Can someone please explain how bidders id is partially hidden in bid history? Many thanks.

[repentatleisure1952]

New to ebay! Have noticed on a few occasions that after I have asked a question of a seller & then placed bids that a number of small rapid fire bids are placed by a partially hidden id which have the effect of immediately pushing the price of the item to my maximum. Now I am no Rhodes Scholar but I'm not thick either ! Can someone please enlighten me re these partially hidden id's & how  does one compete with this? Many thanks in advance !

[lyndal1838]

Every ID is partially hidden to others.  You and the seller are the only ones who see your full ID as you can find out if you log out of your account and then look at the bidding history.

As for the nibble bids that you see placed....you can avoid this by not bidding till the very end of the auction and then place your highest bid.  If you win you have won at the price you are prepared to pay.  If you do not win then someone else was prepare to pay more.

[bigbrickshop · Accepted solution]

All bidder IDs are partially hidden with *** . Your ID would appear the same way to others with just two letters or numbers from your ID and the rest asterisks.

eBay bidding increases in increments and the current bid showing is the increment higher than the previous bid. It does not necessarily show the current bidder's highest bid. If you enter a bid the bids will automatically increase until it reaches the next highest increment.

I have always found the best way to bid at auction is to use a sniping program, enter the highest amount I'm prepared to pay and save it. I use gixen. The sniping program only enters my bid in the last few seconds so it prevents me from getting caught up in a bidding frenzy in the last few minutes of the auction.

More info about bidding

http://pages.ebay.com.au/help/buy/proxy-bidding.html

http://pages.ebay.com.au/help/buy/bid-increments.html

[repentatleisure1952]

Many thanks for your quick answer.I'm obviously thicker than I thought!!!