NY settles with auction house over eBay fraud

Way back in the 1920s, the Marx Brothers made fun of the Florida land boom, with Groucho hiring Chico to be a shill for his land auctions. Unfortunately, Chico didn't quite understand the concept and Groucho wound up buying most of the lots himself. The concept of shills has been updated to the Internet now, as EMH Group, the huge U.S. jewelry auction house, settled with the New York Attorney General on charges that it used shill bidding on eBay, reports the Associated Press. The company asked their employees to secretly bid on the items the company was selling, thereby driving up the price. Items sold in a no-reserve auction have no minimum or reserve price set. The lowest bidder...