http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/07/05/ebay_shill/

eBay today welcomed the sentence.

“We are extremely pleased with Paul Barrett’s sentence,” said [eBay] spokeswoman Vanessa Canzini.

“While this case was not solely about shill bidding, we hope that it highlights how seriously we consider the practice of artificially increasing prices. This practice is not only prohibited on eBay as it damages the integrity and fairness of trading on our site, but it is also illegal.

“We continue to invest over £6 million every year in industry leading technology to proactively detect shill bidding. We will always work closely with law enforcement agencies to ensure that, on the rare occasion someone attempts to follow in Barrett’s footsteps, they will be stopped and will face the consequences.”

What? eBay still spinning this “£6 million” nonsense when it is so easily demonstrable that shill bidding is rampant on eBay nominal-start auctions and that eBay does absolutely nothing proactively, and very little reactively, about such criminal fraud.

In fact, by their introduction of anonymous masking of bidder IDs eBay effectively—and knowingly—do criminally facilitate such shill bidding fraud by unscrupulous sellers on unsuspecting buyers, just so that they (eBay) can improve their FVF from such thereby corrupted auctions. Indeed, eBay’s anonymous masking of bidder IDs serves none other than this criminal purpose.

Don’t you just love Vanessa Cranzini’s statement “on the rare occasion someone attempts to follow in Barrett’s footsteps”. One must have to sign away all their ethical sensibilities—assuming they had any in the first place—when they enter the employ of unscrupulous commercial entities such as eBay.

More at:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/wear/10510086.stm

‘Sentencing the 39-year-old, Judge Peter Benson, said: “Had you had previous convictions for dishonesty, the result would have been a custodial sentence.

‘“This sort of conduct strikes at the heart of that trust which is vital if this very, very useful commercial medium is to continue to operate successfully.”

Oh, dear me, shill bidding, who would have thought …

What a shame it is that Judge Benson did not sense the need to look at and comment upon eBay’s clunky auction system mechanism that—eBay well knows—so obviously facilitates and thereby encourages this form of criminal activity.

‘A spokeswoman for eBay welcomed the sentence.

‘Vanessa Canzini, eBay’s head of corporate communications [aka, Dept of Spin], said: “This practice is not only prohibited on eBay as it damages the integrity and fairness of trading on our site, but it is also illegal.”’

Have you no shame Vanessa; we all know that eBay couldn’t care any less about shill bidding fraud—it improves eBay’s FVFs!

We can only hope that one day some competent consumer authority will shine a bright light under this slimy rock.

And, the proof of the pudding can be found at
http://www.auctionbytes.com/forum/phpBB/viewtopic.php?p=6502877