eBay to hide all User IDs in ALL auctions

soolin

Brooker_Dave wrote: »

Do you work for ebay?

I doubt anyone in authority has as much of a clue as RFW. It might be a good idea if more people like RFW did work there, at least they might be able to explain the changes better than ebay manage sometimes.

nikaso

This is absolute madness, who is it meant to benefit?? Certainly not ebayers, buyers or sellers!

I always avoid bidding on private auctions if I can because the potential for shill bidding is just too high, if ebay go through with this I will have to seriously consider moving to another auction site (although the few I have looked like have nothing like the range of products)

iieee

Nikaso, this system has been in place on ebay for quite some time now. This is an old thread.

Brooker_Dave

nikaso wrote: »

This is absolute madness, who is it meant to benefit??

Who *always* benefits from these changes....

(ebay)

RFW

Brooker_Dave wrote: »

Do you work for ebay?

On this issue I was one who asked for change, as a result of spoof second chance offers some of my customers were conned out of several hundred pounds. The spoof offers were sent via visibility of user ids. That is the reason behind the changes, I'm sure if you'd been conned out of £100 by having your id visible whilst bidding you would have wanted it to change to.

It is easy to check for shill bidding by clicking on the number of bids page and looking at the bidding history of the bidders. If one bidder has a high percentage bid rate for one seller then shill bidding is more likely.

I use Ebay every day and make a good living out of it. Some of the changes have been pointless, some useful and some wrong, as with any company. The fact that Brooker_Dave still shows such a huge interest in Ebay having been banned from it several times just goes to prove how keen some people are to keep using it, even if they insist on breaking all the rules. TBH if a company had dealt with me the way he claims Ebay has dealt with him I would have ceased showing an interest in them a long time ago and certainly wouldn't be continuing to trade with them

peter999

RFW wrote: »

On this issue I was one who asked for change, as a result of spoof second chance offers some of my customers were conned out of several hundred pounds. The spoof offers were sent via visibility of user ids. That is the reason behind the changes, I'm sure if you'd been conned out of £100 by having your id visible whilst bidding you would have wanted it to change to.

It is easy to check for shill bidding by clicking on the number of bids page and looking at the bidding history of the bidders. If one bidder has a high percentage bid rate for one seller then shill bidding is more likely.

I use Ebay every day and make a good living out of it. Some of the changes have been pointless, some useful and some wrong, as with any company. The fact that Brooker_Dave still shows such a huge interest in Ebay having been banned from it several times just goes to prove how keen some people are to keep using it, even if they insist on breaking all the rules. TBH if a company had dealt with me the way he claims Ebay has dealt with him I would have ceased showing an interest in them a long time ago and certainly wouldn't be continuing to trade with them

You keep banging on about shill bidding, that is not the only issue.

Another issue is about having an open auction so you can see more or less who is bidding.

Complete anonymity is not necessary.
Partially anonymised IDs could be used, without the ability to identy exact ID & email people. This is so you have an idea directly on listing page who is bidding.

It is ridiculous to say that it is easy to identify shill bidding, as you have to go down a level & carry out an investigation.

peter999

RFW

peter999 wrote: »

You keep banging on about shill bidding, that is not the only issue.

Another issue is about having an open auction so you can see more or less who is bidding.

Complete anonymity is not necessary.
Partially anonymised IDs could be used, without the ability to identy exact ID & email people. This is so you have an idea directly on listing page who is bidding.

It is ridiculous to say that it is easy to identify shill bidding, as you have to go down a level & carry out an investigation.

peter999

So you prefer people being scammed, as another user pointed out the partial identity in the US does not make that much difference to what we have now as the ids used end up being quite random, ie seller12345 would be s**5, can't see what difference that would make.

My reference to shill bidding was because that seems to be most other people's issue with it. Its much the same as going to a public auction and having telephone, internet or commission bids which are all anonymous.

RonWooney

RFW wrote: »

So which do you prefer buyers getting duped into parting with cash because of bogus second chance offers and winning bid messages OR having to click on an extra page so you can see the bidding patterns of each bidder that makes it easy to see if shill bidding is happening.

I prefer to see bidder IDs. I never bid on items with hidden IDs.

You make it sound like the second chance offer scam is a huge problem, I think shill bidding is a far more serious problem as it makes buyers pay more for their items and greedy sellers and greedy ebay benefit from this.

Heck I bet even ebay will put in the odd bogus bid to push up their profits. Under their stupid new policy shill bidding will be everywhere, sellers will be making last minute bids on their own items and there wont be a single thing anyone can do about it.

peter999

RFW wrote: »

So you prefer people being scammed, as another user pointed out the partial identity in the US does not make that much difference to what we have now as the ids used end up being quite random, ie seller12345 would be s**5, can't see what difference that would make.

My reference to shill bidding was because that seems to be most other people's issue with it. Its much the same as going to a public auction and having telephone, internet or commission bids which are all anonymous.

What you describe is not the only issue.
I have never been scammed, never received fake 2nd chance offers.

When bidding on particular items where there will be competition, I want to check the bidding behaviour of current bidders, when & how they bid.
This can happen on single items or particularly useful on groups of items being sold during short period.

eg. someone selling 10 items during 30 min period where same group of bidders are bidding.

Anonymisation of all IDs is way over top, it's a ridiculous over-reaction.

peter999

RFW

RonWooney wrote: »

I prefer to see bidder IDs. I never bid on items with hidden IDs.

You make it sound like the second chance offer scam is a huge problem.

It was a huge (and growing) problem, lots of users were scammed as a result. Sellers were effected as the scammers were targetting their buyers, using the items being sold from the item number and seller's user id. Since the change it has stopped.

The factors in place to stop shill bidding have not changed and the details I have mentioned that are there for all to see can show it with some transparency, having to click through 2 pages to get to it seems to be the only problem.