Ebaay D.

Hibid itself is just an online auction website + software system. It CAN be scammed by auctioneers because they can see each bidder's maximum bid and in most states, "shilling the bid" - adding their bid to just below your maximum IS legal. I've been shilled by several auctioneers but always do the math first to know what would be a good price for an item including commission, taxes, and shipping. One can sort items by "order - high to low bids", look at the bidders, and even though their names are anonymized you can identify the same bidder that's aaaalllllmost winning in all the $$$ auctions.

This was recently confirmed by an auctioneer acquaintance of mine after TWO flaky auctions where I won by my max bid. One was a $350 camera with the (shill?) second bidder MATCHING my bid SIX times!

Also, entering your true maximum bid at first is probably not a good strategy because of the above. As the auction closes, the closing items may come too fast and furious for the shill to keep up and multiple bids as in a traditional auction can be effective.

The revised website this week is HORRIBLE! It's so bad I'm wondering if it's a poison pill to kill the current usage of the site for some reason?

Previously with the calendar I might be able to quickly assess 20-30 auctions in a month with one little window of information. Now the scrolling list shows me only the 4-5 closest upcoming auctions that I STILL have to look through to find the key words I'm searching for. I'm already looking for alternate sites.

Maybe the new idea was to make auctioneers think their upcoming listing is getting the best local exposure but in reality, it limits information to the most active users.