Over the last few weeks I've been encountering a huge increase in what I call spoof, or self bidding. Put simply, this is when the seller of an item uses an alternative Ebay account to place bids on his or her items, in an attempt to drive the price up. 

I have bought upwards of 50 cars on Ebay over the past 4 years, mainly lower value or salvage, for my work as a vehicle dismantler / parts supplier. More recently and certainly on the last 3 occasions I've been outbid by questionable user I.D's and a suspiciously high end price.

Here's how to tell if you suspect that you are being squeezed by a roque seller.

Look carefully at the high bidders username. You will most probably notice either that

1. The Ebay account is brand new and has been created a matter of days or hours ago. The name is often very simple such as one word and some random numbers.

2. The account is quite old and has undergone a long period of inactivity.

Both suggest that the seller is trying to get more money out of you and has made a new Ebay account to do this, or is using an old and unused account to place bids.

The next thing to check is the suspect bidders location. To do this click on 'Advanced search' and then find items 'By seller'

Enter the high bidders username and see what area of the country is displayed. The chances are that the area shown is exactly the same as the sellers area.

Other tell tale signs are if you are immediately being outbid on an item, or if someone is placing loads of small bids in quick succession. This means that they are trying to find your maximum amount and they will then leave it at one bid in front, in the hope that you will enter more. Sometimes its just blatantly obvious whats going on.

The good thing is that 9 times out of 10 the seller will get too greedy and 'win' back his own item. Soon afterwards you'll often find the same item back on Ebay with additional phrases such as 'Relisted due to crazy timewaster!' or similar.

I imagine that this goes on with all manner of items and not just cars. It also looks set to increase. My advice, based on personal experience is if in doubt about the validity of the high bidder, forget it. You could save yourself a fortune and like I say, you'll usually see the same old item reappear a day or two later. Don't get stung!

Matt