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eBay to Hide Winning Bidder Information
Frankcoins
Posts: 4,571 ✭✭✭
eBay has decided to block members from seeing winning bidder IDs
in an effort to combat fraud. Sellers will still be able to view
all bidder IDs on their own listings, and feedback pages will
continue to show buyer and seller IDS. eBay's announcement
stated, "This change was designed to protect bidders from fake
Second Chance Offers and other malicious emails."
http://www.auctionbytes.com/cab/abn/y08/m10/i29/s01
(How do you send a fake second-chance offer to the WINNING bidder?)
in an effort to combat fraud. Sellers will still be able to view
all bidder IDs on their own listings, and feedback pages will
continue to show buyer and seller IDS. eBay's announcement
stated, "This change was designed to protect bidders from fake
Second Chance Offers and other malicious emails."
http://www.auctionbytes.com/cab/abn/y08/m10/i29/s01
(How do you send a fake second-chance offer to the WINNING bidder?)
Frank Provasek - PCGS Authorized Dealer, Life Member ANA, Member TNA. www.frankcoins.com
0
Comments
The name is LEE!
They've done everything in their power to "enable" the fraud's which they claim they are "protecting" us from!
Aside from the lynch mob which shows up every now and again on these forums, the overall sense I get is an honest attempt to uncover a lot of scams. For this I am grateful but those days are now over.
Thanks eBay!
The name is LEE!
"Making Winning Bidder IDs Anonymous
Early last year, we began to anonymize bidder IDs on listings. This change was designed to protect bidders from fake Second Chance Offers and other malicious emails. As I’ve shared before, this initiative has been very successful, resulting in a 90% reduction in this type of fraud.
Today, however, the winning bidder’s ID is currently visible to everyone after the listing ends, and this continues to lead to fake checkout offers and other spam. Consequently, it also leads to unpaid items, as winning bidders who fall victim to these fake emails often send payment to someone other than the seller."
I know that this stuff occurs so I guess I can't whine that loudly but it sure seems like eBay is trying to protect people from themselves!
My computer philosophy has always been that, given the right IQ, nothing can be programmed to be "intuitively obvious".
I also know that, the more "user friendly" software becomes, the more complex it gets and thae farther it drifts away from "intuitively obvious".
There comes a point in every persons life where they need to sit down and actually learn "what they are doing" and to take responsibility for what they did.
eBay Link
The name is LEE!
profits are down, so ebay is only doing this to protect shill bidders. Shills are good for business right now
As for shilling, it is getting rediculous the paranoia out there. I had a bidder cancel his bid 6 hours before the auction ended of a $55 item. The winner then sent me a nasty e-mail accusing me of shilling him up and then canceling when he didn't outbid me. I don't even look at my auctions until they are over. --Jerry
There is a LOT of paranoia regarding eBay and shill bidding and a LOT of that comes from these very forums. SOme of its true as was proven a while back with that "Collectors Club" scheme but there is just as much that is totally unfounded.
The name is LEE!
1) You can still identify a bidder by the pseudonym eBay assigns to them, as it never changes; whatever algorithm they use to create those gives you the same one every time. So you can still look at a seller's auction history and see that bidder "5*****f" won 90% of them, you just can't tell who "5*****f" is to advise others to block him.
2) How will they handle feedback? Can I assume it will still identify the winner of an auction if someone checks the feedback I've left for them? I would think so since no one is going to scam my bidders after I've left them feedback for prompt payment.
3) Now that they've made it almost impossible to spot, I wonder if they have the nerve will cite a reduction in reports of shilling as evidence that they've cleaned up the site?
Sean Reynolds
"Keep in mind that most of what passes as numismatic information is no more than tested opinion at best, and marketing blather at worst. However, I try to choose my words carefully, since I know that you guys are always watching." - Joe O'Connor
"Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working" Pablo Picasso
<< <i>While hiding active bidders stopped our ability to warn people about obviously counterfeit coins or stolen pictures, now even the ability to warn the winning bidder, hopefully before they pay for the item, is also gone. It just looks like ebay has totally sided with the criminals. >>
This is an unfortunate side effect of having someone protect us from ourselves.
