eBay introduces absolute anonymity for (shill) bidders

[PhilipCohen]

eBay introduces absolute anonymity for (shill) bidders

15 March 2008; last revised 30 April 2008

A comment principally on the whole-of-auction absolute anonymity of bidders recently introduced to Australia and more recently to the U.K. (and undoubtedly coming to the U.S. soon) by eBay, including responses to the various, sometimes nonsensical, statements being offered by eBay in support of this decision—with apologies to all the shill bidders out there—plus some comment on some other less material aspects of eBay’s online interface.

For those of you with a very short attention span I will summarise my comments on my principal concern, the issue of “shill” bidding:

It is said that “Justice must not only be done; it must also be seen to be done.”

It follows therefrom that “eBay must not only be free from shill bidders; users must also be able to see for themselves that it is free from shill bidders.”

Putting aside for the moment eBay’s long-existing and classic “shill-bidders’ hide” facility, the “private” auction, if eBay thinks that making all bidding aliases absolutely anonymous (ie, “Bidder x”) will not make shill bidding easier or that experienced eBay users will now trust eBay, of its own volition, to rid eBay of the shill bidding that will undoubtedly now run rampant, then eBay management is living on a different planet to that on which I reside, and I have no doubt that such absolute anonymity will ultimately have a detrimental effect on eBay’s business.

Actually, they are on a different planet: they have already stated elsewhere that “… we do not immediately remove a member from our site if shill bidding is detected” because eBay believes “… that people are basically good and sometimes people need an opportunity to be educated instead of removed” (ie, eBay needs to protect its revenue stream). The problem with this policy is that it appears that the only shill bidding eBay is ever going to recognise is that which is blatant and habitual; such sellers do not deserve and should not get further chances. And, what about the extra consideration these shill-bidding cheats have taken from unsuspecting buyers who have bought in good faith (and trusted eBay)?

Contrary to their claims, it would appear that eBay does not have any automated processes for the detection of shill bidding (we all can direct eBay to obvious instances of such activity); eBay appears to rely solely on the reporting of such suspected activity by users—yet by the application of absolute anonymity of bidders eBay has removed the eBay user’s capacity to readily notice such activity ... Dah!

eBay’s claim that the new summary of bidder-specific statistics overcomes this problem is a nonsense. eBay claims that “the eBay management team carefully considered this situation prior to rolling out to the site”, and the supply of this anonymous bidder-specific information may sound like a good idea in theory; in practice this information is an ambiguous, confusing, and pointless set of statistics: it can actually make a genuine bidder look like a shill.

Frankly, it is impossible to avoid the conclusion that the real purpose for eBay moving to absolute anonymity (ie, “Bidder x”), or from bidder-specific anonymity (ie, “a***b (x)”) to absolute anonymity, can only be to further obscure any shill bidding so that it is much more difficult for buyers to notice it and as a consequence eBay will not have to expend any ergs doing anything about it. I challenge anyone (eBay robots included) to offer any other logical explanation.

I would not be surprised if eBay could not be held to be criminally complicit for “aiding and abetting” in any shill bidding that can be proven as eBay, for what would appear to me to be a petty, if not a disingenuous reason, has chosen to lessened the capacity (to practically zero) for buyers themselves to be on the alert for and thereby attempt to protect themselves from such despicable activity.

If the various governmental “Offices of Fair Trading” have any backbone they should have the power to make eBay undo this absolute anonymity nonsense as the simple fact is even a half-wit could appreciate that the change from unique bidder-specific anonymous aliases to totally anonymous non-unique bidder aliases serves no purpose other than as a blatant hide for shill bidding—in which eBay appears happy to be complicit.

For those of you with a longer attention span, the following is the detail of this and some other matters:

I have bought many more items than I have sold on eBay so this comment is primarily from a buyer’s perspective. I am most unimpressed with eBay’s decision to now make all auction bids absolutely anonymous, and the various reasons given for this decision I find unconvincing. Indeed, the principal reason given, supposedly to protect buyers from fake “second chance offers”, is far outweighed by the field day this decision creates for shill bidders from whose activities buyers will now have greatly reduced means of becoming aware and thereby protecting themselves.

