Hello Everyone!

Bluebroker.com is a division of Centerfire Systems, Inc.  We opened with a promotion of 80 guns in 80 days.  The promotion ends on Jan 30 so we still have several rifles to give away.  Jan 30th we will be giving away a $700.00 Double Star AR15 rifle.  To receive and entry, all you have to do is register at Bluebroker.com.  There are no listing or selling fees at this time.  Free Free Free. Here is a list of the remaining guns up for grabs.  

http://bluebroker.com/

1/18/2006 SKS
1/19/2006 SKS
1/20/2006 SKS
1/21/2006 AK-47
1/22/2006 AK-47
1/23/2006 AK-47
1/24/2006 AK-47
1/25/2006 AK-47
1/26/2006 AK-47
1/27/2006 AK-47
1/28/2006 AK-47
1/29/2006 AK-47
1/30/2006 AR15

Please let me know if you have questions.

Lois Luttrell
Centerfire Systems, Inc.
Bluebroker.com
[email protected]
800-915-3346

Yeah Lois, I got a question. I want to know your policy on shill bidding, and how you plan to keep it from happening. And, if you find it, what do you plan to do about it.
See, the reason I'm asking is because you've got one of the most *blatant* cases of shill bidding going on over there I've ever seen.
Follow along, ARFcomers....and see the ugly side of online gun auctions.
First, go to bluebroker.com. Then head over to the advanced search feature. Look up the user ID "xmarine". This will bring you to his list of guns for sale. Link here(actually, you could just go to either the C&R rifle section or the regular rifle section, as he's practically the only guy selling anything in either) Anyway, hit his auctions that have bids. You'll see a curious thing, something I've never seen before. ALL his auctions that have bids (11) are being won by the same person (userID wilma). Remarkable! Unbelievable! Stupendous! It's especially remarkable that this person has outbid all other bidders.....even themselves!. This person apparently doesn't mind bidding almost $4000 for a bunch of C&R rifles worth maybe half that. Oh.....and they only bid on his auctions, no others.

If this isn't shill bidding, then I'd be pretty surprised. I'm even more surprised you guys at CFS haven't caught on. You've only got 19 auctions running in C&R for chrissake! 14 of them belong to this guy and you can't keep track? And you expect us to bid on this site?

Hey Lois, I joined when it first started, am I still in the drawing, or do I have to join again?

Quoted: Yeah Lois, I got a question. I want to know your policy on shill bidding, and how you plan to keep it from happening. And, if you find it, what do you plan to do about it. See, the reason I'm asking is because you've got one of the most *blatant* cases of shill bidding going on over there I've ever seen. Follow along, ARFcomers....and see the ugly side of online gun auctions. First, go to bluebroker.com. Then head over to the advanced search feature. Look up the user ID "xmarine". This will bring you to his list of guns for sale. Link here(actually, you could just go to either the C&R rifle section or the regular rifle section, as he's practically the only guy selling anything in either) Anyway, hit his auctions that have bids. You'll see a curious thing, something I've never seen before. ALL his auctions that have bids (11) are being won by the same person (userID wilma). Remarkable! Unbelievable! Stupendous! It's especially remarkable that this person has outbid all other bidders.....even themselves!. This person apparently doesn't mind bidding almost $4000 for a bunch of C&R rifles worth maybe half that. Oh.....and they only bid on his auctions, no others. If this isn't shill bidding, then I'd be pretty surprised. I'm even more surprised you guys at CFS haven't caught on. You've only got 19 auctions running in C&R for chrissake! 14 of them belong to this guy and you can't keep track? And you expect us to bid on this site?

This is probably a stupid question,but what is "Shill Bidding"?

creating multiple accounts to falsely bid your items up higher to try and get people to pay more for the item.

example:  i list a bicycle on ebay.  i want $650 for it.  current bid is at $400.  i create a new ebay acccount, log in, and bid $600 on the bike, causing the original bidder to have to bid more.  obviously if they don't, i don't have to worry about selling the bike to myself.  if they do, i just (very unethically) got them to raise their price by $250 without saying a word to them.

Quoted: This is probably a stupid question,but what is "Shill Bidding"?

Its when a seller has a buddy or alternate account that bids on his merchandise in order to raise the price for honest buyers. This in turn fraudulently increases the sellers income on the item.

Thanks for the heads up guys.  I definitely missed this one.  

Thanks Guys!

I researched the seller and the bidder.  They are in fact two different people, live in two separate states and can be reached by the individual phone numbers provided to the site.  

We disabled the credit card requirement to open an account because I received an enormous amount of emails complainging about the requirement.

I am open to ideas to curb fraud.  You can email me directly with your ideas.  [email protected].

Thanks for your help.

Lois

Quoted: I researched the seller and the bidder.  They are in fact two different people, live in two separate states and can be reached by the individual phone numbers provided to the site.   We disabled the credit card requirement to open an account because I received an enormous amount of emails complainging about the requirement. I am open to ideas to curb fraud.  You can email me directly with your ideas.  [email protected]. Thanks for your help. Lois

Is that as far as you will look into it?  At what point do you say thats just too much?  The same bidder placing bids for the same seller that most poeple would say is alot higher that its worth.  I'm not saying this is deffinatly whats happening but would like to know if you will watch for this stuff or say well its two different poeple,  it must be ok.  I'm curious because i was happy to see another site to buy/sell guns but now i'm a little worried about using it.  

thanks

Quoted: Quoted: This is probably a stupid question,but what is "Shill Bidding"? Its when a seller has a buddy or alternate account that bids on his merchandise in order to raise the price for honest buyers. This in turn fraudulently increases the sellers income on the item.