The name is LEE!
<< <i>While hiding active bidders stopped our ability to warn people about obviously counterfeit coins or stolen pictures, now even the ability to warn the winning bidder, hopefully before they pay for the item, is also gone. It just looks like ebay has totally sided with the criminals. >>
What it does is stop the fraudulent emails sent to winning bidders telling them "DO NOT PAY VIA PAYPAL. THEY HAVE FROZEN MY ACCOUNT! -- EMAIL ME HERE, AND WE CAN DISCUSS PAYMENT METHODS!". How you consider that "totally siding with the criminals" is beyond me.
I think your intentions are noble. But if you want to have some real impact, fire up your own website where you detail your investigations into these eBay fraudsters. If you do it right I have absolutely zero doubt you will not only gain a lot of publicity, but you will have done something that actually had a positive effect.
They should have got rid of all the other links for paying such as in the "you won email" and on invoices and the "pay now" at the auction end. Make it one way to pay from your myebay page. By keeping those other links it confused customers so they fall for fake emails.
<< <i>
There comes a point in every persons life where they need to sit down and actually learn "what they are doing" and to take responsibility for what they did.
>>
Sadly, this fell by the wayside a long time ago.
<< <i>I support this change. I have started making my high value auctions private. If the buyer wants to tell the world he's the new owner, he can.
As for shilling, it is getting rediculous the paranoia out there. I had a bidder cancel his bid 6 hours before the auction ended of a $55 item. The winner then sent me a nasty e-mail accusing me of shilling him up and then canceling when he didn't outbid me. I don't even look at my auctions until they are over. --Jerry >>
Had to be 12 hours before auction end
<< <i>There comes a point in every persons life where they need to sit down and actually learn "what they are doing" and to take responsibility for what they did. >>
It is a shame that the GOP is dying
<< <i>
<< <i>I support this change. I have started making my high value auctions private. If the buyer wants to tell the world he's the new owner, he can. As for shilling, it is getting rediculous the paranoia out there. I had a bidder cancel his bid 6 hours before the auction ended of a $55 item. The winner then sent me a nasty e-mail accusing me of shilling him up and then canceling when he didn't outbid me. I don't even look at my auctions until they are over. --Jerry >>
Had to be 12 hours before auction end >>
Are you sure? I got an e-mail of a cancelled bid in the afternoon and the auction ended that evening. I didn't think much of it until the guy made a big deal out of it. thanks, Jerry
PS I do support the noble responsibility felt by guys who want to message buyers telling them a coin is counterfeit etc. I am approaching it from my own perspective--an honest seller.
<< <i>The fake second chance offers were a serious problem. Several years back I sold some fairly expensive photographs on eBay. In every case, underbidders were emailing me within a day asking if the second chance offer they received was legit. It wasn't. Fortunately, no one lost money as a result of those particular fake second chance offers. >>
eBay should have never allowed Second Chance offers in the first place as it was simply a hole that the Rats could crawl out of. The entire process revolves around eBay's intent of boosting sales to as many folks that bid on your auctions as possible but the reality is that the underbidder more than likely was playing a snipe in hopes that he didn't have to pay as much as he bid.
The name is LEE!
<< <i>EBAY is a example of what is wrong with business. You start off with something good then you get greedy and screw it up-- then you go broke--then your investors are screwed!!!!! >>
And then Meg Twitman gets mentioned as a potential Secretary of the Treasury.
Ok all you have to do is follow the bouncing ball.
Ebay Sucks!!
<< <i>
<< <i>The fake second chance offers were a serious problem. Several years back I sold some fairly expensive photographs on eBay. In every case, underbidders were emailing me within a day asking if the second chance offer they received was legit. It wasn't. Fortunately, no one lost money as a result of those particular fake second chance offers. >>
eBay should have never allowed Second Chance offers in the first place as it was simply a hole that the Rats could crawl out of. The entire process revolves around eBay's intent of boosting sales to as many folks that bid on your auctions as possible but the reality is that the underbidder more than likely was playing a snipe in hopes that he didn't have to pay as much as he bid. >>
Not always true, Lee. I have bought from 2nd chance offers early on in my ebay career (they were legit). I have also offered a couple when I had dupes and was debating selling the dupes or not....when the prices were right, I offered. Not all were accepted but some were.
