The good old days on eBay

[tbob]

Anyone else wish eBay hadn't become super-paranoid and quit posting the user ids of bidders and winners in auctions? It was nice to know who you were bidding against and who won. Not just idle curiosity, I used to refrain from bidding against a couple of firends from 54 and they returned the favor or if you saw someone bidding on an item, you could email them and ask them if a particular card was a "must have" or merely looking for a good price to flip or trade. Those were the days.....

[Rob D.]

Leon & Matt,

Will your new auction site allow users to see the IDs of other bidders?

[Leon]

Originally Posted by Rob D.

Leon & Matt,

Will your new auction site allow users to see the IDs of other bidders?

Rob- We are discussing this currently. For our trial period I believe you WILL be able to see all bidders during the auction. Quite honestly this is a discussion I was hoping to have later but here we are. Matt and I won't be making a final decision until sometime later but, it is our current thought (and this could well change), that bidders id's will be hidden during the auction but shown after it ends. As Tbob mentioned in the first post he was always hoping to help a friend out, which is commendable, and I used to do it too, but is it really fair to the seller? If we show the ID's AFTER the auction it won't hurt the seller and our members can help us police a little bit......This is a very open subject right now.....

[mcap100176]

I'm not.

I am the only one in my family who has an Ebay account; actually not too many of my friends do either. What I do is bid on items for them and they simply reimburse me. My email was getting hammered on "outside of Ebay offers" and mailing lists that I was placed on. Since the block on the id's, I receive nothing and it is actually pretty nice.

I can understand your viewpoint but take it from someone who has bid on items from Aaron to Zsa Zsa Gabor (don't even ask), it's been great.

[Matt]

Just to add to what Leon said - where we're at right now is that we certainly will show all bidder IDs once the auction is over so there can be transparency. The question comes down to do we also show them to everyone while the listing is live. As Leon and I plan to be vigilant in monitoring the site, there should be no need to contact a bidder to let him know he's bidding on a fraudulent item - contact us and we'll take care of it.

As Leon said, we're still mulling this one over though...

[Anthony S.]

mcap,

But wouldn't having an email ID that bears no similarity to your email address accomplish the same thing?

[Abravefan11]

Not showing the bidder ID's during the auction protects the seller, showing them after protects the buyer.

[ullmandds]

to be devils advocate...there may be occasions where you keep upping your bid so a specific buyer doesn't win...which will benefit the seller...and one's spite index!

[Leon]

Originally Posted by ullmandds

to be devils advocate...there may be occasions where you keep upping your bid so a specific buyer doesn't win...which will benefit the seller...and one's spite index!

Hey Peter
I think that can easily happen with not knowing the bidders ID's too ala most of the premium auction houses s/w. I can't say how many times I have kept freaking clicking and bidding and have never gotten to the high bid. At the end of the day there will be decisions we make that we feel are better than others, but rarely, if ever, will they be perfect.

[PolarBear]

Originally Posted by tbob

Not just idle curiosity, I used to refrain from bidding against a couple of firends from 54 and they returned the favor.....

Reverse shilling.

[Cat]

Originally Posted by ullmandds

to be devils advocate...there may be occasions where you keep upping your bid so a specific buyer doesn't win...which will benefit the seller...and one's spite index!

I buy cards out of spite on a regular basis, especially from auction houses. I had one of these purchases make the board as a "this is rediculous" thread and I am 100% confident that I wasn't shilled, although at the time I didn't know the identity of the opposite bidder.

[bobbyw8469]

Yea..not bidding on items to artificially keep the bids down is called BID RIGGING. It is just as wrong as bid shilling and should not be allowed....

[ethicsprof]

i do miss the good ole days on ebay and the good ole days in so many categories!!!
we must be getting old.
best,
barry

[thekingofclout]

Originally Posted by bobbyw8469

Yea..not bidding on items to artificially keep the bids down is called BID RIGGING. It is just as wrong as bid shilling and should not be allowed....

