Getting sick of fake bids

A few cars I've watched recently have had the prices pushed up by new members (a month or so old normally). They usually win the auction, but then the auction is offered to everyone else - sometimes only an hour later!

One I was bidding on last Wednesday was pushed up, sold, offered 2 hours later, not sold, and has now been relisted with a new seller. Auction description and photos are identical.

Its so difficult to genuinely bid on and win a car these days!

Link the cars to Trade Me administration. Shill bidding is not just against Trade Me's policy, it is against the law.

I've used the community watch a few times, but TM doesnt seem to do anything about it anyway. Its a bit hard when the auction is closing.

This is now getting too common. I've also been following auctions and fed up with these new members, not even address verified.
And I just don't see how tm allows a fixed price offer immediately after auction closed with above reserve sale. Their rules insist you give it a few days before asking for selling fees back for buyers to honour sale, so why do they allow this?
Have reported this a few times, once when buyer had bid on other cars by same seller. T, can't prove anything if it's done from different computer,miss not shill bid if someone else bids and they can't prove its a mate.
Tm should stop allowing offers after over reserve sales.
And I have declined to look further in to auctions where there a suspect bidder. On one I did want to look at I asked seller about it but they didn't care. Sellers can make it verified bidders only.

hey guys You are going to get lots of good advise on this subject from the POV of bidders who think they have been wronged.
But heres my POV on the subject (as a GENUINE) seller.
My blacklist has around 200 "new' trade me traders on it. This is people with a zero rep or pretty bad rep.
Those 200 I scroll back through and -yep still zero rep
I can tell you 100% for certain that all bids from "new" bidders are not shill bidding.
Theres the backyard traders who are clever enough to realise they must muddy the trail before bidding or people will be able to trace back and see when they purchased the vehicle for how much and the condition report.
Again I can tell you for 100% certain that (for example) a vehicle I sold with a dodgy gearbox (fully disclosed) and panel damage was advertised by a third party ie "not" the buyer with none of those faults disclosed.
Theres also what I put down as nasty "traders" --been around awhile with no trades and bid up your car. NO intention to buy.
When you check it out you find interestingly enough someone with a similar name and same location has the same car for sale.--COINCIDENCE?
Or its someone who just has no intention of buying the car. just being curious or whatever.
Then theres the nasty questioner.--ask very pointed questions that even answered accurately and in innocence puts doubt in the mind of potential bidders.

one way they track shill bidders is to track if you send the listing to someones email and what account that email belongs to. only works if your friends bump up the auction.

a couple of years back my dad often sent emails to a friend of his up in auckland. He saw he had something cool for sale at $1 reserve and decided to bid on it and pick up next time he was in auckland if he won.

Placed a single bid and less than an hour later the auction was taken down and both were issued first and final warnings about shill bidding.

Also on expensive items people with less than 5 feedback cant bid higher than $5000 i thought.

TM has become more commercial. They appear to have compromised standards for profit in some areas. It's all about return on investment, less on quality control. Guess they have been too successful and do not have the control mechanisims to deal with some of the shonky sellers.