I didn't have a problem with them, but then, I might be a little more cautious on some things than others may be.
I've been told I tolerate fools poorly...that may explain things if I have a problem with you. Current ebay items - Nothing at the moment
The second chance offer assumes one of two things:
1. The winning bidder either backed out or returned the item
2. The seller has more than one example of the item
On Number 1, the under bidder would wonder why the itme was returned if it was returned.
On Number 2, eBay has provisions for multiple item auctions
I'll state again, even though some have had success with it, eBay should have never implemented the "Second Chance" offer since this one feature can be addressed with multiple item auctions and the provision simply opened the door for less than scrupulous eBay members.
The name is LEE!
This is in response to the General Announcement titled '***A Message from John Canfield - Two Important Security Updates***' posted on October 28, 2008 | 11:56AM PST/PT.
While I understand what you're trying to do -- and I agree that reducing fraud is a Very Good Thing -- I wish you'd rethink your planned change to anonymize all bidder User IDs even after the auction has closed. I have several specific reasons that illustrate why this change would be harmful, and several suggestions for alternative approaches that should be able to reduce the harm while still providing the fraud protection that you are aiming for.
One of the strengths of eBay has always been its sense of community. By hiding the id of the winning bidder, you are essentially isolating every bidder in a community of one. I have been using eBay for more than 10 years, and I have made many friendships by communicating with other people who had interests similar to mine. If I have no way of identifying a bidder, I have no way of communicating with him. I do realize that some communication may be fraudulent, and that's exactly what you're trying to prevent, but some of it is NOT, and you've prevented the friendly emails at the same time you've prevented the fraud.
To give a specific example, several times I've contacted a winning bidder because I thought the item they won was interesting, and I wanted to know more about it. Sometimes that lets me then sell a similar item later on that I wouldn't have ever thought of listing otherwise. That is revenue that you get (via listing and final-value fees) that you would not have gotten if I hadn't been able to contact the first bidder and learn something new.
In a similar recent example, I recently contacted the winning bidder of an item and it turned out that I knew the person outside of eBay but did not know that they were an eBay member at all. Once I knew that he used eBay, I was able to point out several months later an expensive item that he was the winning bidder for and would not have seen if I didn't show it to him. As with the previous example, that is revenue that you wouldn't have gotten (via final-value fees) if I hadn't been able to contact the bidder in the first place.
As a third example, in several recent cases I've listed items for sale specifically because I knew that there were two or three bidders who were actively looking for that type of item and I would likely be able to count on a good selling price as they bid each other up. Again, that got you listing and final-value fees that you wouldn't have gotten if I chose not to list the item because I feared it wouldn't sell.
Ideally, I'd love to see you recognize that some people really can be trusted. I can think of at least three ways to identify trustworthy people. You have the ID Verify program, which sounds like it's ideal for that purpose. Beyond that, you have the user's feedback. You also know how long a user has been a member of eBay, and whether they have been regularly active during that time. For example, I have been a member of eBay for more than 10 years with a feedback of over 1000, and by now you should be confident that I know how to play within the rules. However you want to determine who is trusted, _some_ people should fall into that category. Couldn't you leave the bidder User IDs un-obfuscated for the 'trusted' users, even if they remain anonymized for the fly-by scammer?
If that is not possible, I would VERY MUCH like to see you change the info available by clicking on the obfuscated bidder IDs. Currently, a user can 'view the bidder’s Bid History page, which will detail the categories in which they’ve bid over the past 30 days'. If the bidder IDs will remain obfuscated even after the close of the auction, there is no longer any reason to hide the bids under the pretty-much-useless category titles. Please change that information so that it shows the actual items that the bidder has bid on. That still doesn't provide any way for one user to contact another, but at least it preserves a teensy little bit of the sense of community, in that at least I'd be able to see what sorts of things the other bidders are interested in.
