Yahoo!Japan Seller Fuji_5005

[Curran]

Yahoo!Japan: Fuji_5005

Anyone know this seller or dealt with him before?

 

I have a question about his auctions.

I'd like to determine if he is doing something legal of which I am unaware, or if it is just blatant shilling.

[DirkO]

I know the seller and bought from him before, everything went accordingly ... Although I use JAUCE as an intermediary.

[Curran]

I'm 97.5% sure I've caught him shilling his own auctions.

I am far from a clever patrol officer, but he has had an item I really wanted, and apparently it keeps coming back.

 

1st time up: No Reserve.....I dueled with another buyer, driving all the way up to price X about 60000 yen higher than the 3rd place bidder. Then I let it go. *Pop* it was back on the market within 24 to 48 hours.

 

2nd time up: No Reserve..... I am a bit more cautious, but I still want it. Towards auction end, another bidder magically comes in and we duel it up to price Y about 25000 yen higher than 3rd place bidder. I back off and let the 'last minute dueler' have it. Price is lower than round #1. *Pop* back on the market within 48 to 72 hours.

 

3rd time up: Initial Bid is set high. Interestingly enough, it is set almost exactly to my highest bid in round #1.

 

I feel like a big fish that has been hooked twice and gotten off the line both times.

What is the old phrase... "Me thinks there is something rotten in Denmark, and it isn't the fish!".

Anyone got a good explanation for this that doesn't Fuji_5005 shilling his own auctions?

[Mark]

i have not used this site, but is there a way to contact the seller and ask him why it was relisted? If you want the item maybe you could work out a deal and pay a bit more than the #3 bidder (real bidder) but less than the top bid.

[Nobody]

I found several things as follows;

- The person seems to be a woman.

- Her shop is in Kochi prefecture, though it might be only an on-line shop. Its name is Korindo (光琳堂).

- At Yahoo! Japan, she says that she does not ship her items abroad.

Ref. http://kourindou5005.blog71.fc2.com/

[Kajihei]

Hi All,

 

I have not dealt with this seller, so what I am about to say may not apply to him/her. And this is a general statement about online sellers of Nihonto, based on what I've seen and heard, so consider it for what it is worth.

 

"Shilling" is far too common on Japanese online auctions, be it Yahoo or Bidders. And auction sites do not appear to be overly concerned about the practice. They get their money from the sellers (although some seller would add auction fees to the final invoice), and as long as the sale is finalized and the fees collected, how the final price was reached is not their concern. Their attitude is that the buyer is ultimately responsible for deciding how much to bid (which is true), regardless of how he was suckered into that price.

 

A Japanese online seller whom I've known for years always maintained several ID's to bump up prices, and if his alternate ID ends up winning the item, then he'd list it again later on that ID. During slow periods, online dealers would "support" the market by bidding on each other's items, he told me.

 

Japanese buyers, being rather savvy online shoppers, are aware of this. Google search "さくら入札　ネットオークション" (shill bidding online auctions) and you get 1,750,000 hits, on topics ranging from "How to identify shill bidding," "How sellers do it," to "How to beat shilling and get a bargain." Unlike eBay where shilling is clearly prohibited and sellers can be shut down, Japanese attitude seems to be that this is part of the online selling strategy, and it is up to the buyer to polish his/her buying skills and strategy to favor the odds in this "game."

 

K.M.

[Pete Klein]

K.M. is quite correct but I would like to add a few things. There is another fundamental difference between Ebay and Yahoo! in that one, the seller can close the auction early and two, the bidding can continue past the 'end time' shown. If you look at the auction page you will see:

 

早期終了 (early termination) : yes or no (in Japanese of course) IOW's the seller can opt to end the auction at any time up until the close.

自動延長 (auto extension) : yes or no - if this is yes then if there is a bid near the close then the clock re-sets to give extra time to the bidders, usually five minutes

 

On Ebay the seller is prohibited from closing the auction early, I believe it is within 24 hrs of close unless that has changed and of course the auction end time is set. Ebay however allows sniping which Yahoo! basically does not allow (some services have tried but they tend to create problems with the Yahoo! servers and are declined). Of course sniping on Ebay is an Ebay product so allowed, go figure...

 

Curran, I have done business with Fugi and know that the seller regularly pulls the auction if it is not high enough. I see this quite often actually across the board on Yahoo!. The way to tell is if you store the link to the sale page and when the auction has closed instead of getting the final item sale page showing the winner you get a white page in Japanese with Yahoo! on it you know the auction was stopped. From your description what happened was you were bidding up then stopped short of Fuji's sale price, and each time the auction was pulled. Whether this was shilled or regular is impossible to ascertain and irrelevant as you had your price set but I would be willing to bet that if you had bid that third time you would have gotten the item as the seller was basically telling you what they wanted for the item by the starting price.

 

PS: it's a good idea to translate the whole sales page (I like Bing) as sometimes the seller will have conditions such as high shipping fees or even extra fee for the shinsa paper! (I couldn't believe that one when I saw it) IOW's caveat emptor.

[Curran]

Matsumoto-san and Moriyama-san,

 

Thank you for the information. It is a shame.

I am sure it has happened to me before, but this is the first time the seller seems so obvious and greedy.

 

Peter:

I understand, but neither time was the auction pulled.

The first time the 'other bidder' and I went back and forth adding about 40 minutes to the auction until it finally ENDED.

Not pulled. Same with the second time. We dueled and added about another 20 minutes. It ended without being pulled.

 

It takes pleasure away from owning it.

At this point, the seller would be lucky to get from me a bid now MAX at 50% of what I offered in the 1st auction.

[Pete Klein]

If this is the case then of course do not bid again with that seller. As outsiders we have limited recourse so c'est la guerre!

[Bugyotsuji]

Sorry to hear your story Curran. All of it has a familiar ring, but in your case it makes the picture quite clear.

 

I have had similar experiences and in some cases have been able to contact the seller and ask why they pulled or ended early. (In one case I knew who the seller was having just bought something else off them and completed the exchange of personal details.) I received an apology and an explanation that the object was worth far more than the ridiculous price I had bid when the auction ended.

 

One auctioneer told me that if you are annoyingly bid up and finally drop out, and then get an e-mail saying the other person has suddenly gone abroad and cannot pay so it's yours, for example, you can refuse by saying that you only bid in the heat of the moment. Dealers in Japan will generally recognize this concept of 'heat' and 'hot' and allow for a 'cooling off' period.

 

It's been a bit of a rocky learning experience, but sometimes quite amusing when the anger has finally subsided.

[Curran]

Yes. C'est la guerre.

Thanks Peter and Piers.

 

It would be a great piece that my wife and I both appreciate.

But I cannot reward such behavior.