Another interesting eBay change of policy
 

Looks like it's going to be harder to track shill bidding... I was following an auction on a KG 'vert and discovered this:

http://offer.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewBids&item=140054027466

As the internet evolves, eBay continues to strike a balance between preserving transparency and protecting our Community of members. eBay has decided to change how bid history information is displayed so bad guys cannot target bidders with fake offers using this information. In certain cases, some bidders will no longer be able to view Bidder User IDs on the Bid History page. Your User ID will be shown only to you and the seller of the item you're bidding on. Other members will see an anonymous name, such as Bidder 1, applied consistently to the Bid History page.

I noticed that the other day. What a bunch of crap.

Agreed. What's the point? eBay still wins from shill bidding, so why stop it.

ebay..a good idea gone (and still going) bad....

I think it's a good thing; fake "second chance" offers have become epidemic and they had to do it. As for "tracking shill bidding", who cares? I will pay what I will pay for something, and that is it. Just like the sniping threads here, it is an irrelevant issue to me.

How exactly do you track shill bidding anyways? How do you know which bidder is a shill?

And why not just set your reserve correctly? Why do sellers feel like they need to shill bid?

b/c even if you set your reserve correctly, you can still make even more money by shill bidding it higher.

Here's one way. Busted!

Actually, I like the new system:
- Very easy to see if competing bids are new members and maybe shill bidders
- Also very easy to see the % of bids that bidders have placed on sellers auction in past. Again - possible shill bidder detection.
- No bogus second chance offers

AM

It's so easy to just blame eBay (or Bush). However, it seems that most of the problems generally involve a buyer or a seller not holding up their end of the deal.

I've had over 500 transactions (over seven years) buying and selling on eBay. The only troublesome transactions were when buyers didn't pay. I filed the Non-Paying Bidder stuff with eBay, got my fees back, re-listed and life goes on.

I've also rec'd a product that wasn't quite advertised correctly that the seller refused to take back. It was a $15 item and not worth the hassle.

In those cases, I don't see how I can blame eBay for providing their service.

The same goes for many bad transactions that we hear about. Cars being sold that turn out to be not as advertised - anyone ever hear of a PPI? Or, getting ripped off by a new seller with little or no feedback - come on guys, "Buyer Beware" is not a new concept!

Problems aside, I have been able to unload a few things for $ that would normally still be sitting in the garage or get thrown/given away sometime down the road.

If a con man calls your grandma or sends her a letter that gets her to give him money, is it the Postal Service or Telephone companies fault?

Shill bidding is the very reason most distrust 2nd chance offers. The shill keeps uping the bid hoping that the other party follows. If they go too far, the shill who wins backs out and the 2nd chance offer goes to the other party. Usually can push the price way over a reserve if the party really wants it.

How? You have no way to research their history!

Now you can - by moving the mouse over the view bidder in the list bids area, it shows details such as:
When they registered
Feedback rating
What they have bid on
How many auctions they have bid on with this seller
How many bids they have made on auctions listed by this seller
If you click on details, it will even show how much time is left when they typically bid.
etc

http://offer.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewBids&item=220042252118

AM

It does matter, in some contexts.

For porsche parts being sold to us, not so much, since most of us know the value.

But a lot of people who don't have as much knowledge about the particular item use past eBay auctions as a guide, assuming that it accurately reflects the market for the item. For many things, it is difficult or pretty much impossible to use any other source to establish a market value, because they are only very lightly traded anywhere other than eBay.

Shill bidding artificially skews the market. Particularly over time.

Smart people like us only pay what we'll pay. But if you've ever sold on eBay, you know that many or most aren't smart like us, and bidding wars happen all the time. Shills are unfair (the are prohibited) and take advantage of those people.