Shill

A shill is an associate of a person selling a good or service, who pretends no association and assumes the air of an enthusiastic customer. The intention of the shill is, using crowd psychology, to encourage other potential customers, unaware of the set-up, to purchase said good or service.

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Usually, shills are employed by confidence artists. Their use is often illegal, though this varies as the precise definition of what comprises "shilling" is debatable.

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The word "shill" is probably related to "shillaber", a word of obscure early-20th century origin with the same meaning.

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