New eBay Bidder Policy

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Posted By: <b>Don Poley</b><p>Does anyone else share my concern that the new hidden bidder policy will make it much easier for shill bidders and dishonest sellers by preventing buyers from seeing those new registered members (sellers in disguise) who are bidding on items?<br /><br />I don't like the new policy and already contacted ebay about it.

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Posted By: <b>davidcycleback</b><p>Hiding bidders' identities leads to more shilling. <br /><br />I'm not saying eBay intentionally promotes shilling, but they make money from shilling as they<br />take a percentage of the final prices. Their quarterly income statement would take a hit if shilling<br />was suddenly eliminated.

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Posted By: <b>Judge Dred (Fred)</b><p>And the good part about it is that it only hides the bidders on the high dollar items! Actually, if you were really into taking notes you could probably track the first few bidders if the item starts out at a low price... this really seems like a bad policy.

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Posted By: <b>Mark Burke</b><p>let's face it, the policy was meant primarily to deter "off EBAY" wheeling and dealing, not to protect the buyers identity. EBAY is a publicly traded company and if they can prevent off ebay transactions by a few %'s, it has an impact on their earnings. But, tell it like it is, EBAY and stop blowing smoke up people's collective a**es. If anyone on this board believed EBAY is proactive about shilling, it would have been a lot easier to swallow. But, that is not the case.

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Posted By: <b>scott hassel</b><p>I take the exact opposite spin here. I think ebay will come up short with this policy. I don't know about you but I keep an eye on what about 30 bidders find & bid on , follow it and try and take them out. Its what many many ebay bidders do, Find like buyers and follow them . Yes maybe its the lazy man's way but you know. Time is of short supply. So in the end there will be less bidders and lesss bids. I for one HATE this new policy change. G-d save the queen!

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Posted By: <b>DR</b><p><a href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3078735/" target="_new" rel="nofollow">http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3078735/</a><br />

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Posted By: <b>Jim Clarke</b><p>I'm sure we all follow other bidders from time to time. I think it will eliminate bidders on lots as they will not know about them. It will reward the people that spend hours finding hidden treasures and waiting until the end. I think a great thread would be a to name ten ebay handles you follow once in awhile.. It might be controversial so I do not want to start first.. <img src="/images/happy.gif" height=14 width=14><br /><br />JC

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Posted By: <b>scott hassel</b><p>To DR. Thank you so much for that link. I got screwed by BR about 10 years ago and new someday he'd get his. That a-hole.<br />I love it when a dirt bag gets busted. Good for the hobby to clean it up...get some of these old dirty guys out. There is hope. <br /><br />"In a phone interview with MSNBC.com, Broadway Rick’s owner Richard Kohl acknowledged that he improperly bid the cards up using an account that he originally created for a friend, but said he did so only to avoid taking a financial hit on the item."<br /><br />

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Posted By: <b>Joann</b><p>I don't follow bidders around. As a practical matter, I don't have time to do a lot of ebay searches - I check new items every few days in the pre-1930 category and search the postcard area maybe 3x per week. That's it.<br /><br />Also, I think it's unfair to do that. I know full well that I don't put nearly the time into ebay as others, and feel like they have earned an advantage by putting time into the process that I either can't or won't. It just doesn't feel right to hitchhike on someone else's efforts, especially since I am so aware of how little time I put into it.<br /><br />That may sound naive, or like bs, but I actually don't do bidder searches for that reason. I'm really not even tempted. It just feels wrong.<br /><br />For me the ebay policy impact is in not being able to see who is bidding on a card I'm interested in. I also like looking at finished auctions of items I really had no ability to buy just to see who got it, who wanted it, etc. I think it's cool how many times a really unique items will have a bidder list that is most or all comprised of people from this board. Don't know why I like that - just do.<br /><br /><br />Joann<br />

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Posted By: <b>Bob</b><p>I think the Rickster is back on ebay though (unfortunately)

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Posted By: <b>Max Weder</b><p>JC<br /><br />I'll miss following tbob's and pro9's bidding on auctions <img src="/images/happy.gif" height=14 width=14> <img src="/images/sad.gif" height=14 width=14><br /><br />Max