Another approach would be to provide a way for users to contact other bidders even if their IDs are hidden. I can think of ways to do that using various disclaimers ('CAUTION! The person sending you this message may be trying to deceive you! Make sure that...'), but I don't know how many people would pay attention, no matter how dire the warnings were.
I'd still really really REALLY love for you to figure out a way to let 'trusted' users see the non-obfuscated bidder names. (And if you could do that for the non-winning bidders also, then all the better.)
PLEASE reconsider this change!
Your motivations/intentions aside, I am genuinely curious to know what makes you (or ANYONE) think that you - AS AN EBAY USER THAT HAS AGREED TO ALL OF EBAYS GUIDELINES/RULES, ETC. - have a "right" to contact ANY of eBay's customers OTHER THAN under the allowable instances as per THEIR guidelines?
Will the result of their actions be as you and others have mentioned? Of course but another point then what I put forth above.
Collecting 1970s Topps baseball wax, rack and cello packs, as well as PCGS graded Half Cents, Large Cents, Two Cent pieces and Three Cent Silver pieces.
<< <i>EBAY is a example of what is wrong with business. You start off with something good then you get greedy and screw it up-- then you go broke--then your investors are screwed!!!!! >>
At a stock hovering around 15 bucks , the path with least resistance is still down..
<< <i>fRANK "Devlin McGregor" pROVASEK,
Your motivations/intentions aside, I am genuinely curious to know what makes you (or ANYONE) think that you - AS AN EBAY USER THAT HAS AGREED TO ALL OF EBAYS GUIDELINES/RULES, ETC. - have a "right" to contact ANY of eBay's customers OTHER THAN under the allowable instances as per THEIR guidelines?
Will the result of their actions be as you and others have mentioned? Of course but another point then what I put forth above. >>
I have been a member of the Coin-Forgery-Ebay group for 2½ years. When we see a coin that we KNOW the seller does not own, stolen pictures, or coins that are obviously fake or altered, and the more recent coins in fake slabs, we have always attempted to warn the bidders and winning bidder. In some cases where the auction is private, our members have even placed $100,000 bids (and sometimes taken NPB and neg bullets for the good of the hobby) to make sure that no one gets the item.
Ebay's staff is very good at ending auctions for "unapproved slabs" or auctions where they think EAC or GSA or FBL is an "unapproved slab" ...or where someone has used an official ANA numerical grade on a raw coin, or a stock number or code shows on a 2x2 which "could be a value" But for stolen pictures, altered coins, fake raw US gold, fake slabs, they are very poor at ending these auctions in a timely manner that would protect people from being cheated.
it's all Greek to me.
``https://ebay.us/m/KxolR5
<< <i>I support this change. I have started making my high value auctions private. If the buyer wants to tell the world he's the new owner, he can.
As for shilling, it is getting rediculous the paranoia out there. I had a bidder cancel his bid 6 hours before the auction ended of a $55 item. The winner then sent me a nasty e-mail accusing me of shilling him up and then canceling when he didn't outbid me. I don't even look at my auctions until they are over. --Jerry >>
I also support the change. I never really understood why eBay buyers ever worried about shill bidders anyway. Most major auction houses never show who bid on what, and many allow consigners to bid on their own items with buy back bids. I simply bid what I am willing to pay. I either get the item or not.
Although the point will be mute when eBay makes the change, I stopped running private auctions on eBay, simply because it reduced the number of bidders. Whether I agree with others about shill bidders or not; the fact remains that bidders on eBay approach the animal differently than other venues. They are always suspicious of crooked sellers (and in many cases, the assumption is correct). Sellers that run private auctions send up a red flag, whether their intentions are good or not. Even I often shy away from those listings, unless I know the seller. Obviously, I would still bid on your listings Jerry. However, I must admit I like the idea of no one knowing it was me that paid stupid money for something I wanted bad. lol.
Just playing devil's advocate: End justifies the means? Was ANY of this done with eBay's consent? Were ANY of eBay rules violated in your vigilantly style endeavors? Was ANY effort made to get eBay's consent to your group's activities?