I have in the past corresponded at length on the matter of shill bidding with the “robots” at eBay Customer Support and, frankly, the experiences have invariably been very frustrating and unsatisfying. I have formed the opinion that eBay does not have any automated processes, let alone the “sophisticated” tools that eBay claims to have, for the detection of shill bidding.

I appreciate that investigating user reports of shill bidding requires the expenditure of some ergs; but eBay has a moral and (in Australia at least) a statutory obligation to stop shill bidding whenever eBay becomes aware of such activity, and it follows that eBay has a responsibility to not, by their actions, make the lot of shill bidders any easier—no matter how unintentional such an effect may be.

Unfortunately, my experience with eBay is such that I have formed the opinion that eBay is in reality little concerned about this activity, and indeed eBay’s responses to my reporting of such activity in the past have habitually been to initially deny that such activity is taking place and it is only after much kicking and screaming and threatening that eBay has finally taken any action against a shill bidding seller.

Shill bidding brings no financial disadvantage to eBay; indeed it potentially increases the listing and selling fees that eBay receives, and this decision to now make all bids absolutely anonymous will, intentionally or otherwise, very effectively hide such criminal activity and will stop potential buyers from being able to notice and report same.

As a consequence of this decision, eBay will no longer have to worry about shill bidding or do anything about it as genuine bidders can’t detect and report that which it is no longer possible for them to be on guard against. Considering the fact that eBay has made the absurd statement: “… this initiative [absolute anonymity of bidders] has no impact on shill bidding [and] there is no correlation between hidden IDs and shill bidding,” one has to wonder if this whole exercise is not simply a disingenuous move to remove shill bidding from view and thereby simplify matters for eBay.

A very unsatisfactory situation from a buyer’s point of view. I don’t like being cheated, I don’t like watching others being unknowingly cheated and I particularly don’t like the appearance that eBay is so indifferent to such cheating. Clearly, from a buyer’s point of view, eBay has now become a not so “safe and fun place to trade.”

On 26 February, on the eBay Workshop Board michelleoz@ebay.com, in anticipation, posed a question and responded thereto:

“Won’t the recent changes to ‘safeguarding member IDs’ allow more shill bidding to take place?

“No—the changes will not make shill bidding any easier.
“Our experience is that the detailed information provided on the buyer, and how it is presented, has been more useful to members of the community who report such activity. That is, we still get good quality member reports.
“Furthermore, ebay continues to monitor the back end of the site using both data provided by members and also data captured from members as they transact on the site.
“And ebay continues to adapt registration and account activity rules to make the site safer overall.
“Shill bidding is banned by ebay for good reasons: it hurts buyers (who see less value—one of the major drivers for internet purchases) and also hurts legitimate sellers. Any person who argues that ebay wants shill bidding to drive up revenue through inflated final value fees is way off the mark.”

The first sentence of this answer (“No—the changes will not make shill bidding any easier.”) is a patently absurd statement; of course bidder anonymity makes shill bidding easier—as it would so do at any personally attended live auction—just as the absolute anonymity offered by eBay’s “private” auction facility has already enabled shill bidders to operate on eBay apparently with little fear of detection (see “bmw scan tool” below)—notwithstanding eBay’s dubious claim of having “sophisticated tools” for the detection thereof.

And, at an attended live auction (assuming the auctioneer is not complicit in the activity: flies on the wall have been known to make bids) a shill bidder risks having to pay the auctioneer’s full selling commission and a buyer’s premium to boot; no such risk with eBay: if the naughty “buyer” does not pay then the seller pays only the nominal listing fee. What better argument can there be for eBay to revert to the transparency that had been a hallmark of the their online auction process from its beginning.

And, to the contrary, the “detailed information provided on the buyer” now supplied is not more useful: you really can’t expect the majority of the sheep that graze on the eBay slopes to be interested in sifting through multiple pages of such “detailed” information to try and ascertain whether or not a competing bidder is a shill—assuming they are aware of such activity in the first place.

I am certainly not interested in doing so; I prefer to be able to put a “face” on another bidder, so that I can more easily make that judgment. I use a third-party auction processing programme to keep track of eBay auction activity that is/was of interest to me (with no 90-day limit) and I can manipulate that data (like an Excel spreadsheet): previously, that gave me a chance of noticing any suspicious patterns of bidding—but no more, now.