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Posted By: <b>T206 Dave</b><p> I believe Ebay's new policy has done nothing but encourage shill bidding. I know a local dealer who was jumping for joy now that people won't be able to track his 5 different screen names on ebay. I personally outed 2 sellers last week, and their accounts have been suspended I think. when I went to check on them they both say their unregitered users now. I have also noticed some particular patterns developing in T206 auctions by about 3-4 sellers with very high feedback. The bidding patterns were odd to say the least.....not definitive of shill bidding, but it was enough for me to retract my bids all auctions I was bidding on. I then went back to those auctions and noticed that the cards had been bid up to my old price alittle to fast for me to believe something fishy wasn't going on. My brother and I spend a few hours a week outing shill bidders for Ebay in the Sports Memorabilia category. It is a big problem. Feedback is now virtually meaningledd to me as one of the sellers that was busted by Ebay last week had over 300 positives. Two of the sellers I think have fishy bidding going on in their T206 auctions are power sellers with feedback in the thousands. It's really depressing for a collector like me. By the way, Ebay never informed me of any action being taken against either of the sellers I reported....matter of fact they haven't even emailed me back at all and it's been over 10 days. <br /> AS for following certain bidders handles..I think that's pretty lame. If you don't have the time or aren't willing to look for things that "you" collect yourself , then why do you bother. I'm thinking only re-sellers or dealers benefit from this kind of behavior

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Posted By: <b>Max Weder</b><p>Dave<br /><br />I agree that the change is horrible--I have far less confidence in ebay auctions. Everyone needs to write ebay and complain. It may not force a change, but if no one complains, nothing definitely will change

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Posted By: <b>Larry</b><p>I know I have, has anyone called their reps?<br />The only way they will even think about reversing this is if they are bombarded with calls....They really are avidly stating they feel they are better qualified to recognize patterns with their new computer setup than to give their buyer and seller base the option to do it themselves.<br /><br />EVERYONE THAT BUYS AND SELLS ON EBAY SHOULD BECOME PROACTIVE. The joke as someone on another thread stated(I think it was the best statement) is that if someone wants to buy offline, they still can, all they have to do is e mail the seller and make an offer early, it does nothing to stop the stated problem, just creates others.

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Posted By: <b>Joann</b><p>I agree with Max here. If you are taking time to post complaints on this board, please also take the time to send one of your complaints to ebay. Like Max said, it might not work, but if no one complains it definitely won't work. Who knows, there may be many ebayers in other areas and categories similarly dismayed by this action - not just collectors, etc.<br /><br />So send 'em in - maybe they'll listed to volumes and quantity.<br /><br />One further thing: ebay exists for the benefit of sellers, not buyers. This is their business model and the seller is the focus of all ebay services. They do not target buyers except as a market for the sellers. Sellers are their primary concern. So if you send in a complaint, any framing of that complaint as being bad for you as a seller would probably get a little more attention than complaining as a buyer. <br /><br />Just my thoughts on it. The important thing is - let them know.<br /><br />J

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Posted By: <b>davidcycleback</b><p>Duly note that after BRSZ was found to have been bidding on his own auctions<br />he made his auctions private-- which should help answer the original question<br />of this thread. <br /><br />Also note that, even after the seller bid on his own auctions with his own name<br />and said he bid on his own auctions, eBay said they didn't have enough evidence <br />to prove shilling and let him continue his auctions unfettered.

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Posted By: <b>Dan Kravitz</b><p>Anyone have a phone number, or is there a link to a email address we should bombard with our complaints?

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Posted By: <b>Max Weder</b><p>Dan<br /><br />Here's the link where I sent my comments<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>

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Posted By: <b>Tony Andrea</b><p>Iv'e checked out quite a few different auctions since Ebay has inserted the new hidden bidder policy.<br />Im a little confused here since im still finding many auctions that still show the bidders user id and some that do not.<br />After reading Ebays policy I was under the understanding all auctions would have the new option in place that will show bidder numbers only.<br />Maybe some of the auctions Im finding were possibly listed before the change. Does anyone know why this might be??<br />I also agree with Larry here. Ebay should be contacted with as many email complaints as possible regarding this. I just sent mine.<br /><p>Tony Andrea<br />

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Posted By: <b>Larry</b><p>Tony-<br /><br />The reason you see the variation is simple:<br />UNDER $200 items- they do not hide<br />OVER $200-they hide<br />This is obvious that e bay only concerns themselves with higher priced items to "protect" the public.<br /><br />You can call e bay if you are a power seller, if not, you e mail their trust and safety department.<br /><br />If they really were protecting us from fraud, they could disable the link of 2nd highest bidders after an auction ended but instead you can still make an offline deal directly with seller anyway to end early... so the key here is the coding really keeps deals made with underbidders for items where the seller has more than one example: Car CD players that sell for $300 and the seller has 7, he could contact bidder 2-6 and sell them directly, that is stopped due to the loss of income for e bay. Maybe they did stop some 2nd chance fraud but they could have done it a different way. Hope that Helps....

