Having an alt that artificially raises the bid price is similar to a secret reserve price in an auction. There's nothing inherently wrong with it
Garr255 never promised not to bid on his own auctions. He never even promised to honor the results of the auctions. Without contracts that say otherwise, auctions are only devices to assist in price negotiations.
Then these quotes should be stickied at the top of the auction page. Better yet:
Bid here only to a maximum of what you are willing to spend. Auctioneers may opt to artificially inflate the price using alternate accounts if necessary. No one is putting a gun to your head to outbid said alternate accounts. Shilling/sock-puppeting is condoned and expected behavior. Bid accordingly.
I would request the above, if true, be stickied at the top of the auction page.
Well, it's true, we had confirmation from the forum admin.
So, +1 to the sticky.
What is the official stance on this? Is bidding on your own auctions using an alternative user account / personality acceptable auction behaviour? Yes, we all agree it is unethical behaviour, but is it condoned? I will not do this to other forum members however many other forum members will delight in the ability to swindle extra ฿ out of the community, consequence free.
This is evident by the litany of theft and crime that takes place in the community. More time is spent on trying to track down the broken pieces of deals and agreements than is spent driving the eco-system forward. I want to know if I will be competing with multiple personality accounts on future auctions, I think other honest forum members deserve to be made aware if this is an environment that will continue to allow this deceitful behaviour to prosper.
Lastly, the Trust system here holds no value. Anyone that has/is/will give Gar255 or any of his multiple personality accounts a positive rating may have done so under false pretences, as well as many other dishonest forum members who shill bid or performed other underhanded works under the guise of another forum account.
Long story short: This community must start to work together to protect itself from the wolves, which are closing in on the sheep as we speak.