyers.

As for your question about whether such manipulation is possible, probably - if you are a Russian or Chinese hacker. Maybe you could ask them, but they'll probably want the auction number too so I wouldn't bother.

Gotta love those asking for help refusing to help those trying to help them.

 

[Claymore33]

Do NOT hold your breath waiting for GB to call you or email you back . Their customer service stinks when it comes to complaints and challenges.
I had man in NJ advertise a P 226 with 2 extra mags. I bot gun and got ONE extra mag. I called and emailed for 2 months. NO RESPONSE. That was 12 months ago.

 

[Imissedagain]

Without a link,
maybe an auction inspired dream?

To answer the OP's question.... No.

I did have someone keep bidding the minimum over and over again, on a NOS 44Mag Winchester, so I upped my bid and they kept bidding/watching that they were still in second place.
They finally gave up.
15 minutes passed.
That 44 shoots nice.

Sniping on eBay won lotsa nice tools/bows/arrows.