Rose_P

I had not even considered this possibility, but it makes perfect sense. I guess I could not object to that, although it would increase the competition for bidders. In another forum I belong to, posts of commercial interest are only allowed on Fridays, but if people are surreptitious about being connected in some way to the seller, they can get away with mentioning an auction for "something interesting." I don't even remember if this board has any rules because it just wouldn't be something I'd have reason to do.

In the early days of eBay we used to find clever ways of noticing good auctions that sometimes did not turn up in most people's searches, such as misspelling the key word in a title. For example, my husband wanted to find beer steins and a remarkable number of people would type "stien" in their listings. Then they'd sit and wonder why the exact same item sold for much more a few weeks earlier. Having a friend posting a link to that auction in a forum about beer steins might have created competition that was non-existent up to that point.