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.