Having said that, and not wanting to appear negative, no matter what, to any suggestion of change, the “Bid activity (%) with this seller” on the Bid History Details page, at first appearance, may appear to be of some use in some circumstances but any usefulness is severely limited by the fact that it is a summary of only the past 30 days.

I accept that the compilation of the Bidder Information data is more complex than simply storing and incrementing a count of a buyer’s feedback but why is this “30-Day Summary” not a summary of at least the previous 90–120 days—ie, for the whole of the period that past auction details remain available on/to eBay?

If that was the case and an indication of that “Bid activity (%) with this seller” figure appeared on the Bid History page and, better still, also for the current high bidder on the primary auction page (eg, “Bidder x (x [graphic] x%)”)—notwithstanding the basic objection to the absolute anonymity of the Australian alias, “Bidder x”, as opposed to the unique alias, “a***b (x)”, used elsewhere in the world and which offers some opportunity for checking for any habitual appearance of a particular bidder on a seller’s other auctions—that might well be of some usefulness in detecting shill bidding by regular eBay sellers.

Unfortunately, this type of summary is of little use when a bidder is only an occasional buyer and may well cause other potential bidders to mistakenly suspect that a genuine non-regular bidder is a shill; and that is made even more likely now in Australia because, unlike elsewhere, the alias currently used in Australia (“Bidder x”) does not include the total feedback count, but only the new-member symbol or the vague feedback “star” symbols (the meanings of the various colours of which I can never remember).

Why does Australia—unlike the U.S.—now use only the vague feedback symbols and not the actual feedback count for describing bidders—particularly in lists? At least Australia does not—yet—use the Australian form of alias to declare the winning bidder (we still get the actual ID which gives us a chance of spotting shills after—but not before the event); such absolute anonymity for the winning bidder as well would, once again, bring certain joy to the shill bidders.

Nor do I understand the use, in the U.S., of the feedback count in combination with the vague feedback symbols; surely it’s the actual count that counts. I don’t understand the logic of having so many variations in the information supplied between the various eBay national sites.

With respect to the “Bids to [the number of] unique sellers” count that appears uniquely in the Australian anonymous “30-Day Bid Summary”, this statistic represents only the number of unique sellers with whom the bidder has placed bids, and “Items bid on” represents just that; neither represents feedback (the indicator of supposedly completed transactions) and these are therefore pointless statistics except, possibly, if these counts appears to be way out of balance with any feedback count (by their nature shill bidder’s are going to nibble, not snipe), it could indicate that someone may have been placing small bids on other sellers’ auctions in an attempt to create the appearance of genuineness when laying the groundwork for shill bidding may be the intent.

Unfortunately, that analysis can only be done for bidders who are “a new eBay member, less than 30 days” as that is the only time that the feedback number time frame will be comparable with the statistics in the 30-Day Summary. In summary, an ambiguous, confusing, pointless set of statistics.

For example, see the high-priced item 300194283130; Bidder 7 (a “nibble” bidder): on 2 March, was “a new eBay member, less than 30 days”; Items bid on: 22; Bids to unique sellers: 18; but still zero feedback: 0/22—a very unlucky bidder: losing that many auctions can’t be much fun! A look at the Bid History for this same bidder for the, now finished, same auction on 13 March (11 days later) the stats are: Bids on this item: 5; Total bids: 96; Items bid on: 49 (up 27); Bid activity (%) with this seller: 5%; Bids to unique sellers: 31 (up 13); at least the feedback, now described in the vague “1 to 9” terms, suggests that this bidder has finally bought something. However, 5% of 96 equals 5 (bids on this particular item) whereas 96 divided by 49 equals only 2 (average bids on the other 48 auctions): what does all that tell you, if anything? And, Bidder 5 (another “nibbler”) on this auction is now tagged as “Not a registered user”; what conclusions does one draw from that?

