Keeping bidders/buyers ID Private - Thoughts

clackamas · December 28, 2006 6:15PM

In my auctions I don't keep the bidders ID's private, nor the winners, because I had never really thought about it. Wondercoin keeps his bidders and winners private and I am not quite sure why. Feedback that is private does seem like one issue. I don't see it as a bad thing or a good thing, I am just curious, if you were going to bid on an auction would you prefer to remain annonymous or dont care? As a buyer or seller what are your thoughts?

Smitty79 · December 28, 2006 6:51PM

As a buyer, I tend to think twice before bidding on an auction with private bidders because of the possibility of shill bidding. Some sellers hide bidders IDs because of the nature of the item (might cause the buyer some embarassment). As a seller I have no reason to hide my bidders IDs because...1.) I don't sell those types of items and 2.) most of the savvy buyers on ebay are uneasy about the aforementioned possibility of shill bidding.

sonoranmonsoon · December 28, 2006 8:10PM

As I buyer, I do not care if it is private or not. I do not worry about schill bidders, as I only bid up to the amount I am willing to pay.
As a Seller, I used to have private auctions to help prevent my bidders from getting fake second chance offers. I no longer do it. It hurt my sales. Many bidders shy away from private auctions, because they worry about them being a good way to hide schill bids. I am now doing public all the way.

291fifth · December 28, 2006 8:35PM

I haven't had any problems with "Private" bidders yet, though I view them with suspicion.

As a seller, having "Private" auctions raises a red flag. I don't have any myself.

I won't bid in any auction that is "Private."

BowTieCoins2 · December 28, 2006 8:53PM

As a seller, might have given it a whirl once, or twice with in the first year on e-bay. Just to try it. But didn't really see a need or a reason to do it again.

As a buyer, I have no issue with it, I'll buy from a private auction no problem, I have the amount I'm willing pay and that's that for me.

I think its good for e-bay to give people options. Lots of different personal preferences out there to accommodate. Wouldn't ya know.

Bikingnut · December 28, 2006 8:58PM

I don't bid on any auctions where the bidders ID's are private unless I know the seller. In too many cases, I think the seller is hiding something.

Dennis

PerryHall · December 28, 2006 9:18PM

<< I won't bid in any auction that is "Private." >>

Frequently, when the seller keeps the bidder's identification private, it's to prevent others from warning the bidders that the coin is counterfeit or is misattributed or has some other major problem such as cleaning, AT, etc.

fcloud · December 28, 2006 9:22PM

To me I think of them as Private = Must be Hiding something, Public = Nothing to hide.

7over8 · December 28, 2006 11:00PM

Sellers like to keep the ID of thier customers private for a few reasons:

1) They are thier customer, so they dont want any other slimey ebay seller pitching them a deal a few bucks below thier offer price

This happens quite a bit on generic items-----just like the modern platinum or gold sets, where bidding goes on for a few days and the seller has more than one set to offer.....meaning the underbidder can be offerred a set by the seller as well.....but in non private auctions other slime balls try to "steal" the customer by contacting them and offering a set cheaper.

2) ID of buyer private on high ticket items for security reasons

I dont think anyone wants to be publicly known for buying several thousand dollar coins......for security reasons

TwoSides2aCoin · December 28, 2006 11:19PM

It's useful in some instances.
I find it a nice way to prevent others from snooping at WOULD BE buyers.

numisma · December 28, 2006 11:24PM

I do NOT agree with private ID's or feedback for any purpose.

TwoSides2aCoin · December 28, 2006 11:30PM

<< I do NOT agree with private ID's or feedback for any purpose. >>

I do

... if a coin is very expensive a "would be" buyer might not bid. Believe it, there are paranoid people out there. Some go so far as to shred every piece of paper that comes through the mail box so their name isn't out there. Ebay is no different. It is transparent and allows for others to PEEK into one's habits. Some people won't bid unless they can protect their privacy.

Joe

lathmach · December 28, 2006 11:37PM

<< I do NOT agree with private ID's or feedback for any purpose. numisma >>

Amen.

Ray

RichieURich · December 29, 2006 7:17AM

When you bid in online auctions like Heritage, Bowers & Merena, Superior, etc. the bidders are "private" except at the live auction part of the sale. But we have a level of trust that these auction houses are not shill bidding. EBay is a group of hundreds of thousands of sellers, not all of whom are trustworthy (many of which are discussed here). A private auction on eBay could be for good reasons, such as protecting the privacy of bidders, or for bad reasons, such as not allowing others to contact bidders when an auction item is counterfeit or obviously misrepresented, or to allow shill bidding to go undetected. In theory, eBay should police their auctions to detect shill bidding, but eBay's dismal record of policing bad sellers causes many people (me included) to believe that eBay doesn't do anything about shill bidding in private auctions. Therefore, many people will not bid on private auctions.

Russ · December 29, 2006 7:29AM

<< I do ... if a coin is very expensive a "would be" buyer might not bid. >>

Far more will refuse to bid because the auction is private. True or not, on eBay private auction is synonymous with scam.

