Question about eBay bid history

[ShortyBoo]

I was just looking at the bid history on one of the items I just won and instead of showing the other bidders as a few letters with *'s in the middle like normal, it says "private listing - bidders' identities protected". What exactly does this mean? Did I somehow manage to win an auction that was meant as a private listing for someone else, or is this something completely different?

[lovesbabysquirmy]

You can set your feedback be private. 

[ponylady]

LBS is right. It is just the winner of the auction has their feedback set to private so that no one knows who they are.

[ShortyBoo]

But I was the winner... The other two bidders had that message written instead of those x***x type names eBay normally lists. I did a little searching and apparently the seller sets that option, which was around long before eBay was making all the bidders' names private and is pretty much obsolete for that reason now, usually used to cover up shill bidding. Sometimes it's used by sellers of adult items, too, apparently.

Since I've been reading bluerose9978's thread about that seller using shill bidding and not really hiding it too well, I can see how the private listing would make it a lot easier to hide shill bidding. Because if you make the listings private, no one can see that the same one or two people only/mostly bid on every single one of their auctions.

[ponylady]

Sorry I misunderstood your question.

Yes, a seller can have theirs set to private, thus keeping your identity private.

[ShortyBoo]

So the seller was likely shill bidding, then. I guess they didn't want me to win the item for 99 cents.

[lovesbabysquirmy]

ooooh you can always let us know who the seller is!  PM me or the mods if you don't want to call them out publically.  I don't like that behavior and if you are suspicious that it was shill bidding, it's something to be cautious of.   

[ShortyBoo]

I don't know for sure if it was shill bidding, but from what I could find online about it on different sites and forums is that sellers only use that setting anymore either for shill bidding or for selling adult items. This seller was only selling doll items, which makes shill bidding more likely. The auction didn't end too high (my max bid was set at $10) but still... I think if I had noticed it was private before I bid, I probably wouldn't have. It just seems shady to me. At least now I'll know to look out for this.

I took a screenshot of the bid history to show exactly what I mean:

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I've won several auctions already and this was the first one like this, which is why it stood out to me.

[tulagirl]

Yea what the seller did was set the auctions up as private so the winners wouldn't be known even after the auction.  In many circles this is done for privacy and protection on more expensive and highly competitive items. Its not always an indicator of shilling.

Post Merge: May 24, 2013, 06:47:37 PM

However it can be.  Its nothing unusual. I have bid on private auctions many times.


Post Merge: May 24, 2013, 06:48:25 PM

ooooh you can always let us know who the seller is!  PM me or the mods if you don't want to call them out publically.  I don't like that behavior and if you are suspicious that it was shill bidding, it's something to be cautious of.   

I think we need to be careful assuming that just because an auction is private is not clear proof anything shady was going on at all.  In the Himstedt doll world auctions are purposely set up this way because most of the collectors know each other and its just better to keep the winners private.  It keeps the hard feelings and fighting down when you don't know who actually won.  Its not always a bad thing.

But...it can be. By looking at that auction its hard to say...they didn't really go for very high.

Post Merge: May 24, 2013, 07:04:53 PM

And in looking at the auction times and when the bids were made...its kind of odd for shilling to go that way. Usually a shiller will take you past your initial bid, not try and then wait a day or two and try again. To me thats more a bidder that doesn't want to bid up the auction to high so they can grab for low.

[himmie]

A lot of sellers, especially those that have a business account have all of their auctions set to private. Seems to be especially UK businesses.

Obviously, I do not know the seller that you're talking about but I do not think a private auction is any reason to assume the seller was doing something wrong. Plus, you can still see how many bidders/individual bids there were.

[lovesbabysquirmy]

And in looking at the auction times and when the bids were made...its kind of odd for shilling to go that way. Usually a shiller will take you past your initial bid, not try and then wait a day or two and try again. To me thats more a bidder that doesn't want to bid up the auction to high so they can grab for low.

Yeah... the bid history doesn't look like shill bidding to me.  You bid early for your max, then someone bid a few hours later, then another bid came in a day before the end...  I would think a shill bidder would bid you up right after all your bids and try to outbid your max, tempting you to bid higher.

[ShortyBoo]

Even if everyone who uses that feature isn't shill bidding, I'm still suspicious of any seller who does. It just seems sketchy. I'm just going to always check for that before bidding on anything from now on.

[lovesbabysquirmy]

I'm totally with you on this one!  I'm a HUGE stickler for transparency!