"In any auction, live or online, you are always bidding against the seller. He can always bid on his own item to keep from selling it for less than he wants to get. Even on eBay. As long as he is willing to pay his percentage to eBay for the transaction. Some guys have more than one USERID just for that purpose. They'll start out with a no reserve auction, with a beginning bid set at $1.00 and watch very closely to see that the final price never ends lower than the price they want for the item. There isn't anything illegal about doing that, as long as the auctioneer gets his percentage. In a live auction, the seller may be there bidding right along with everyone else on his own stuff. Nobody wants or needs to take a drubbing on his own stuff. The fact that some people do only attests to their lack of understanding of auctions."
This is called 'shill' bidding and is strictly illegal in ebay's rules and they have thrown people out for it. They have an investigative team looking for shill bidding, and there was one case last year when they turned the whole matter over to authorities and criminal fraud charges were filed. ------ http://USFamily.Net/info - Unlimited Internet - From $8.99/mo! ------ - This message is from the Pentax-Discuss Mail List. To unsubscribe, go to http://www.pdml.net and follow the directions. Don't forget to visit the Pentax Users' Gallery at http://pug.komkon.org .
