I have only recently been interested in purchasing used GSM phones on ebay. I am buying 7 phones for me and my traveling companions who are visiting Italy in the fall. I've bought several of the 7 so far, but I suspect, maybe I'm even convinced, there is shill bidding going on. When I bid on a Motorola V66 phone I see a lot of bidders with (0) winning bids bidding against me. I suspect the sellers know the price should be about $30 with shipping, so they bid it up to near that level and back off. If they "win" the bid they recycle the item to the next auction.
Has anyone else seen this, or is it my imagination?

Yeah, I think it's not your imagination, it's something which happens. The seller could just put a reserve price instead of doing this shill bidding, but I think in that case he/she must pay more commission or something like that. Anyway 30$ including shipping is not that bad! :)

There are plenty of buy-it-now V66 phones under $30. TRUE, some of the shipping charges are quite high on some of those items.

ENCORECELLUAR is offering quite a few of these units and might give you a break on shipping. WRITE them and ask if you are willing to apy the $30. The units MAY be locked to T-MO. Not trying to push you to that seller, but you can definitely save on shipping if you buy from the same seller.

You have enough time. Just be patient, bid your max price on the good ones in auction. My experience is that EVENTUALLY you will win an auction at or below your target maximum price. NEVER chase a particular item. I have seen folks bid up an item $100s higher than the exact same item offered in a buy-it-now fashion. Makes no sense whatsoever.

Good luck.

Stan

Here's how I bid on eBay auctions.
1. I never bid more than tiwce. A low bid first only if no one else has bid.
2. My highest bid just before the auction closes.

If someone comes in and bids higher at the last second I just take it as a sign that I was not supposed to get that item.

This way you avoid the stupid bidding wars where someone pecks at your bid until he gets 10c higher.

I dislike eBay's "proxy bidding" system. I would prefer sealed bids, where everyone enters their best and final bid once and then waits until the end to find out who entered the highest bid.

I looked at Encore Cellular's listings and they are great prices, however the V66 they offer is locked and I think I would need to pay to have it unlocked. I read somewhere you can't unlock Motorola phones with just keystrokes.

You need a datacable to unlock a Motorola and a program. You can unlock Nokia's with a simple calculator and punch in the numbers.

Stu

What program do you need to unlock moto phones? I know I have a data cable for a v60 and a copy of moto phone tools 4. Im curious because i like moto phones.