Shill bidding takes place every day on every site on the internet. Sometimes it is the seller having two, three or four accounts that they use. Sometimes it is a friend of the seller placing a bid for them to drive the price up. Sometimes it is a complex scheme that defies the best experts. Sometimes it can be caught and sometimes not. BUT, I caution anyone to be wary of claiming that if a bid from a different member ID comes into the AA system from the same IP address as the seller, or the same physical address, that it constitutes shill bidding. We have several computers in our shop. When we put an item onto the auction, it is 99% of the time at a penny, so it gets a bid almost immediately. We also have customers who come into the shop who would like to buy some of these items. As they have bids, I cannot end the auction. I instruct them that they have to place a bid on the site. SOME of these customers are signed up as members on the spot, and place a bid, using my computer. SOME of them are already members and use our one of computers to place a bid. Trapper, you know this as you have used my computers to access the auctions sometimes when you come in to the shop. We allow ANY member of ANY of the auction sites to use our computers to access and place bids on anything. One way that I can see to determine if there are shill bids being placed is to require a valid credit card to be placed on file when creating an account as a buyer OR seller. Such credit card has it's owner's info attached to it. If an auction gets a bid from a member whose credit card info matches the info of the seller, well, then, that sure would appear to be a shill bid. With the power of the computers available today, I am sure it would be no big deal to automatically compare member's ID's to the info of their credit card to see if multiple bids on an item were from the same person, even though there are different member ID's and even credit card numbers. Of course, there would have to be enough evidence of shill bidding for AA management to want to address it by establishing a check mechanism, and there would also have to be a change in AA's current policy to require members to have to have to keep a current credit card on file as a BUYER as well as a seller. Such requirement of having to have buyers provide a credit card, and have that card charged a buck to establish validity, would also go a LONG way to preventing the deadbeat bidders that sign up using fraudulent info. But, THAT is a 'nother problem entirely that will ALSO require AA to decide that it exists in a degree serious enough to address.