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Posted By: <b>Tony Andrea</b><p>Larry -<br />Got it......<br />Thanks for explaining.....<br /><p><br />Tony

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Posted By: <b>Peter Thomas</b><p>I think this new hidden bidder ID is a real bad idea. I can recognize the scam second chance offers, but now will have no way to spot what I perceive as obvious Shill Bidding and you will have no additional info to spot it either. Do you ever catch any of the scam second chance artists? If so how many? In the area that I bid I know the Good the Bad and the Ugly and this will just protect the Bad and Ugly and increase the vulnerability of the Good. How will I identify scam artists like Broadway Rick? This will reduce my bidding on item over $200.<br />Peter Thomas

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Posted By: <b>Dan Bretta</b><p>Ebay hasn't even changed their search feature yet. You can still go to ebay bidder search and type in the name of a user but when the search comes up it only shows the items that are over and that that particular bidder was the high bidder on.<br /><br />I think the real reason for this is so that people will stop outing the shill bidders. Shill bidding helps ebay's bottom line. Why would they want that stopped? <br />

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Posted By: <b>Anonymous</b><p> Well, I've voiced my complaints to Ebay, and I'm telling all sellers I know to do so too. Since I mostly buy on ebay, I'm still becoming concerned with the whole shill bidding increase that may occur ( I personally think an increase can already be detecable in the Sports memorabilia category). I would not be against "outing" ebay sellers who anyone might be suspicious of. I'm not saying that we should accuse anyone. Just let people on this board know who to check out....they can then form their own opinions about particular auctions. I've only been on this board for a short time, but I recognize a lot of you guys as people my brother and I have bought and sold to over the past 15-20 years. We have been on Ebay since it's inception really going back to late 1995. Anyway, the whole idea of this is to prevent anyone from losing a load of money to crooked sellers.

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Posted By: <b>Don Poley</b><p>Here's ebay's response to me registering my concern:<br /><br />Dear Scott,<br /><br />Thanks for writing to eBay in regard to the recent change to how <br />bidder <br />IDs are displayed on auction pages.<br /><br />eBay is committed to preventing shill bidding from occurring on our <br />site. While the public will not have access to User IDs, eBay will <br />continue to have the same access to information that we have today. <br /><br />eBay takes the issue of shill bidding very seriously. Shill bidding <br />is a<br />violation that, when detected, leads to an immediate suspension or <br />sanction. In addition, shill bidding is a crime in many states.<br /><br />We've invested heavily in shill detection systems that enable us to <br />proactively detect and investigate possible shill bidding. Our <br />detection<br />systems collect more information on selling and/or bidding activity <br />than<br />the public has access to, so we can detect patterns and ascertain <br />identities much more accurately. <br /><br />We also added additional bidding information as a part of this change <br />so<br />that members will still be able to detect and report suspicious <br />activity. While we proactively search the site for shill bidding, we <br />will continue to investigate Community reports of suspicious <br />behavior, <br />and take action where appropriate. <br /><br />It is my pleasure to assist you. Thank you for choosing eBay.<br /><br />Sincerely,<br /><br />John V.<br />eBay Customer Support<br />

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Posted By: <b>Tony Andrea</b><p>Don thats the exact same response I got word for word from them as well only from a different customer service rep. By looking at this seems to me they already have a typed master email regarding this issue they simply forward to all who complain. This looks to be it.<br /><p>Tony Andrea

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Posted By: <b>Richard L.</b><p>Don,(or Scott as reply states)<br />Thanks for sharing the response from ebay. That is a very LAME reply from them. Expected it to be more believable!

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Posted By: <b>Adam J. Baxter</b><p>In pretty much 9 out of every 10 occasions that a shill was occuring that involved vintage cards it was discovered by someone from this forum. Ebay only knew about it and took action because one of us reported it, otherwise Ebay's people had no idea it was going on. They're so full of s*** they're eyes are brown.

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Posted By: <b>Dave</b><p>I got a similar response. So I guess we are all at the mercy of Ebay to find and punish shill bidding in their auctions. LOL !! I would say the phrase " buyer beware" applies now more than ever to some Ebay auctions.