Russ, NCNE

ajia · December 29, 2006 7:31AM

I once had a 'private' sale, and it had a lot to do with the topic here at the time.
Lots of discussion on whether or not folks would buy a 'problem' coin.
Of course the consensus was a resounding 'No'.
I put a cleaned/whizzed 1893-S Morgan on eBay & made it private just in case one of the members that emphatically said no wanted to change their mind.
Plus with such a high priced coin, I thought the buyer might want to stay private.
Never thought about the schilling angle.

koynekwest · December 29, 2006 7:40AM

<< 

<< I won't bid in any auction that is "Private." >>

Frequently, when the seller keeps the bidder's identification private, it's to prevent others from warning the bidders that the coin is counterfeit or is misattributed or has some other major problem such as cleaning, AT, etc. >>

My thoughts exactly.

techeff · December 29, 2006 7:45AM

This must be one of those stealth eBay threads...

Cladiator · December 29, 2006 7:53AM

<< Thoughts >>

Scam.

pharmer · December 29, 2006 8:00AM

The negative implications far outweigh any seller justifications for being private. Won't even go there.

Kaelasdad · December 29, 2006 9:38AM

I personally did not believe in private auctions until i got swamped with scammers---very good scammers, by the way. I could see these guys really messing with folks who clicked before they really looked.

The scammers went after me when I was bidding on some high dollar items. Since I also sell some high dollar items, I decided to choose the private auction route to protect my bidders, and in turn, protect me. If scammers get a few of my bidders, the scammed bidders will have no second thought about making my life miserable (since they would think they bought something from me). So, yes, private auctions can harbor shills, but they can also protect you from scammers.

Pick your auction, then look at the feedback, and see if the winners of the past privates are happy, and numerous, and different. I still dont like privates, but I have a few going all the time.

russf1 on ebay, kaelasdad here

notwilight · December 31, 2006 1:19PM

I did a poll on it and it came back one third think private auctions are scams, one third like them, and one third just wanted to see the results. I'm too lazy to look it up tonight and linkify it. It was a month ago or so. What I concluded was that there is a silent group of collectors who want their privacy. Note they don't respond to threads like this but when you let them vote anonymously, then they come out in favor of them.

Think about it. There are lots of people around who are very private with their name, let alone their address, location, SSN or any positive identification. They don't want it known that they are buying expensive coins online.

So I did a private auction for a SAE 70, 70, 69 set and got $5700 for it and was very happy. What I didn't like was that it now shows up in my feedback as a positive but you don't get to see what the item was. So while I'm building up my ebay reputation, I'm using public auctions--at least mostly.

I think wondercoins makes a lot of his lower priced auctions public. It's mostly the expensive items he makes private. He has much more experience selling these expensive items than I/we do and perhaps we could learn from him.

--Jerry

notwilight · December 31, 2006 1:21PM

Forgot to mention, this will soon be a non-issue as ebay is planning to make all auctions for expensive items private by posting the bids as bidder 1, bidder 2, bidder 3, etc. They've already done it in europe and on ebay motors.

--Jerry

airedale · December 31, 2006 1:58PM

I only did it once and then the opening bid was over $10,000.00. My feedback is 1700+ 99.9 good.

RBinTex · December 31, 2006 2:34PM

Private autions are shilled & anyone (that runs them) that professes that they aren't are liars.

But seriously, the few marginal reasons why they might be advantageous (noted below) are FAR outweighed by the disadvantages (not noted but the appearance of being a shiller/scammer is obvious).

Possible reasons to use one them:

1. Avoid people contacting your bidders to badmouth you &/or your item for sale.

2. Avoid people contacting your bidders to try to steal your sale away from you.

3. To provide privacy just to placate the ultra-paranoid idiot fringe out there (w/respect to what "expensive" items they are buying for fear of robbery or something ridiculous like that).

4. To provide privacy to help people that just don't want other buyers to know they jumped on an item they promised a "friend" that they'd lay off of.

5. To provide privacy to help people that don't want other dealers to know that they're getting that coin they have on their (the other dealers wantlist) from you.

6. To provide privacy to help people to keep secret what registry upgrade(s) they are getting/got a hold of.

7. To prevent letting other sellers know (other than the fear of an immediate steal away from you noted in #2 above) who your customers are.

8. To prevent other buyers from knowing that you selling to their "arch-enemy".

9. To provide privacy to someone that doesn't want their significant other to find out what they're buying (assuming that person does NOT have access to login info for the "protectee").

notwilight · December 31, 2006 2:46PM

<< Private autions are shilled & anyone (that runs them) that professes that they aren't are liars.

But seriously, the few marginal reasons why they might be advantageous are FAR outweighed by the disadvantages. >>

Of course you're entitled to that opinion and I respect it. I assume you respect the approximately equal number of people who responded to my poll with the opposite opinion...but because people with your opinion are much more vocal than those with the opposite opinion it is much easier to make my auctions not-private and not worry about it...

I think because we blow every dishonest ebay auction we find into a 500 post thread we forget that 99.44 percent of them are honest.

--jerry

RBinTex · December 31, 2006 2:48PM

"...I assume you respect the approximately equal number of people who responded to my poll with the opposite opinion..."

Uhhhh, that would be a NO!

Keeping bidders/buyers ID Private - Thoughts

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