I really don't understand the purpose of private listings. Why does Ebay allow them?
I don't really understand Ebay's policy at all. Once upon a time you could see who was bidding on auctions. Several times I caught people out bidding on their own items and they were duly banned from selling. Now Ebay has changed the system "to protect the buyer's privacy" and at the same time made it virtually impossible to detect such fraud whilst at the same time crowing about how fair everything is.
They have also introduced an option of selling stuff to the second-highest bidder. Once upon a time sellers would make a ridiculously high bid which enabled them to find out how much other people had bid. Then miraculously the buyer had changed his mind and the second-highest bidder was offered the article, for his maximum bid naturally. All against the rules of course, so why have they introduced an option which makes exactly that so easy?
A cynic might suggest that they want to maximize profit and so let sellers push their own prices whilst minimizing the chances of detecting it. Keep an eye on how often sellers sell stuff for over-inflated prices and then the next day have the same item back on sale again. Did they accidentally buy their own item? Of course not, they just happen to have a shed full of them
