Ebay Australia making some changes - is the US next?
Michigan
Posts: 4,942 ✭
This isn't good IMO. A big can of worms could be opened.
Hello, this is Alastair MacGibbon, Trust & Safety Director for eBay Australia and New Zealand.
Since eBay began, it’s been our job to balance the need for openness and transparency in the marketplace, with the need to protect our Community of members from the threats that have emerged as the internet has grown. The success of the Community shows we’ve had that balance right.
Member IDs – and member information such as feedback and previous bidding and/or buying activity – have always been freely available to anyone visiting the site. Unfortunately, while bid history and contact information is helpful when evaluating a transaction, criminals can use this information for potentially harmful purposes.
One way they use this information is to send unwanted commercial spam, spoof emails, and fake Second Chance Offer emails.
Despite industry leading efforts to educate the Community about online safety partnering with law enforcement and industry groups, and behind the scenes investments in technology that make the site safer, the problem has not gone away.
Increasingly, sellers and buyers have turned to us for a solution.
Introducing the Safeguarding Member IDs project
This change offers more privacy for our members by displaying enough information about the other bidders involved in an auction-style listing for them to feel confident in placing a bid, without revealing actual User IDs.
The bidder information for listings where the bid is lower than AUD$250 will remain the same, however when the high bid of an auction-style listing exceeds AUD$250 or greater here’s what will change:
1. Bid History Page
We’ll replace bidders' Member IDs with aliases (such as Bidder 1, Bidder 2 and Bidder 3, etc) in the order of their bids placed.
For each bidder there will be a link to a new Bidding Details page where we will display:
The number of bids in unique categories that they’ve placed
A range that their feedback score falls within (i.e. 10-49, for instance)
Their percentage of positive feedback
Their length of time as an eBay member and the number of bids they’ve placed on the item.
At the end of a listing, the winning bidder’s User ID will be displayed on the item page.
Note: Sellers will still be able to access standard bidder information on their listings through the Bid History page and the My eBay selling table.
2. My eBay
Members will no longer have access to the high-bidder column from bid and watch tables.
3. Item page
You will only be able to see the high-bidder ID if you are the signed-in seller of the item or the signed-in high bidder.
4. Advanced Search by Bidder link
We will only show completed listings within the last 30 days.
Future enhancements are being designed that will provide even more transaction data about the bidders and seller involved in a transaction. We’ll continue to update the community on these changes as these plans become finalised.
To learn more, please read our Frequently Asked Questions.
Hello, this is Alastair MacGibbon, Trust & Safety Director for eBay Australia and New Zealand.
Since eBay began, it’s been our job to balance the need for openness and transparency in the marketplace, with the need to protect our Community of members from the threats that have emerged as the internet has grown. The success of the Community shows we’ve had that balance right.
Member IDs – and member information such as feedback and previous bidding and/or buying activity – have always been freely available to anyone visiting the site. Unfortunately, while bid history and contact information is helpful when evaluating a transaction, criminals can use this information for potentially harmful purposes.
One way they use this information is to send unwanted commercial spam, spoof emails, and fake Second Chance Offer emails.
Despite industry leading efforts to educate the Community about online safety partnering with law enforcement and industry groups, and behind the scenes investments in technology that make the site safer, the problem has not gone away.
Increasingly, sellers and buyers have turned to us for a solution.
Introducing the Safeguarding Member IDs project
This change offers more privacy for our members by displaying enough information about the other bidders involved in an auction-style listing for them to feel confident in placing a bid, without revealing actual User IDs.
The bidder information for listings where the bid is lower than AUD$250 will remain the same, however when the high bid of an auction-style listing exceeds AUD$250 or greater here’s what will change:
1. Bid History Page
We’ll replace bidders' Member IDs with aliases (such as Bidder 1, Bidder 2 and Bidder 3, etc) in the order of their bids placed.
For each bidder there will be a link to a new Bidding Details page where we will display:
The number of bids in unique categories that they’ve placed
A range that their feedback score falls within (i.e. 10-49, for instance)
Their percentage of positive feedback
Their length of time as an eBay member and the number of bids they’ve placed on the item.
At the end of a listing, the winning bidder’s User ID will be displayed on the item page.
Note: Sellers will still be able to access standard bidder information on their listings through the Bid History page and the My eBay selling table.