You must be joking.

So it's wrong that my closest friends and I (all of us collect TYPE I photos) discuss prior to an auction which photos we're interested in?

If two or more of us want a particular image, we simply take turns and go in order rather then compete against each other.

We have also in the past purchased a number of photos on ebay as a joint venture and twice a year, we conducted a draft in order to split them up fairly.

How is what we do anywhere related to shill bidding?!

Not to mention, if we just went against each other, that will put an incredible burden on our friendships (or anyones for that matter).

I guess if your a dealer you might think badly of it as you think you're entitled to more money for your goods, but any seller with a fair amount of common sense knows that in the long run, he's much better off with the buyers doing as we wish.

Also of note, this might be another reason that the ebay BIN's are so high. So parties interested can negotiate on an individual basis. E.g. my friends and I have never gone partners on BIN auctions. Whoever wants it, buys it.

Regardless, I strongly disagree and resent your statement of lumping us in with shill bidding.

Sincerely, Jimmy

[Exhibitman]

I don't miss the spite-shilling and public disclosures at all but I do miss the categories.

[Leon]

Originally Posted by thekingofclout

You must be joking.

So it's wrong that my closest friends and I (all of us collect TYPE I photos) discuss prior to an auction which photos we're interested in?

If two or more of us want a particular image, we simply take turns and go in order rather then compete against each other.

We have also in the past purchased a number of photos on ebay as a joint venture and twice a year, we conducted a draft in order to split them up fairly.

How is what we do anywhere related to shill bidding?!

Not to mention, if we just went against each other, that will put an incredible burden on our friendships (or anyones for that matter).

I guess if your a dealer you might think badly of it as you think you're entitled to more money for your goods, but any seller with a fair amount of common sense knows that in the long run, he's much better off with the buyers doing as we wish.

Also of note, this might be another reason that the ebay BIN's are so high. So parties interested can negotiate on an individual basis. E.g. my friends and I have never gone partners on BIN auctions. Whoever wants it, buys it.

Regardless, I strongly disagree and resent your statement of lumping us in with shill bidding.

Sincerely, Jimmy

I wouldn't call the friendships of folks, and their discussions to lay off of things, shilling or rigging. Those are harsh terms. I would politely say it does hold a price down a bit and that is just the way hobbies are. That being said we (Matt and I) need to make the experience for sellers AND buyers as good as possible. Everything Matt and I do will be with keeping those 2 things in mind. Not one, not the other, but both. Believe me, as a passionate collector I am not immune from asking a friend to lay off of something that I gotta have. Just being honest here.....

[nolemmings]

but deliberately laying off an item so that someone else can win is indeed a form of bid rigging. More particularly it is bid suppression, and can also be called bid rotation, but these latter terms are just forms of bid rigging. It might be hard to prove and I wouldn't expect law enforcement to come down on you for a few instances of it in collectibles auctions of modest dollar items, but it is what it is. Just as a buyer should expect to pay only a truly competitive price for an item, a seller should expect to receive a truly competitive price also.

It's a difficult issue you face Leon, as to whether/how to show bids, but I like the idea of posting all actual bids and bidders only AFTER the auction is complete.

Best of luck on the venture, by the way.

[Leon]

Originally Posted by nolemmings

but deliberately laying off an item so that someone else can win is indeed a form of bid rigging. More particularly it is bid suppression, and can also be called bid rotation, but these latter terms are just forms of bid rigging. It might be hard to prove and I wouldn't expect law enforcement to come down on you for a few instances of it in collectibles auctions of modest dollar items, but it is what it is. Just as a buyer should expect to pay only a truly competitive price for an item, a seller should expect to receive a truly competitive price also.

It's a difficult issue you face Leon, as to whether/how to show bids, but I like the idea of posting all actual bids and bidders only AFTER the auction is complete.

Best of luck on the venture, by the way.

Todd- of course it is what it is, but like I said, those terms sound so harsh . Thanks for the well wishes.