Ebay's newest abortion

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Posted By: <b>dan mckee</b><p>Look at this bid history. Ebay is basically masking the only chance bidders have of recognizing shill bidding. They said they weighed the pros and cons. Basically, the IDIOTS at ebay have decided that they are losing more money by people writing under bidders and selling off-line than they are by sellers starting at $1 and being able to shill bid up to a reserve amount w/o setting a reserve and paying for it. I think this is a huge mistake by ebay and the shilling sellers of the world are able to bid at will on their own items and we can't see the bogus ID's !!!!!! Yet another BRILLIANT change by the brain trusts at ebay. Ebay, a wonderful product, run by complete idiots! I picked this auction because I know the seller well and he is a very good friend of mine so there is absolutely no shill bid here. This is strictly an example to show the way ebay has "masked" the bidder ID's. <br><br /><br /> <a href="http://offer.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewBids&item=140071261268" target="_new" rel="nofollow">http://offer.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewBids&item=140071261268</a><br />

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Posted By: <b>Richard L.</b><p>Dan,<br />I see your point and agree. In my opinion, the ONLY pros and cons they weighed was- how can we make EVEN more money! mo money mo money!!!!

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Posted By: <b>Judge Dred (Fred)</b><p>The winning bidder name shows up at the end of the auction.

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Posted By: <b>Judge Dred (Fred)</b><p>The winning bidder name shows up at the end of the auction.

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Posted By: <b>Larry</b><p>This is one of e bays ultimate blunders, I just got home to see this stupidity...In trying to stop fake bidders from bidding or forwarding second chance offers, they now have it where you CANNOT tell if a) the other bidders are shills...b) The other bidders may actually have good feedback but not from sports cards and c) you cannot track if someone is a current buyer or just took time off from bidding..this is not practical..What e bay should have done to stop problem is to disable the links to forward spam or fake offers, not to penalize legitimate bidders...EVERYONE who has a rep should call them..e bay made a big mistake...

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Posted By: <b>dan mckee</b><p>Not sure I follow you Judge, so what the winner is viewable? You can't see the second bidder that would have ran up the winner. It is the 2nd, 3rd, 4th bidders that may be bogus running up the poor sap of a winner like myself.

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Posted By: <b>barrysloate</b><p>I'm not going to defend what ebay did, I agree it was a mistake, but are we to assume that shill bidding is so rampant that the system is now totally broken? Don't the vast majority of auctions run on the up and up, or am I just naive?

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Posted By: <b>dan mckee</b><p>I love you Barry but my vote is Naive.

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Posted By: <b>B.C.Daniels</b><p>are you bidder #7?<br />That's too much to pay for this card!<br><br>BcD <img src="/images/happy.gif" height=14 width=14>

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Posted By: <b>barrysloate</b><p>So am I the only idiot not running up his own auctions? I wish somebody told me that's the way it's done <img src="/images/happy.gif" height=14 width=14> <br /><br />And I love you too.

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Posted By: <b>Larry</b><p>Barry- Most do run honestly but there is no way to get a feel for what is legitimate and what is not....There are certain patterns that distinguish if a bidder is being run up and it actually protect both the buyer and seller...Of course, those that only snipe will probably not be concerned but sellers like myself can see if a bidder is legitimate or not if we can see their feedback history.

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Posted By: <b>Max Weder</b><p>Here is the suggestion link on sending comments to ebay.<br /><br /><a href="http://pages.ebay.com/help/newtoebay/suggest.html" target="_new" rel="nofollow">http://pages.ebay.com/help/newtoebay/suggest.html</a><br /><br /><br />Everyone who is disappointed with their change in policy should send in their concerns.<br /><br />Max

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Posted By: <b>dan mckee</b><p>90% of those scums selling the doctored fakes or as they say the 1950 reprints which is another joke, use bogus ID's to bid on their fake junk. This is a great way to get these losers booted off of ebay. Ebay doesn't care about the fraud or the fact that they are selling doctored fakes, but catch them bidding on their lame fakes with a bogus ID they created and whammo! You get them kicked off. I am with you Barry and I hope we are in the majority of honest sellers. BCD I agree with you, way too much for this card. Dan.

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Posted By: <b>Donald Johnson</b><p>I don't get it. How come some are masked and some are not?

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Posted By: <b>dan mckee</b><p>Ebay is slowly converting with this trial period. The idea is that all auctions will eventually be masked. I know a Florida dealer that must be licking his chops at this!

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Posted By: <b>Cobby33</b><p>They say nice guys finish last- but you're #1 in our book!

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Posted By: <b>Matt E.</b><p>Isn't the easiest way to see the "shill bidders" just to bid .99 cents on each auction you are interested in. That way you can view who is bidding through out the auction. At least is does for me.<br /><br />

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Posted By: <b>T E</b><p>by placing cursor over "view." You can spot the shills...kind of. <br /><br />I agree it is a dumb change, and as a seller, I don't see how this change benefits me at all. I think ebay is trying to crack down on buying and selling oputside their system, by users using their info. Stupid...Ebay wants its system to be self policed, but now they want to put blinders on all of us.

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Posted By: <b>Mark Burke</b><p>I believe the item has to be over $200 to be "masked".

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Posted By: <b>JK</b><p>Matt,<br /><br />Im not sure what you are talking about - whether you bid .99 or not, the auction is masked once it exceeds $200. At that time, no one except the seller can see the bidder's ids.

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Posted By: <b>barrysloate</b><p>It might not be a bad idea for those who currently have items for sale on ebay to assess whether they see any dropoff in prices realized. I know that can be tough to gauge, but if that is in fact the case sellers are going to leave ebay in a hurry.

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Posted By: <b>Joe D.</b><p>great post - and I think you nailed it.<br /><br />eBay is doing this for their own benefit - to help crackdown on off-ebay sales.<br /><br />they are eliminating the 'self-police' ability of the users.... but are they being more active themselves in the policing to compensate? <br /><br /> If they are more actively policing for shills - there may be no problem here.

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Posted By: <b>Matt E.</b><p>Learned something new. Did not realize it changes once it gets over $200. Tells you where I do most of my buying.

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Posted By: <b>peter ullman</b><p>this is terrible! I sometimes pay more for something just so the person I'm bidding against doesn't get it...I'll no longer be able to know this...and therefore will spend less $. Yes...I can be spiteful!<br /><br />pete in mn

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Posted By: <b>warshawlaw</b><p>Most off ebay sales I know of start with a bidder inquiry to the seller. If the bidder can still ask the seller to end early, there isn't any help there for ebay. No, I figure that ebay wants to more visibly claim it polices itself without actually having to do so, and is making it impossible to track shillers on big items so that it won't get hit with a nasty false advertising class action suit that can be readly proven by compiled information available to the public.