If this is the case,it would be hard to prove.How could something like this be proven?

Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: This is probably a stupid question,but what is "Shill Bidding"? Its when a seller has a buddy or alternate account that bids on his merchandise in order to raise the price for honest buyers. This in turn fraudulently increases the sellers income on the item. If this is the case,it would be hard to prove.How could something like this be proven?

Its difficult to prove, id guess. Its not hard to have friends in other states willing to do you a favor. Tough issue.

Matt,

We are most definitely looking further in to this particular case and more importantly, how to prevent this and other fraudulent activity.  I've been on the phone with the programmers from the moment I read about it on AR15.com. For propriety reasons, I can not report on the specific actions taken with this seller but we are handling it.

Thanks again,
Lois

I guess that I'll have to pay more attention when using an on-line auction.

Quoted: I guess that I'll have to pay more attention when using an on-line auction.

Everybody needs to pay more attention.
Stuff like that is why I only sell on auction sites now.

Not an internet auction, but when I used to go to real live farm & antique auctions I always could spot the shills, if you went often you knew the same 5 guys, they all worked "under the table" for the auctioner. I've NEVER heard of anyone getting busted for it though. I'd take my 3 man team and sit/stand so we could see behind each other, it was funny as hell when one of my men was bidding on something and I figured the other jerk was the owner of the item, my guy got it up to about 3 times what it was worth (he really was going to buy it, BTW), then he suddenly stopped and walked away, the other guy in the bidding war's mouth just dropped (he had the high bid) He had to pay 10% comission on his own junk, @ 3X what it was even worth no less.

anybody else smell something fishy or is it just me?

What's "fishy" what are you talking about?

Quoted: What's "fishy" what are you talking about?

+1

Here is the complete list of winners!

gunluvver 1/30/2006 AR15
Pete_in_Pa 1/29/2006 AK-47
srone 1/28/2006 AK-47
cptx123 1/27/2006 AK-47
spottybobek 1/26/2006 AK-47
Merlin1274 1/25/2006 AK-47
Jermo 1/24/2006 AK-47
Winn R 1/23/2006 AK-47
tbird 1/22/2006 AK-47
Rerun 1/21/2006 AK-47
Bob In St. Louis 1/20/2006 SKS
CenterHit 1/19/2006 SKS
radkoch 1/18/2006 SKS
1911A1 1/17/2006 SKS
jeretman 1/16/2006 SKS
VGUN1 1/15/2006 SKS
yodar 1/14/2006 SKS
Aladinbama 1/13/2006 SKS
wolfy 1/12/2006 SKS
gunfighter6 1/11/2006 SKS
argei1891 1/10/2006 SKS
Admiral 1/9/2006 SKS
schnarrcr 1/8/2006 SKS
lynnkcircle 1/7/2006 SKS
wganz 1/6/2006 SKS
straz 1/5/2006 SKS
M1950 1/4/2006 SKS
tphank 1/3/2006 SKS
wjkuleck 1/2/2006 SKS
HemiC 1/1/2006 SKS
befus 12/31/2005 91/30
gman53 12/30/2005 91/30
androck 12/29/2005 91/30
mndale 12/28/2005 91/30
kevshan40 12/27/2005 91/30
Mozart137 12/26/2005 91/30
usgrant 12/25/2005 91/30
weapea49 12/24/2005 91/30
ftw00 12/23/2005 91/30
wvfshnfool 12/22/2005 91/30
triggerman 12/21/2005 91/30
youngbuck 12/20/2005 91/30
mountainpleasure 12/19/2005 91/30
Grasshopper 12/18/2005 91/30
dawghause 12/17/2005 91/30
Kiowa Bill 12/16/2005 91/30
drkhorse 12/15/2005 91/30
med8man 12/14/2005 91/30
ynahpetscnb 12/13/2005 91/30
bayouray 12/12/2005 91/30
mnantz 12/11/2005 91/30
Orgyen 12/10/2005 91/30
KA0811 12/9/2005 91/30
Wolvie 12/8/2005 91/30
jobedog 12/7/2005 91/30
tophat 12/6/2005 M44
3154k9 12/5/2005 M44
littleboar 12/4/2005 M44
Casca907 12/3/2005 M44
TheMrMitch 12/2/2005 M44
recce_wso 12/1/2005 M44
VARGASR 11/30/2005 M44
mobeachboy 11/29/2005 M44
zowie_1 11/28/2005 M44
Rocko 11/27/2005 M44
JPL307 11/26/2005 M44
kjack 11/25/2005 M44
XeroSygnal 11/24/2005 M44
sdelane1 11/23/2005 M44
dtcguns 11/22/2005 M44
Rockrivr1 11/21/2005 M44
texastradingpost 11/20/2005 M44
Owossojeff 11/19/2005 M44
madmarc0 11/18/2005 M44
Northwdsnh 11/17/2005 M44
gusbronson 11/16/2005 M44
edwardyoung 11/15/2005 M44
krinky 11/14/2005 M44
Hermit 11/13/2005 M44
BrianWV 11/12/2005 M44

Quoted: anybody else smell something fishy or is it just me?

It is just you.  Centerfire is a great company to deal with, and I have never heard of anything "fishy" about them.




edited to be nicer

Dammit!

Pam at CSI called me this morning...I got all excited thinkng I had won a gun, but it turned out my M70 Yugo kits were in and shipping!  Doh!  

Oh well, at least I'll have some fun kits to build up in a few days!