Ebay Bidding, a Possible reason to be more wary

[speckled wood]

I have just noticed that Ebay have revised the way that bidding information is shown and now no longer identify other bidders. I have some concern over this because in the past I have found that having information as to the identity of other bidders has shown up cases where there is possible furtive bidding aimed at raising the sale prices rather than actually aiming to buy the item, being able to follow these dubious bidders has often shown me apparent links with the sellers and give me a chance to drop out, Now it is no longer possible to do this .... because of this I have already decided in future to avoid dealing where possible with ebay sellers that I do not know and trust. It is interesting no notice just how often such items will just happen to be advertised again followinf alleged problems with "timewasters", clearly the method is being used to enforce a hidden "reserve" price and or possibly to cover up reasons for bad feedback.

Knowing that others use ebay and that some might not be wary of all the pitfalls I thought that I would mention this and also my reasons for having concern about the new system, and give others a chance to consider these issues when making bids.

Moderators please feel free to move this thread elsewhere if considered appropriate

[StuartDH]

Nothing to do with Wild About Britain so I moved it to the treehouse

[littleT]

Thanks for notifing us.

To note: We put our car up for auction on ebay, no problems, it sold then the buyer didn't want it, couldn't collect it and had an issue about payment upfront although the payment details and our location were clearly defined.
We left it a couple of months, MOT'd it when it was due then put it up again. We sold it no problems. Buyer collected next day.

The seller is able to see all bidders and when we set it up for sale we had a choice to show bidders or hide them. If this has changed then I'm not sure how we are supposed to know if we are truely bidding or being scammed to put in higher bids. I like to know as much as i can when buying over the internet, and this is another thing that I'm going to point out to others.

[Alan]

Yes it’s always good to take note of these things, but for every bad experience you hear about on ebay, and indeed all online selling, there are thousands of good ones that don’t make the news!

[speckled wood]

Originally Posted by Alan

Yes it’s always good to take note of these things, but for every bad experience you hear about on ebay, and indeed all online selling, there are thousands of good ones that don’t make the news!

Actually out of about 450 ebay deals I have had only a couple of problems ... down to me taking care, just that the revised way of showing the bids will make it harder to monitor what is going on.

[Alan]

Originally Posted by speckled wood

Actually out of about 450 ebay deals I have had only a couple of problems ... down to me taking care, just that the revised way of showing the bids will make it harder to monitor what is going on.

Nothing wrong with taking care..

Just been on there and can see the bidding history. Is it just in certain areas?

[speckled wood]

Originally Posted by Alan

Nothing wrong with taking care..

Just been on there and can see the bidding history. Is it just in certain areas?

It seems to trigger off if you make more than one bid on an item.

[littleT]

Originally Posted by Alan

Yes it’s always good to take note of these things, but for every bad experience you hear about on ebay, and indeed all online selling, there are thousands of good ones that don’t make the news!

The point I was making - exactly.
We had a bad experience and then second time round it was good.

Also was pointing out about the seller having the option to hide bidders - Is this the case here??? We allowed all bidders to be displayed, and from what I can see it's the same as it was when we sold the car 1month ago.

And 'Yes' - agree that its always a good idea to be careful, especially when you're dealing with money.