Re: eBay to Hide Winning Bidders


"Bruce Remick" <remick@xxxxxxx> wrote in message
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"mazorj" <mazorj@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
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"Bruce Remick" <remick@xxxxxxx> wrote in message
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"Reid Goldsborough" <reidgoldsborough@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
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On Oct 29, 1:59 pm, "Bruce Remick" <rem...@xxxxxxx> wrote:

Why do you need to see the winning bidder's ID in an auction
that's not
yours?

Here's why this is bad. This is how people get tipped off -- or
used
to get tipped off -- that they're about to become victim of
counterfeit fraud, which as you no doubt know is rampant there.

Many people have been active alerting winning bidders to known
forgeries that they were about to buy as authentic coins despite
this
being against eBay rules and despite risking their eBay I.D.s.
Selling
forgeries is against eBay rules too though eBay is far more
active and
spends far more resources in stopping "auction interference" than
auction fraud. With this new rule, the alerting of fraud will
stop and
the selling of forgeries will only increase yet further in
frequency.
Watch these Chinese forgeries explode on the market.

Others do it differently, but what I've personally been doing
when
coming across transparently blatant forgery scams, if I have the
time
(not enough time in the day ...) and inclination, is pointing
"winning" bidders to Web pages I or others have done about a
particular forgery type, giving them a chance to educate
themselves.
No auction interference, just providing an educational service.
This
will now be impossible too.

If some winning bidders are inclined to respond to third party
post-auction offers-- fraudulent or otherwise-- then they should
be prepared to accept any risks, as well as the wrath of eBay. I
would venture that the vast majority of items auctioned on eBay
are not items that are being counterfeited. With coins, I don't
believe it's the obligation of the educated to warn eBay bidders
of a potential counterfeit. Who's to say that the "warner" isn't
a scammer or competitor himself? If one must take up the cause,
simply warn eBay about a suspicious auction. That should satisfy
any moral obligation. Otherwise, I still don't see why an honest
person should be that concerned about not seeing the ID of a
winning bidder in someone else's auction.

I don't do much on e-Bay, but isn't that one way to spot a possible
shill bidder's ID? If Seller X has a lot of offerings being
scooped up at the last minute by Buyer Z for prices significantly
below the BIN price, you might be looking at "rescue buys" made by
the seller because the legitimate bids were below the seller's
expectations.

Also, I would think that if you've regularly been bidding against
individuals who share an interest in a certain type of item, you
might want to know their bidding patterns, and that knowledge can't
be complete without knowing who is getting the winning bids and who
is likely to drop out at what levels.

I doubt that many buyers are fanatic enough to do this very often,
but you did ask the question.

Before eBay began to adopt rules to keep bidders ID's anonymous, I
had "competitive collector friends" who used to monitor my bidding
to see if I had stumbled upon something that they missed, rather
than doing any extensive searching on their own. Now they can't do
that anymore. So with that in mind, I'm for not disclosing the
bidder ID's during an auction, or even after. If I miss out on
something with my last minute bid, I still know I bid my max and
don't really care if the high bidder was a shill or not. The hidden
bidder ID thing should not be a serious concern, from my own
viewpoint.

That would be the reverse side of the "know thy competition" argument
and I can't blame you for taking that position. I'd probably say the
same thing if I had lazy leeches trailing me. Like the future price
of gold, this is one of those issues that can be validly debated with
good points on both sides, without ever reaching a consensus opinion.


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