Just curious...

Post by **Rekka Alexiel** » Tue May 27, 2008 6:53 pm

I'm wondering if these IDs are real... or maybe someone's using multiple IDs on a single auction??

r***t ( 49)
o***n ( 218)

Anyone know?

Belldandy16 · Post by **Belldandy16** » Tue May 27, 2008 6:58 pm

theyre real.
for some reason Ebay is hiding user's screen names (i dont know why, they give the real name in the end after the auction).

i actually thought the same thing untill almost every single auction i was watching had those symbols. but then afterwards when id see the real name on the screen.

so, i wonder why ebay is doing this.

Moop · Post by **Moop** » Tue May 27, 2008 7:12 pm

They're doing it so that other sellers cannot contact the bidders with offers to let them buy similar items...which is another way of saying they're stopping people in every way they can from doing sales outside of eBay. After an auction closes, only the winning bidder's name is visible, because presumably they already have what they wanted, and will not be susceptible to further temptation. The losing bidders' IDs, however, remain hidden.

KT · Post by KT » Tue May 27, 2008 7:31 pm

I was wondering why Ebay was doing that too

Thanks for the info Moop

ReiTheJelly · Post by **ReiTheJelly** » Tue May 27, 2008 7:56 pm

It does bother me that eBay hides all the IDs even after the auction has completed. How do they expect to fight shill bidding? I guess they just don't care - they still get paid, regardless. *shrugs*

Grico · Post by **Grico** » Tue May 27, 2008 8:01 pm

Yeah it does seem to invite shell bidding. It also is annoying when someone is selling a number of related things and you cannot tell if one bidder is bidding on all of them or just one of them. For some things I know bidders that I won't even bother to bid against.

syan · Post by **syan** » Tue May 27, 2008 9:09 pm

I've noticed that a person's *** name stays the same, not differing from auction to auction. So now for a certain series I can recognize for the most part who's bidding just by the ***.

duotrouble · Post by **duotrouble** » Tue May 27, 2008 10:36 pm

Like Moop said, it's a way of stopping sellers from contacting potential buyers. Well, that is unless you are the seller of that item. So far, I've seen all the usernames when I'm logged in but maybe that's changed by now because I know other things about my account just changed this past week.

It's also supposed to stop buyers from harassing each other. From my buyer's point of view, I don't like not being able to research my competition. I'm a sniper so I like to do my research way ahead of time.

But sadly, only the winning bidder's ID shows at the end so research in advance like that doesn't work well either.

Post by **Rekka Alexiel** » Wed Jun 04, 2008 4:48 pm

Ahh, I see. I guess it's just another change to eBay that I guess I missed. haha Thanks much for the info!!

Caroline · Post by **Caroline** » Sat Jun 07, 2008 10:23 pm

Moop wrote:They're doing it so that other sellers cannot contact the bidders with offers to let them buy similar items...which is another way of saying they're stopping people in every way they can from doing sales outside of eBay. After an auction closes, only the winning bidder's name is visible, because presumably they already have what they wanted, and will not be susceptible to further temptation. The losing bidders' IDs, however, remain hidden.

yea. in a way this bothers me because i have received awesome offers for cels from people who saw me bid on similar items. unless i win the actual item and people see my id, it is doubtful that this will happen again.