05-31-2006, 03:43 PM
Quote:A company is offering eBay sellers in Germany a shill-bidding service to help them increase their final auction prices. XXLsell.com got some attention in Germany last November, including this German-language post on the AT-Mix.de website (http://www.at-mix.de/news/1317.html).
Sellers can join XXLsell, and, after submitting their eBay user names and passwords, they can give XXLsell orders to shill bid on their auctions up to a set price...
XXLsell states on its site that it has 13,748 members and 1100 Powersellers. According to the source, if a member's account wins an auction through a shill bid placed by the service, the buyer is not obliged to buy, and the seller is not obliged to sell. However, the seller has to pay the fees - both the XXLsell fees and the eBay fees.
full article: http://auctionbytes.com/cab/abn/y06/m05/i31/s01
No discussion of the Auctionbytes article on the eBay boards, why am I not surprised? 