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Posted By: <b>peter chao</b><p>Guys,<br /><br />This is the way you handle shill bidding. Take some responsibility for your own action. Never ask yourself about how high you are willing to go. Instead, ask yourself whether it's a good deal. The way you screw shill bidding is stop bidding.<br /><br />Peter

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Posted By: <b>Joann</b><p>I think a lot of ebayers are really po'd about the change. Google 'ebay new bidder id history' or anything similar or variations and you'll see threads from other boards that are similar to ours. (Seems like LOTS of people track other bidders to see what they are bidding on, and seems like NO ONE trusts ebay to find shilling as much as they trust themselves. I was a bit surprised - same issues in completely different product areas.) Half the hits are on ebay boards themselves!<br /><br />Write write write. You never know. A lot of people don't like it.<br /><br />Joann<br /><br />(Peter - it's not just about the shilling. And part of taking responsibility is the ability to look at bidder and seller patterns. Ebay has removed the ability to take responsibility.)

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Posted By: <b>Larry</b><p>Joann-<br /><br />You hit the nail directly..E Bay has spent a lot of time to make their system more efficient to them but bottom line, they pulled the rug from us to police ourselves and use the information to OUR discretion for buying and selling purposes .....I hope it costs them dearly, EVERYONE HAS TO VOICE THEIR DISAPPROVAL IF A CHANGE IS TO BE MADE&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;

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Posted By: <b>Judge Dred (Fred)</b><p>I think someone mentioned that this bidding scheme only takes place after the bids reach $200 and the winner will always be revealed at the end of the auction.

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Posted By: <b>warshawlaw</b><p>One way to prevent shilling is to use a sniping service. After all, no one can shill your bid up if it hits in the last 5-10 second of the auction. Perhaps that is the wave of the future for ebay.

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Posted By: <b>Rob Dewolf</b><p>Actually, sniping doesn't protect you from shilling. If the highest legitimate bid is $50, and the seller places a shill bid of $200, I'm going to pay $202.50 no matter when I place my bid (assuming it's higher than $200). Without the shill, I would have paid the honest price of $51.

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Posted By: <b>JK</b><p>I agree that a snipe will not protect you from a shill bidder who has put a max bid in - it will protect you from the majority of shillers who only bid in small increments so as to gradually up the price of those who have already bid. Remember, most shill bidders are still trying not to end up with the product at the end of the auction.

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Posted By: <b>Rob Dewolf</b><p>On Saturday night I bid on this item on eBay:<br /><br /><a href="http://tinyurl.com/y8qgzf" target="_new" rel="nofollow">http://tinyurl.com/y8qgzf</a><br /><br />My bid was $206, so I was far down on the list of final bidders. This evening I received the following e-mail sent directly to my e-mail address (as opposed to via eBay's system:<br /><br />Dear Sir,<br /> <br />You expressed interest in an item titled:<br />Pat Seerey Cleveland Indians 1940's pencil clip<br />item number: 330072217635 bidding, however the<br />auction has ended with another member as the high<br />bidder.I will make this Second Chance Offer because the winning bidder was<br />unable to complete the transaction. The selling price will be your last bid price.<br />About shipping and insurance I'll pay for it.<br />If you're ready for this purchase, please send me your full name and <br />address- as soon as I have them I'll start the official procedure,and <br />eBay will notify you about this. You'll also receive important <br />guidelines + instructions from them (please go through them exactly).<br />Waiting for your e-mail!!!<br />Thank you.<br /><br />The tip-offs that this is a scam are numerous, and -- for what it's worth -- I've forwarded the e-mail to eBay. But if this doesn't poke a hole in eBay's reasoning that hiding bidders' handles will provide them protection and anonymity, I don't know what does.<br /><br />Rob<br />

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Posted By: <b>Dan Bretta</b><p>Ahhh....olebbstuff - one of my least favorite sellers. Lists magazine advertisements cutouts as "Signs". A very deceptive seller, if you look through his feedback you'll see what I mean.<br /><br />And bidder #2 looks as though he could be a shill for olebbstuff, but how will we ever know for sure?

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Posted By: <b>Rob Dewolf</b><p>Dan,<br /><br />Actually, bidder 2 is legit; he just wanted the clip very badly. You're dead-on about the seller. I looked through his history and was alarmed at what I saw. Luckily I was looking only to upgrade, so dropping out of the chase was painless.<br /><br />Rob