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Wide-Eyed Apprentice
 
Group: Forum Members
Last Login: 7/20/2008 6:56:36 AM
Posts: 1,
Visits: 2
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In Australia, the UK, Ireland and the Philippines, eBay has obscured auction bidding to the point that genuine bidders have got absolutely no chance of detecting and thereby protecting themselves from “shill” bidding (a criminal offence in most civilized countries) by unethical vendors.
Notwithstanding eBay’s statements to the contrary, this application of absolute anonymity (ie, Bidder 1, Bidder 2, etc) by eBay on these sites serves absolutely no purpose other than to deceive consumers by making even any otherwise blatantly obvious shill bidding undetectable; and the same criticism has always been applicable to eBay’s other shill bidders’ facility, “User ID kept private”.
My concern then is not so much with the effectively bidder-specific anonymity (“a***b (n)”) now in use in the US and elsewhere (and which still allows genuine bidders some opportunity to watch for suspicious patterns of bidding on a seller's other auctions) but with the absolute anonymity (“Bidder N”) in use in Australia, the UK, Ireland and the Philippines.
Again, notwithstanding eBay’s various pronouncements about shill bidding being banned on eBay, eBay is now, on these sites, effectively (and now knowingly) “aiding and abetting” such shill bidders to defraud consumers. [more]
For those with a longer attention span, a lengthy critical analysis of this matter appears at:
http://www.auctionbytes.com/forum/phpBB/viewtopic.php?p=6498345#6498345
I apologise in advance for the length of this linked “rant”. Needless to say eBay would not tolerate it on their discussion forums and I have spent time on eBay’s “naughty chair” for posting links to it.
If you are an unethical shill-bidding seller or a buyer who is not concerned that on the above-mentioned national sites eBay is effectively “aiding and abetting” such shill-bidding sellers to cheat you, read no further.
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Top Banana
Group: Forum Members
Last Login: 11/11/2008 12:55:36 PM
Posts: 314,
Visits: 383
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On bidder anonymity, a couple of things;
Whether a bidder is anonymous or has their information out there for everyone to see, one could argue that this doesn't help or hurt shill bidding. The reason being, it is ultimately up to ebay to take action when shill bidding takes place. The real problem is that ebay rarely enforces its policies, even during instances of blatant shill bidding rings which operate regularly on collectibles (especially coins). There have been websites dedicated to exposing shill bidding rings, petitions forwarded to ebay from hundreds of members, and in some cases even the involvement of law enforcement for high ticket items ($50,000 +).
Despite all of this, ebay rarely takes action against the shill bidders, even with overwhelming community voice alerting ebay to the practice. Even with absolute transparency and mountains of empirical evidence against those involved, ebay usually does nothing. In light of this, it hardly matters if the bidder information is kept anonymous or is public because ebay is lackadaisical about enforcing policy, even in the most extreme circumstances.
The ebay advocate will argue that keeping users anonymous is good for ebay, because it helps prevent early auction endings and the execution of business deals outside of ebay. Here they would have a good point, and it would be good for business to keep bidders anonymous.
Having said that, the practice could aid shill bidding, but the real problem with successful shills is not public or private user information, but the fact that ebay rarely enforces its policies on the matter either way.
If the situation were that ebay consistently enforced policy, and usually as a result of member complaint on public ID's, and then removed the ability for members to detect shills thereby giving a free pass to the shills, then I could see jumping on the, "don't make them anonymous" bandwagon. However this isn't the case, and the real fish to fry is that of ebay allowing shills to operate freely in their venue whether their information is public or private.
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Wide-Eyed Apprentice
Group: Forum Members
Last Login: 7/18/2008 2:18:23 PM
Posts: 1,
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| i do agree that when ebay did the anonymity thing it hurt ebay. i reported many many shill bidders. we cant do that now as you dont know who is who!
"failure is impossible"
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