And another example: Bidder 4 on eBay item 370039573326 (ended 7 April) is another very unlucky “nibble” bidder. Bidder Information: Feedback: 100 to 499 • 100% Positive; Registered on eBay: Between 4 and 5 years; Bids on this item: 3. 30-Day Summary: Total bids: 132; Items bid on: 90; Bid activity (%) with this seller: 100%; Bids to unique sellers: 1; Bids in unique categories: 7. On 9 April this seller had 188 items listed. Put then in simpler terms so that even we simple buyers can understand, in the last 30 days this “Bidder 4” made 132 bids on 90 items (equal to half the total number of items listed by this seller) with this one and only seller alone. What conclusions does one draw from that? Apparently, eBay is not convinced that shill bidding is involved. If you can comprehend that form of logic you can believe anything. And, if eBay’s attitude is not tantamount to being complicit in such shill bidding, I cannot imagine what could be so considered.

Previously, when such bidder anonymity was not activated until bidding reached USD180/AUD250 (whatever) it was still possible to watch for suspicious bidding activity early in the auction. Now, after observing a number of auctions since anonymity has been introduced for the whole of the auction, I have formed the opinion, that such whole-of-auction anonymity, particularly that with the absolutely anonymous form of alias used in Australia (“Bidder x”), is nothing more than an outrageously effective hide for shill bidders. I challenge anyone (eBay-programmed robots excluded) to make the same observations of bidder activity and the bidder information now supplied and argue otherwise.

And then there is the situation where bidders apparently can choose to keep their “feedback” private (ie, “[alias] (private)”). What is the point of having feedback if a bidder can choose to hide it? What is the point of having feedback, particularly, if an anonymous bidder can choose to hide it? Presumably it is not hidden from the seller, only from other bidders. What possible purpose can there be for the hiding of feedback at any time—except possibly for the obscuring of shill bidding?

Then there is “private” auction facility: If ever there was a scheme principally designed to hide scoundrels this is it! It should be borne in mind that it is the seller—not the bidder—who chooses to use the “private” auction (what I call the “eBay shill bidder’s paradise tool”). Why is it not the individual bidder who may choose such anonymity, if they desire it, when bidding on a high-value item? Of course, the obvious answer to that is that the shill bidder then could still individually choose such anonymity—but it’s far better for the shill-bidding seller to have this choice as he can then better hide his shill bids amongst the genuine bids—if indeed there are any genuine bids—when all bids are kept private (do an eBay search for “bmw scan tool” for a good example). If, as is claimed by eBay, this facility is to protect the identity of bidders on high-priced items then there should at least be a substantial minimum starting value qualification ($5000?); and even then this facility has to be viewed with great suspicion. Frankly, now that we have general bidder anonymity, this classic “shill bidders’ hide facility” should be done away with completely!

I am afraid the decision-makers at eBay (particularly in Australia) use a different form of logic to that which I instinctively use; the whole premise that absolute anonymity of bidders is the only, or even the best, way to protect buyers from fake second chance offers is a nonsense. There is none of this absolute anonymity—yet—on the U.S. or European sites, and with the form of alias currently being there used being a contraction of the actual bidder ID [ie, “a***b (x)”]—a potential buyer has still got some chance of noticing if another bidder is, or has been, active in a questionable manner on a particular seller’s other auctions.

This observation cannot be made with aliases that are neither unique nor consistent—as is the case with the aliases currently being used in Australia (ie, “Bidder x”). And the use of such absolute anonymity will undoubtedly further “aid and abet” shill bidders—anyone who thinks otherwise is either being disingenuous or is a fool. Do I then believe that, in lieu, eBay will now, of its own volition, step up to the plate and better detect and act against such shill bidders? Not on your Nelly!

And on the same workshop venue danieloz@ebay.com responded to a questioner asking if there is any “publishable data to back up the claims that second chance offers are such a problem, or that shilling has not in fact increased since the introduction of “hidden” bidder IDs for bids >$250?”:

“It is difficult for us to get accurate data on second chance offers because this activity happens outside of eBay’s systems and is not always reported to us.
“However, I can assure you that eBay wouldn’t have lowered the limit to $0 when hiding bidder IDs if the results from the initial launch over a year ago weren’t positive.
“Once again, this initiative has no impact on shill bidding. There is no correlation between hidden IDs and shill bidding.”

The content of this statement expresses the similar “we see no problem” attitude to that of other initial boiler-plate responses invariably received from eBay Customer Support. If this patently absurd statement (“… this initiative has no impact on shill bidding [and] there is no correlation between hidden IDs and shill bidding.”) truly reflects what eBay believes, one can only say that this is simply one more example of just how naïve (or disingenuous) and how far out of touch with the real world are the decision makers at eBay!

