eBay Bidder ID Question

RichR

Am I the only one lately who is getting a little leery when a flock of bidders with IDs such as this come up:

a****g
h****h
k****l
b****m

What's up with that? Whenever I'm bidding and see these other IDs coming up as rival bids, I feel like I'm being scammed...and it's happening more and more...for a wide variety of items, both numismatic and other merchandise. Sometimes, only me and one or two others have a "full" bidder ID name visible. Is this a new trend...or did I miss something along the line somewhere?

Just had to vent...

rgCoinGuy

Ebay went to this on ALL auctions recently, they used to only do it on higher value items.

Edited to add, for clarity, that is EBAY hiding the ID's, and it is now the norm.

sanitarium1inmate

I still say that it is now easier for scammers thanks to ebay's new policy. Just have a friend bid someone up is what you need to watch out for. Check past sells and see if the names add up to someone near their location. The new id's are the first and the last letters in the names so just check a sellers history before bidding. Save yourself a lot of money.