It's time to get rid of Protected Identities, too much shill bidding

[imf_electronics_australia]

Hi all,

I feel its time to get rid of the category of "Private Listing, Bidders Identities Protected"  Most of these listings that have this enabled always seem to be with cars / higher priced items by dealers and this just hides the practice of Shill Bidding. I've just caught a seller out that was up to this and both he and his bogus ID have been deregistered.

It's about time there was more transperancy brought back into the system. It's no wonder most people no longer trust sellers and the eBay system.

I hear it every day from sellers themselves that get their mates / kids / wives etc. to run their items up, thinking no one knows.

Ebay brought in the so called protected ID's system in quite some years ago by using two leters or numbers out of the actual ID and reversing them along with their feedback score. This is enough I feel and at least allows some amount of transperancy in the bidding process, but by totally hiding them just leaves the door adjar to bogus bidding, so on, so on.

Cheers.

[collect247]

Who are you blaming the sellers or ebay for allowing this to happen?

Ebay make their own rules to favour themselves.

If ebay didn't allow anything on here to happen then ebay would have put a stop to it by now.

[springyzone]

I absolutely hate the practice of shill bidding too and I reckon I got caught once. Never again, I am very careful when & how I bid now.

So I understand where you are coming from.

Personally, I don't know why the full ID of buyers was hidden in the first place. There was probably a reason, it's just i can't see it.

But.. I can see there should be room for some categories to be private listings with bidder ID protected. Maybe for sensitive items such as incontinence pads or underwear, things a buyer might not feel comfortable with everyone being able to see. Ebay would need to pick which categories it could apply to.

[kopenhagen5]

I agree, with at least a little info as we have now it's easier to see if something is suspicious and not bid.

Even report if need be.

I just don't bid on private auctions anymore.

I like springy's suggestion of only applying private auctions to relevant categories.

Re - ID's being hidden. Years ago there were retaliation bids/buying to leave negs or simply abusive messaging amongst bidders so when ID's are hidden, a member can't find the other and attempt sabotage.

[imf_electronics_australia]

I totally blame eBay, as they are basically promoting Shill Bidding as in the end they end up getting more cash from higher final value fees, but on the surface they need to be seen to be doing something about it.

It's always been about eBay's bottom line and nothing else.

[thesoulyearns]

I don't think eBay is promoting shill bidding. Their rules are very much against it. As kopenhagen5 said, there is the 'percentage of items bid on with particular seller' information that can give some idea of whether it might be a shill bidder. If you don't want the chance of shill bidding, simply buy from BIN's. They're the majority in pretty much every category anyway, so you should be able to find what you're after.

[*tippy*toes*]

They may not promote it, but they do nothing about it when presented with concrete evidence that it's happening. Same with sellers inflating their feedback with other accounts. Again, even with concrete evidence, they do nothing about it. If they were serious about stopping shilling, they would sanction the sellers involved. In the case of feedback manipulation, at the very least they should remove the feedback left by the sellers other accounts, which I know for a fact they don't.

[springyzone]

Shill bidding works in ebay's favour to some extent.

It means the item has a bid and it will sell and fees can be charged. In fact the shill bidding may push the price up, in which case ebay will get more fees.

Even if the seller under an alias ends up selling to themselves, they may not necessarily cancel it, just give themselves excellent feedback and later relist.

Win-win for ebay whichever way it goes.