bid ID

[skyrider12-au]

When I look at the bidding history, of most items, I see a couple of letters separated by a couple of asterisks... I don't think they are user names so what? and where do they originate from?

[horizon1907]

All bidders ID's are like that. It's to stop other bidders knowing who they are. It's normal and all correct. You have not to worry. Go through the bidding anywhere and you will see it's all the same.  🙂

[skyrider12-au]

Thanks for your response Horizon - to take the discussion further, I often will look back at who has successful bids on a particular item and find that the feedback from the seller to that buyer has a different two letters separated by asterisks than the ones that identify the winning bidder. Is that normal? Are these (non) identifiers able to mutate like that?

[horizon1907]

It's completely normal. If you bid on something and watch the bidding, you will see your ID only. The others are all    ( S******y  ) etc.

[i-love-my-sheep]

Sometimes they do change from item to item or seller to seller. Mine might be Y***P on one seller and F***L on another. It can also change from item to item, although not as common as changing between sellers.

In the bidding history of an item, you can click on those anonymous names and see how often they bid on that particular sellers items (without actually seeing who the bidder is). If they have hundreds (or even thousands) of bids in the last month and 100% are with that seller, it could either be another account owned by the seller to bump the price up, or a friend that is bidding on all his items to bump the price up (called shill bidding, which is against the rules and is actually fraud). Best to avoid those sellers.

Welcome to the forums. Drop in at any time to ask questions, especially if something doesn't look or feel right. Better to come in here and ask the experienced eBayers opinions than get into trouble.