Private Ebay Auctions = Shill Bidding?

[Ixix]

I've often wondered about this and wonder what safe guards there are to prevent shill bidding on private ebay auctions. I find it highly suspicious, that in the case of the private auction, the identity of the winning bidder is not revealed, and when looking up a bidder's feedback, the private auction item is hidden.

What keeps a seller from starting a private auction, and then getting friends, or using another computer to keep bumping the price of an item up?

any thoughts?

 

[.X.]

Most times a private auction is set up by a seller for one buyer,For instance,Someone wants the product the seller is selling,They email the seller wanting to purchase the product,but don't want to wait til auctions end ect.The seller will set up a private auction for that buyer,at a fixed price,There is no bidding,It's a buy it now auction.The buyer will enter the private sellers link and purcase the product.

 

[Ixix]

ok, here an example - i'm in no means accusing any of these guys of shill bidding, but i tend read feedback and past auctions of sellers.... and i just see a potential loophole in ebay's shill bidding policy.

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example 1

Now, Clicking on the guys feedback

all of the auctions are private but anybody is free to bid in the auctions. However, since you can't look up the details of the sellers past auctions, you don't see who's been bidding in the auctions, in all of these guy's auctions, you can't see the bidding history, so you can't tell if in any of these auctions if there's someone incrementing the bid in the sellers favor....