Flippa Shill Biddings

[GoWeb]

I see a lot of listings on Flippa where most of users making initial bids are absolutely NEW users. Where they are not new users, I see a pattern of them bidding against themselves.

Take a look at this listing, the bidder #2 had made a $57 bid but the bidder #1 here seems to have made a first bid of $750 and then bid it up to $2200, *all by himself*. Is this normal?

I guess some flippa listers are contracting small time domainers/other agents for placing shill bids.

Please share your experience on this.

 

[GoWeb]

I found this aged post as shill bidding is actual again - https://www.namepros.com/threads/so-you-thought-flippa-was-shady.879930/

Your suggestion sounds interesting to me and it took me 5 min to find a random new member making 22 bids - https://flippa.com/users/1024186

I suppose there are many others like him.

IDLECANCERIAN is a group of freelancers that offer "domain trading" among other services - https://www.freelancer.com/u/IDLECANCERIAN.html https://www.fiverr.com/idle_cancerian

No comment.

Thanks, I guess it's difficult to control each and eveyrone on a popular platform.
But of course, that doesn't obviate our responsibility to clean up such scammers. This one in particular seems to be new and they can't be banned just for making bids. Difficult to quantify what's more and what's less.

I always suspected this to be true and it was exposed by Shane Bellone, along with other shady practices, in his thread here: https://www.namepros.com/threads/so-you-thought-flippa-was-shady.879930/

The worst thing is bidding up Friends' listings to a point where the reserve is not met but the price bids up anyway.

You should report such users through Flippa platform itself or message @FlippaDomains

 

[FlippaDomains]

Your suggestion sounds interesting to me and it took me 5 min to find a random new member making 22 bids - https://flippa.com/users/1024186

I suppose there are many others like him.

IDLECANCERIAN is a group of freelancers that offer "domain trading" among other services - https://www.freelancer.com/u/IDLECANCERIAN.html https://www.fiverr.com/idle_cancerian

No comment.

Thanks, I guess it's difficult to control each and eveyrone on a popular platform.
But of course, that doesn't obviate our responsibility to clean up such scammers. This one in particular seems to be new and they can't be banned just for making bids. Difficult to quantify what's more and what's less.

You should report such users through Flippa platform itself or message @FlippaDomains

Looking into it now. @Jen-Sin and @GoWebnames.com are right in that it could very well be a a new buyer just going about his/her way.

The worst thing is bidding up Friends' listings to a point where the reserve is not met but the price bids up anyway.

It sucks, but we find these people...

 

[FlippaDomains]

Your suggestion sounds interesting to me and it took me 5 min to find a random new member making 22 bids - https://flippa.com/users/1024186

I suppose there are many others like him.

IDLECANCERIAN is a group of freelancers that offer "domain trading" among other services - https://www.freelancer.com/u/IDLECANCERIAN.html https://www.fiverr.com/idle_cancerian

Our M.I. team has locked this account pending response from account holder. Thanks for bringing it to my attention - Send more our way if you spot them.

 

[Jen-Sin]

Our M.I. team has locked this account pending response from account holder. Thanks for bringing it to my attention - Send more our way if you spot them.

Just based on the available information found in this thread only, if the account is locked pending response / verification from the account holder, I think it is an overkill to hang a BANNED label with the following explanation to the account holder.

Account Holder has been permanently banned from Flippa for breaking terms & conditions on multiple occasions.

For example, PayPal doesn't ban or suspend when they require ID and/or address verification from users. Likewise, maybe Flippa should only limit functions (and not outright ban) if they don't hear from the account holder by a reasonable deadline.

The banned status and explanation suggest negatively about the suspected account holder, and might affect his reputation. The ban also disrupts any honest bidding and selling of assets by the user at the time of ban.

When Ali's brokerage account was "suspended" recently, people were speculating on what happened. Others who do not read that Namepros thread would not have known that the "suspension" is due to closure of his brokerage account.

Then I think they should have a 'third reason' for closing an account, as a mouseover results in this message:

"Ali Zandi has been temporarily suspended from Flippa for possibly violating terms & conditions"

I have also shared with @FlippaDomains that consequences should be tiered. Everyone make honest first-time mistakes and how many violators have the intent to break rules and terms. Instead, we have seen established users, who should be more aware with rules, get away without any negative mark/feedback, while new users get banned over first-time small offences, sometimes without reversal.

On the other hand, I also noticed increased demand and expectation by the community for rule breakers to be removed from the marketplace forever.

It's not an easy task to balance between the 2 extremes, and Flippa is in a catch-22 situation; they are damned either way. Inconsistence in applying consequences doesn't help them either.

Personally, I feel Flippa should be slightly more lenient for first time unknowing offenders. What do the rest think?

 

[FlippaDomains]

Wanted to close out this thread, as I'll be back / more active in other threads, sharing some important updates soon.

if the auction has a reserve price then you can bid against yourself.. I did it before when I was trying to see how high the reserve is. For example, I made a first bid of 1k which didn't pass the reserve price but my budget for that name was 4k. I then proceeded with another bid of 2k and another of 3k. If you don't go over the reserve price, the seller isn't obligated to sell that is why I was upping my own bid.

I myself had made 500+ bids in Flippa over the past month plus as I was exploring the investment of liquid LLLL.com's. There are plenty of LLLL.com's in auctions but with reserves that many didn't met. With my relatively high number of bids over a short period of time, I would be a candidate of a shill bidder based on your definition, but I'm not. Maybe another metrics is needed to identify shill bidders. And it's not easy, else why would it be rampant in many auction sites.

In both of these instances, this is often times the case.

Our team is spec'ing out a new user verification system, one that will continue to spot dodgy agents, while not deterring end users from signing up / placing bids or offers.

You should report such users through Flippa platform itself or message @FlippaDomains

I have also shared with @FlippaDomains that consequences should be tiered. Everyone make honest first-time mistakes and how many violators have the intent to break rules and terms. Instead, we have seen established users, who should be more aware with rules, get away without any negative mark/feedback, while new users get banned over first-time small offences, sometimes without reversal.

IDLECANCERIAN is a group of freelancers that offer "domain trading" among other services - https://www.freelancer.com/u/IDLECANCERIAN.htmlhttps://www.fiverr.com/idle_cancerian

@Jen-Sin

I know we've spoken of this off-thread, and I am adamant about being harsh and apologizing later, if we can prove there was a misunderstanding.

For that Fiverr guy, for instance, or anyone we find trying to game the system, it's good riddance forever. We make no apologies about that, and hope our customers appreciate and agree.