Private bidder Not listed?

[sweetylang]

Huh? I lost this auction to this bidder? What rules for this? Did I truely lose this auction to a real legit bidder? Or was it the seller, because this very same item is now listed again by this seller for auction in the same add format, in 2 days, ..humm,

[Cupid]

I'm not really sure what you mean?

Can you give us the auction number that you are talking about?

It has not been possible to see the full bidders identities in ebay for some years now... just an indication of their feedback rating and recent activity.

All users are also allowed to hide their feedback rating and comments these days, not many do so though.

You are not allowed to sell items if your feedback profile is private.

ebay will not allow you to use the same id as you sell with to bid on that item... and if they detect a seller bidding on their own items they will ban them and close both accounts... you can sometimes detect what is known as shill bidding (bidding on your own items) but ebay does not make it as easy as it used to be... if you do detect it you can report it to ebay and they will investigate further... I have done so on a few occasions.
_________________
Mark

[sweetylang]

private listing - bidders' identities protected US $26.07
Dec-17-12 09:51:22 PST

private listing - bidders' identities protected US $26.05
Dec-17-12 10:36:46 PST

Starting Price US $24.99

Funny this copy shows my bid private listing, when actually it listed my name NOT PRIVATE LISTING, with the $26.05 bid!!! What is going on? This is more suspicious. My bid of 26.05 listed my name(sweetylang) origionally after auction posted.

Auction # 400365648157

I am suspicious about this, because this item had no bids, mine was in, and i do know it could have sold for more, but my bid was over the starting bid. This item turns around back on auction. I sent the seller a message 3 yrs before this auction ended offering her $3. less saying I notice there are no offers. Reply to me was "no, not at this time". Then I sent another message after I see how this auction went, saying I believe she took it off, and she said No, she would have had to do that 24 hrs before the auction ended.

[sweetylang]

private listing - bidders' identities protected US $26.07
Dec-17-12 09:51:22 PST

sweetylang( 20) US $26.05
Dec-17-12 10:36:46 PST

Starting Price US $24.99

Now it show this auction this way, what is going on?

[Gixen]

[mario]

I guess it depends on whether you are logged in to ebay or not?

[Cupid]

Yes, Mario is right... if you are logged into ebay on the account that made the bid you can see that it is you that made that bid even on a private listing... log out again or log into a different ebay account and you can't see who's bid it was. I can only ever see that bid as 'private listing - bidders' identities protected' no matter if I am logged in or not.

OK... I know what you are talking about now... and it is not what I was talking about at all... this is an option selected by the seller when they listed the item... I am not really sure what benefit ebay think they are providing in allowing that option... when the seller receives feedback on that item you still can't tell who the buyer was. Other than the seller, the buyer and, of course, ebay themselves, no-one else can ever see who the buyer of that item was... I guess that is an advantage if it is an item that people might be embarrassed that they are buying or want to make sure that no-one that knows them will ever find out that they bought so will select listings that are 'private' in this sense.

Personally, I don't like the option, I agree with your suspicion that it enables sellers to more easily hide shilling activities and other illegal activity such as selling multiple versions/copies of bootlegged/fake copyrighted/trademarked items.

The prevalence of shill bidding on ebay caused me to also stop accepting any 'Second Chance' offers some years ago.

If you suspect that the bidding is fraudulent... I don't have enough evidence from what you have shown us to know whether it looks suspicious or not... you can go to the original listing and report it to ebay... you first select the 'Report item' link then the options to select are 'Listing Practices' -> 'Fraudulent listing activities' and then 'Seller is using other accounts to inflate the item price'... then select the the 'Continue' button and then the 'Send Report' button.

ebay will never tell you the result of any investigation that they make though or tell you what action they took.
_________________
Mark

[sweetylang]

Ok, I did call Ebay, and they are doing an internel investigation. And yes, they said they will not tell me the results. Was talking to them as good as following the steps you outlined? Because when I tried to report this threw the outline, it did not give me the option to write what the issue was, so I just called them.
Funny thing, is, now this 2nd auction was withdrawed early for I forget what reason it said. Maybe you can explain what it means, 230899110634(then it made reference to "this origional auction", hmm?) Im really confused, and I wonder if Ebay will really do what they promised me on the phone.

[sweetyang]

Here is the new listing, right after the 1st auction I lost by 2 cents. Less than half a day, this new message appears:


This listing was ended by the seller because the item is no longer available.
Thirty-One Gifts Medium Utility Tote - Brand new in package - BLACK HAPPY DOT
See original listing


Item condition:New without tags
Ended: Dec 17, 2012 19:57:28 PST
Price:US $29.99
Shipping: FREE Standard Shipping
Item location:Batavia, Illinois, United States
Seller:
qboeba (19987 )

I read in the sellers rules, once posted, they cannot change the ending date of the auction. This auction was origionally posted a day ago, and was to last over 2 days. So how could she withdrawel this auction early?

[Cupid]

Sellers are allowed to end auctions early, this is what has happened here... they are allowed to do that for a number of reasons, they may sell it elsewhere, it may get damaged etc.

The reference to the 'original listing' is just to the auction page in the format that it was in before the auction ended, not to the previous auction which you lost.

I have no idea whether ebay follow up on their promises to follow up on discussions that they have with us as buyers... I would guess that occasionally they do, most other times they may not... I base that on knowing that there are a few traders that no longer appear on ebay after I have reported them... most of the time I see no action taken at all though.

I think it takes many people having issues with a seller before ebay takes any real notice... and that is probably triggered automatically most of the time not as a result of individual conversations that the Support Staff have with customers. That doesn't stop me reporting things that I see as wrong, because if more people did then I think more would be done to stop the poor practice/rule breaking and downright illegal activity on ebay... I see it as a civic duty to report it when I see it.

Having said all that the vast a majority of sellers are fine and coming right back to the auctions we are talking about there doesn't seem to be any evidence, that we can see, that the seller has done anything wrong... and if they have only ebay will be able to detect it... so, since you have already reported your suspicions, I would just move on if I were you.
_________________
Mark