Phenomenon of Bots and Shills in Online Bidding Sites

Gone are the days, when people used to go to market, and there, bargain on the items of their choice. Now the time has changed, and the market itself has come to the homes of people, in the form of online penny auction sites, where a user can bid on the item of his liking, and get the best deal out of the lot.

On internet, you can find different online auction services. Some of which would be authentic while the rest will be merely exploiting you by using shills and bots.

Bots or bid bots are software of programs that do the bidding on the behalf of a bidder. These programs do automatic bidding on the items, by placing numerous bids on products. The ultimate objective of a website for using this software is to cover the original price of the item auctioned, once the original price of the item is covered, then the item is released to the real bidders. This way the owner of the item, always has the price covered, while the purchaser never gets any benefit from using such a service.

Shill works on the same principal as well, the only difference is that; shill has a thinking human sitting behind the screen compared to software used in bots. Shills can be employees, friends, people associated with certain penny auction sites, or the owner himself does the bidding to attract other bidders. This way the auction price is increased, and the site owner makes more money.

In short, though using bots and shilling is not illegal, but by using such tactics, the whole concept of auction sites dies, and these sites become no different from any ordinary market place.