2. My eBay
Members will no longer have access to the high-bidder column from bid and watch tables.
3. Item page
You will only be able to see the high-bidder ID if you are the signed-in seller of the item or the signed-in high bidder.
4. Advanced Search by Bidder link
We will only show completed listings within the last 30 days.
Future enhancements are being designed that will provide even more transaction data about the bidders and seller involved in a transaction. We’ll continue to update the community on these changes as these plans become finalised.
To learn more, please read our Frequently Asked Questions.
0
Comments
I guess it doesn't bug me too much, but it does take a lot of the "fun" out of eBay. Makes shilling easier, too, I would think.
im shocked!
Is the US next? I suspect that this is a trial baloon. If the Australians meekly accept it, it will spread.
<< <i>Increasingly, sellers and buyers have turned to us for a solution. >>
Straight from the Be-Careful-What-You-Wish-For Department.
<< <i>1. Bid History Page
We’ll replace bidders' Member IDs with aliases (such as Bidder 1, Bidder 2 and Bidder 3, etc) in the order of their bids placed. >>
Guarantees that shills will be hard at work bidding stuff up into the range where they become anonymous. So much for transparency in the marketplace. This will do a lot of damage to legitimate sellers of the $150+ stuff.
It's clear that eBay has adopted the "Bloated Government Bureaucracy" business model wherein there is no place for common sense, only more rules and more fees. They need to eliminate second chance offers altogether and make e-mail addresses availble only to sellers, and only of the winning bidders. There should not be a way to harvest e-mail addresses from eBay. Encourage communication through "my eBay" by actually making it possible to communicate with others.
Keeper of the VAM Catalog • Professional Coin Imaging • Prime Number Set • World Coins in Early America • British Trade Dollars • Variety Attribution
<< <i>As fas as I'm concerned......it's Delcampe time - www.delcampe.com - An alternative to "Flea-Bay"! >>
It won't help. Sites like Delcampe remain "pure" only through their obscurity. If Delcampe ever became big enough to actually be a viable alternative to eBay, it would also become just as fraud-ridden as eBay.
Nope, the only solution is for the consumer to educate themself about fraud. This forum is very quick to point out all the red flags whenever an auction is listed -- yet some dolts keep buying that stuff from China. As the man said, "You can't cheat an honest man" -- much eBay fraud has "criminals" on both sides of the transaction: the guy selling the crap, and the other guy thinking he can either take advantage of a n00b, or that he can resell the crap to the Greater Fool. Delcampe or whereever else people flock to if they leave eBay will take these types along with them, and years hence we'll be complaining about them too.
Paraphrasing Churchill, eBay is the worst of online auction sites, excepting of course, all others.
By ebay making all expensive auctions private, it takes the decision away from the seller and removes him from suspicion (on this count, at least). I think there is a large silent faction, perhaps not a majority but significant, who is quietly in great favor of anonymity as a coin collector. They don't want people to know they collect expensive things. Their profiles are often empty here and they don't even comment on threads like this. You don't know their ebay IDs, their real names, or their locations. I want to respect their desire for privacy and at the same time not appear to be hiding anything. This seems to do both.
--Jerry
<< <i>As fas as I'm concerned......it's Delcampe time - www.delcampe.com - An alternative to "Flea-Bay"! >>
I'm all for competition and hope that more than one auction site becomes popular since this will keep ebay fees down. However, many of the problems ebay has faced are still ahead for a new company. OTOH, all the problems that have been made public may be solved based on ebay's experience thus ruducing costs for the startup.
But I don't agree that any alternative is a good alternative. Don't fall victim to the human fallacy to hate all things big and rich (like Microsoft).
--Jerry
Russ, NCNE
<< <i>
<< <i>As fas as I'm concerned......it's Delcampe time - www.delcampe.com - An alternative to "Flea-Bay"! >>
I'm all for competition and hope that more than one auction site becomes popular since this will keep ebay fees down. However, many of the problems ebay has faced are still ahead for a new company. OTOH, all the problems that have been made public may be solved based on ebay's experience thus ruducing costs for the startup.
But I don't agree that any alternative is a good alternative. Don't fall victim to the human fallacy to hate all things big and rich (like Microsoft).
--Jerry >>
Just remember, bigger is not better, as "Flea-Bay" has shown. And don't forget, there is always Yahoo! Auctions, too.