Hey everyone -
 
The following information is NOT meant to slander or slam ANYONE in any
way but I do feel that potential ebay buyers of some particular ferret
items need to be aware of a "shilling" scam that occured when I bid on
four different ferret clay figurines - all sold by the same seller.
 
Just an FYI ..."Shilling" is when a buyer deliberately uses some kind of
secondary registration, aliases, family members, friends, or associates
to artificially drive up the bid price of an item.  (This is also known
as bid padding.)
 
Here is how I realized this had happened: I started bidding on 4
different ferret clay figurines from buyer MINKEY98 where all the bids
began around $7.00 and on three out of four items, I was consistently
outbid by FIVELOVES until the prices were in the mid $20 range within
minutes.  Only the fourth item I bid on actually had other people bidding
on it (actually just one other person besides myself and FIVELOVES).
 
I thought that to be very odd and then, within 24 hrs., I notice that on
ALL FOUR items I had bid on, FIVELOVES' bids had all been cancelled
because FIVELOVES was found to be "not a registered user" according to
Ebay.  So, that left ME as the new highest bidder when, in reality, I had
stopped bidding after FIVELOVES had placed her highest bid.
 
Ebay has since allowed my 2 of 4 of my bids to be cancelled after they
investigated my complaint and rightfully so because shill bidding is
strictly forbidden on eBay.  I have filed another complaint with Ebay
asking them to retract the other two bids as well (why they didn't
initially, I don't know) because I simply do not want to do any further
business with this seller whatsoever!
 
PLEASE UNDERSTAND that I am not, in any way, suggesting that anyone
should NOT buy from this buyer (minkey98) - I am merely wanting everyone
out there to just be informed about what happened and how this seller is
operating on Ebay so that you might avoid the same problem if/when you
see the same pattern happening.  Honesty, I REALLY like the products this
seller is offering and would like to buy from this seller but I will not
tolerate these kinds of business practices.
 
Do whatever you wish with the information I've provided - I'm just the
messenger!
 
Happy buying!
 
Jennifer, Sasha & Snowy (now with Snowflake and Jackson) - the Fabulous
Four :-)
 
[Moderator's note: Sounds like there's more to it -- how could an
unregistered person bid to begin with?  Please let us know how it all
turns out.  BIG]
[Posted in FML issue 4667]