slightly OT: eBay search by Bidder

[D. Bergin]

Originally Posted by thecatspajamas

I noticed this as well. I hope that it's only temporary, as it was one of the few useful tools remaining, but with it actually being disabled rather than just hidden, I fear that it's gone for good.

As for why one would use it, I sometimes like to look and see what other items a new-to-me buyer has made when I get an oddball offer from them on one of my items. Just another way to make a quick character judgment sometimes when the buyer is otherwise unknown to me. For example, if they're giving me down the road for daring to ask $1000 for something, and they offer to "take it off my hands" for $200, but I look at their history and it shows they have never bought anything over $20, it's really hard to take them seriously.

It can also be useful in some cases for investigating unusual and shill bidding, and as Tom said, just seeing what your buddies have bought lately to see if they need an impromptu "congrats!"

Oh, and it's also useful for stalking Tom and making off-Bay offers to anyone he's buying Louisville Colonels stuff from I say that jokingly, but I understand that scenario has played out many times (even among Net54 members) with competitors stalking each other to interfere with the other's eBay dealings.

Yup, all of the above. It's one of the few tools left for a seller to help protect themselves from sketchy bidders.

Like the guy you have blocked because he has too many unpaid items on his record, he contacts you and asks why he's blocked, and you go and look at his bidder list and noticed he has bid on 100 things in the past week, look deeper and see he had a ton of retractions and is just generally a problem bidder.

Or the guy who can't pay you until next month because his grandmother is in the hospital, his dog just died, and he needs to pay for surgery on the bunyon on his big toe...but you look a little deeper and see he's still throwing out bids and spending thousands of $'s, getting feedback from others, but for some reason can't pay YOU.

It's just a general way to suss out fishy bidders, and as mentioned already, keep track of some of the suspected shillers.