ShopNetwork is selling gold and silver jewelry on Yahoo Auctions were they are starting all of their auctions at either $0.01 or $0.99 and it would clearly state "NO RESERVE" right on the front page of their list of auctions. When you would submit the minimum bid of $0.01 or $0.99 it would say you were currently the highest bidder however at the very last second when the auction would close somehow ShopNetwork would increase the starting bid to the price that they wanted it to be sold at in hopes that the bidder had bid at least that high and they would sell them item at their higher price. This is called shilling and Yahoo Auctions has been informed of this shady business practice.
They even tell you "How can we afford to sell this item so cheap."
We can't! We start all of our auctions at a price which is lower than our cost to encourage bidders. Sometimes this means we go into a loss, but we rely on the marketplace to raise the bids to a reasonable level. We also manufacturer most all of our own jewelry, allowing us to cut the middlemen in the process and pass the savings onto you. Every other Yahoo seller is just a middleman.
However, they don't relay on the actual marketplace to raise the bids to a reasonable level they relay on some sort of sophisticated software to do it for them. It will be interesting to see if Yahoo Auctions is actually aware or even a part of their little scam.
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