Feedback changes announced!!!

RFW

peter999 wrote: »

In the USA they at least show the 1st & last letters of the bidder, so you can guess whether bidders are ones you have seen elsewhere.

It is ridiculous this complete anonymity.

peter999

The details they give you on each bidder page shows the bid history as follows

30-Day Summary

Total bids: #

Items bid on: #

Bid activity (%) with this seller: ##%

Bids to unique sellers: #

Bids in unique categories: #

Bid retractions: #

Bid retractions (6 months): #

It is still a fairly transparent system and protects buyers from bogus second chance offers and bogus winning bid emails. The more unscrupulous can track buyers down from first and last letters on user ids.

In Australia and the UK (at the least) eBay has now obscured auction bidding to the point that genuine bidders have got absolutely no chance of detecting and thereby protecting themselves from “shill” bidding (a criminal offence in most civilised countries) by unethical vendors. Notwithstanding eBay’s statements to the contrary, this application of absolute anonymity by eBay serves no purpose other than to deceive consumers

The reasons for the change are quite transparent as I have mentioned and was brought in to protect consumers from scammers, there's a thread on here that I started before the changes about 'Bogus Second Chance Offers'.

I don't approve of shill bidding and actually think it is pointless as a selling 'tactic', but afaik it isn't a criminal offence in the UK (most auction houses incorporate a form of shill bidding into their conditions of sale!), but can get you permanently suspended from Ebay.

peter999

RFW wrote: »

The details they give you on each bidder page shows the bid history as follows

It is still a fairly transparent system and protects buyers from bogus second chance offers and bogus winning bid emails. The more unscrupulous can track buyers down from first and last letters on user ids.

But you don't need complete anonymity, just with Bidder1, Bidder2, Bidder3.... shown.
It's made useless when useful information could be shown.

Anything removed by one level ie. Bid History(as a Bidder identity check), just having to click once to access, will be accessed far less.

pter999

StaffsSW

peter999 wrote: »

In the USA they at least show the 1st & last letters of the bidder, so you can guess whether bidders are ones you have seen elsewhere.

The US bidder ID's are displayed in a standard 5 character format with 3 stars in the middle, regardless of what length the original user ID is, and the letters do not necesarily correspond with the first and last letter of the genuine ID either.