Ebay Bidders are Now Anonymous !

Suddenly buyers are now listed as Bidder 1, Bidder 2 etc. One can no longer

check the validity and track record of a buyer? Ebay says this is an evolution

of the WWW to protect the consumer from the scammers?

If you are the seller, you can see the ID of the bidder. I just sold a Coolscan V ED and I could see their ID. Now on other autions, I got the Bidder 1, 2, 3, etc.

The little summary they give for each bidder is helpful to other bidders. For example, there

was one where 100% of Bidder 4's bids were for the particular seller. Can you say Obvious

Schill?

Hasn't reached the U.K. site yet - bidders i.d. still being shown

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this actually began about 3 weeks ago. I dont like it all. I used to track what my collecting buddies were buying !<p>

Dan

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<a href="http://www.antiquecameras.net">www.antiquecameras.net</a>

It's only on items over $200.

 

Most often, the items I sell start at $.99 with no reserve. Only on the rare occasion that one of my goes over $200 does it revert to bidder 1, bidder 2, etc.

 

Of course, as the seller, I can still see all the bidder's names.

 

I actually find the bidding summaries helpful, as they summarize a bunch of information about the bidder that would take a fair amount of time to dig up. This makes it really easy to spot shills.

That may be because some people (I wouldn't know who) used to be able to contact 2nd place and offer a similar item for sale without having to list it.

I know a toy collector who was convinced that there were several people watching his bids to out bid him. He's not really the paranoid type. He will appreciate this change.

It's on all sites but only kicks in above 100gbp or equivalent. It's to avoid bogus second chance offers on high value items.

Hi,

 

Malcolm...Yes, this reached the UK weeks ago. The seller has the choice whether or not to make his auctions with anonymous bidders. You can have totally anon auctions, or auctions where the high bidder becomes anon when the bidding goes above 100 GBP I belive.

 

Ebay says it is to stop the scammers who email fraudulent '2nd chance' offers to bidders. Trouble is it now opens up new possibilities to fraud. It is easier for dodgy sellers to up the price of their goods by getting friends to bid on them via schill bidding. It also stops helpful ebayers from emailing bidders to warn them if they are about to win dodgy or fake goods..

 

cheers Steve.

Steve, if dodgy, it's better to email ebay, who I've found take goods off very rapidly if you inform them. There was a chap a while back, kept listing a Minolta 600mm lens (and about 100k gbp of other goods he didn't possess) and they took his different identities off several times, til he got bored or found a more subtle game.