Am I Missing Something?

[jeffwebb]

This may seem like a silly question to those in the know but, everything I've looked at on ebay recently seems to be bid on by "bidder 1, 2, 3 , 4 or 5". The Dell computers I looked at, recommended from here, all had a bid on from "bidder 1". Am I missing something? The last car in "spotted on ebay" was bid on by "bidder 5". What's it all mean???

 

[gina2201]

Only the seller of the vehicle now can see the actual usernames and feedback of the bidders. All we see as bidders is Bidder 1 and Bidder 2 etc, something to do with security???? There was an email ebay circulated but didn't really pay much attention!

 

[Kamisuma]

Only the seller of the vehicle now can see the actual usernames and feedback of the bidders. All we see as bidders is Bidder 1 and Bidder 2 etc, something to do with security???? There was an email ebay circulated but didn't really pay much attention!

It is all explained in "General announcements" on 18th January, paste the following link and take a look:

http://www2.ebay.com/aw/uk/200701.shtml#2007-01-17191546

 

[Will]

In summary, it's a new method that eBay have introduced to diguise the ID of bidders, with the intention to reduce fraud and loss of fees.

HTH

Will

 

[jeffwebb]

Thanks folks, teach me to pay attention.
Obviously too ready to consider conspiracies.

 

[MainMan]

I think ebay didn't like the fact that sellers could contact bidders down the chain and sell them items similar to what they were bidding on without paying ebay a fee. So in order that ebay get more money we have now lost just about the only way of having a chance of detecting shill bidding. This is not an improvement.

 

[Will]

As a seller you can see the full eBay ID of anyone bidding on your items

You can also get a report on the ID of a competing bidder to see information such as the number of bids and percentage of bid activity with that seller etc.

Will

 

[neilrr]

It's a shill bidders wet dream.

 

[MainMan]

As a seller you can see the full eBay ID of anyone bidding on your items
Will

It's the buyer who needs protection against shill bidding - not the seller.

 

[Will]

It's the buyer who needs protection against shill bidding - not the seller.

Yep I know that, I was responding to your post:

I think ebay didn't like the fact that sellers could contact bidders down the chain and sell them items similar to what they were bidding on without paying ebay a fee.

As I've already said, as a seller you can see the full eBay ID of anyone bidding on your auctions.

Nothing has changed in this respect

Will

 

[MainMan]

As I've already said, as a seller you can see the full eBay ID of anyone bidding on your auctions.

Nothing has changed in this respect

Except that now only the seller who started the auction can tell who wants to buy this type of product. It used to be that anyone had access to a list of potential buyers.