eBay's new bidder confidentiality rule

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Posted By: Frank Wakefield

Hey guys...

This stuff about bidders being identified as "bidder 2" after a ball card tops $200 annoys me.

I've started saving a list of the bidders while the bidding is low and before the identities are obscured, so I can at least figure out who some of the bidders are.

eBay did this because some of us would buy a card directly, before the auction ended, and eBay would lose their commission. But this new way helps shills go undetected.


What if eBay added a selling option, where the seller could designate a sale to a specific buyer within maybe a 1 hour timeframe? That would still let the direct contact thing go through, eBay would get its commission, and eBay could scrap this "bidder 3" nonsense so we can better detect shills.



If enough of us endorse such a system, they might change.



Frank.

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Posted By: Cobby33

This does not stop offline transactions, since the seller still has access to all of the ID's of all of his/her bidders. Obviously, the bidders also have the seller's identity.

Supposedly, the only thing this prevents is third parties emailing bidders, trying to sell similar items offline. Definitely encourages shill'ing- however- enough information is made public to spot a clear shill (not always).

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Posted By: Jeremy W.

Frank-I agree with your point, but the main reason Ebay gave was to avoid bogus "second chance" offers.

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Posted By: Steve M.

I too keep track <200 of the bidders. I know who you are Bidder 2.

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Posted By: Kyle

You know what really stinks, if you get an offer on an item, the buyer's ID is partially obscured, so you don't know exactly who is bidding. You can click on their feedback and see how many they have and what was said, but you can't look at what they've purchased in the past. So when you get an offer of over $1000 and the buyer has never bought anything over $25, you won't know unless you click accept.

Sort of stinks...

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Posted By: Mark L

the policy has stopped me from bidding on numerous items. I'm not sure that it makes much sense but I like to have a general idea of whom I'm bidding against.

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Posted By: Frank Wakefield

I agree that I've stopped bidding a few times because of it.


I hadn't thought about that second chance crap....

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Posted By: Jeremy W.

It's stopped me from bidding quite a few times. To my dismay, the winning bid is still too high for me.

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Posted By: Dave

it has also stopped me from bidding several times because I couldn't tell for sure whether the bidder that had just outbid me was a shill or not. Stopped bidding on some N172's yesterday when I couldn't tell for sure whther a particular bidder was a shill or not. Unfortunately, I didn't think to write down bidder names on the auctions I was bidding on and it made it difficult to trace.
I think the policy sucks, and it may just be a cheesey way for Ebay to gain more control over their website which has been proven to be insecure at times.

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Posted By: Frank Wakefield

Hey Cobby... I agree.

eBay's new system doesn't stop auction cancelling and direct bidding...


I just think if eBay accommodated that direct sale situation, then some sellers would make a direct sale inside eBay's system.

Frank.

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Posted By: cmoking

ebay's new policy sucks.

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Posted By: Cobby33

Frank-

I do agree that something needs to be done- in various aspects. I've just sat "on hold" with thei online "help"
asking about a listing I placed this morning, that still doesn't show up on a search. I never got an answer and I wasn't even disconnected.

Their listing credit policies also border on fraudulent.

Argh!