Question about bidders with *** in their names

sovereign · Post by **sovereign** » Sun Dec 23, 2007 9:58 am

I've been out of the loop, but just noticed a ton of suspiciously similar ebay bidder names with high bidding activity (like on the Seishirou cel auction). can anyone shed some insight on these? they seem to have feedback ratings, but I really can't trust an auction with tons of these users pumping up the bid amount.

-***m
l***r
a***n
n***a
a***d
c***e
l***b

Tabbykitty · Post by **Tabbykitty** » Sun Dec 23, 2007 10:05 am

I'm thinking that it is some sort of protection that ebay puts in place once the bids hit a certain amount. I was following the bebop shikishi auction last week, and I think when it hit $200, the bidder names all when to c****e, t****d...when they could be read before that.

Grico · Post by **Grico** » Sun Dec 23, 2007 10:23 am

yup, they know hide other bidder user ids once the auction hits 200. Its for security supposedly

sovereign · Post by **sovereign** » Sun Dec 23, 2007 10:30 am

that's so odd! from a prospective bidder's perspective, I think I would prefer to see who is bidding once it gets above $200. but I guess ebay is protecting the actual bidders...hm. thanks guys!

/m

Moop · Post by **Moop** » Sun Dec 23, 2007 10:32 am

The claim is that the 'protection' is for the bidders, but I rather think that it actually has more to do with the fact that eBay is afraid of losing profits if members contact one another to make deals on similar items. And you're right, sovereign; because of this so called 'protection', there's no way to recognize shill bidding.

ReiTheJelly · Post by **ReiTheJelly** » Sun Dec 23, 2007 11:44 am

as far as I can tell, it takes the first and last letter of your username and puts asterisks between them. Personally, I really dislike this new system because it means that shill bidding can run rampant.

I haven't checked recently, but at the end of the auction, does it disclose all the bidder IDs, or just the winners?

iwakuralain16 · Post by **iwakuralain16** » Sun Dec 23, 2007 12:20 pm

IT only discloses the winners ID. I have seen this happen on some auctions that are under 200 though. So annoying.

Krafty · Post by **Krafty** » Sun Dec 23, 2007 1:53 pm

When I'm loosing auctions I usually call the winning bidders b*****d and f****r so maybe Ebay has adopted a similar practice.

samiamew · Post by **samiamew** » Sun Dec 23, 2007 4:52 pm

I think you're onto something, Krafty!

sovereign · Post by **sovereign** » Sun Dec 23, 2007 9:12 pm

Krafty, that made my night!

duotrouble · Post by **duotrouble** » Sun Dec 23, 2007 11:07 pm

Since I've sold a lot lately, this is an easy question to answer. Ebay does that to all auctions for lurkers. You have to sign in to ebay to see the usernames until the auction reaches over $200. Then, only the seller can see the names. The letters do not usually correspond to the user's ID.