And again on the same eBay workshop danieloz@ebay.com responded to another question about eBay’s data on fraudulent Second Chance Offers with:

“eBay saw a dramatic drop in the number of reports received of fake second chance offers for items above $250 after introducing hidden IDs.
“However, what followed was that criminals started to target items below $250. So it only made sense to extend hidden IDs to $0.
“Fake second chance offers are one of the ugliest types of fraud experienced by buyers because they believe they are operating under eBay’s watchful eye, when in fact they are not. Any action to reduce eBay members falling victim to this type of fraud will benefit sellers by increasing confidence among buyers by ensuring less of them get into strife.”

No specific data—just more meaningless words searching for a purpose. The simple fact is that underbidders can effectively protect themselves from emailed fake “second chance offers” simply by ignoring them unless such offers are also received via the eBay website. (And eBay could have effected that safe method of notice simply by structuring the “second chance” email notification with little more information than a link back to the user’s “My Messages” web page.)

And another gem from another of eBay Customer Support’s boiler-plate statements on the matter:

“… a high percentage of members have registered an email address that is close or identical to their eBay User ID so it is easy for them [the fraudsters] to guess their email address based on their User ID,”

“a high percentage.” Surely, this has to be a most disingenuous statement; and smells more like some sort of “red herring.”

If eBay truly wanted to protect buyers from fraudulent “second chance offers” then the other obvious option, that has always been available, was to do away with the “second chance offer”; I would hypothesise, anyway, that most second chance offers are the result of the underbidder having been outbid by the seller’s shill.

That indeed was the case with a genuine, and the only, “second chance offer” that I have received in the 18 months I have been a member: the particular auction was for an artwork; when I received the second chance offer, I looked more closely at the supposedly non-paying winner and there was a symbol indicating that this “winner” had very recently changed their User ID; on further investigation I noticed that that previous ID happened to be made up of the same uncommon name as that of the author of the unique artwork item on which I had bid. To me then it was obvious, beyond any doubt, that this was an offer that resulted from a case of failed shill bidding, but not so to eBay when I reported it; disingenuously, eBay even suggested that the offer was a fraudulent one.

One particular seller from the Netherlands (bas_zelf) is auctioning a constant stream of identical items, with a starting value at 1.00, sometimes with a “Reserve not met”, sometimes with the addition of a “Buy It Now” at USD49.99, and habitually using the “private” auction format to hide any vestige of bidder ID (search eBay for “bmw scan tool” or “diagnosegerät bmw”). What possible purpose can be served by eBay allowing the use of the “private” auction format by sellers of such petty items. What possible purpose could such a seller have for choosing to use this “private” auction format for such petty items. Some cynics may think that the only purpose could be to ensure, by the means of shill bids, that any successful bidder pays at least USD49.99. So, I would again ask, where are those “sophisticated” shill-detecting tools that eBay claims to have?

The text of an email to eBay Customer Support on 27 March 2008 regarding items 320230163928, 320230179470, 320230654526:

I note that this seller whom eBay has previously “reprimanded” (is that the right word?) for blatant shill bidding is again active on eBay. Of course, now that we have absolute anonymity of bidders in Australia, we simple buyers have no chance of checking whether any of the multitude of “new” bidders on any one of this seller’s items are common to the seller’s other items. Just one more example that would prove beyond any doubt to any logically thinking person that eBay’s policy on, and claimed “sophisticated” tools to detect, shill bidding are not effective, and that anonymity of bidders serves little more than as a very effective hide for shill bidders and such anonymity should be done away with—post-haste! But wait, maybe eBay (or somebody else) has already noticed some inappropriate bidding activity by this seller; why else would the Bid History page for the petty item 320230654526 be now indicating that Bidders 1, 2 and 3 (all three, “new member, less than 30 days”) are “Not a registered user”? And, if shill bidding is involved, why is eBay again accommodating this seller under any circumstances? [As of 29 March eBay has removed this seller’s three items and the seller is now flagged as “Not a registered user”, so it must have been obvious (even to eBay) that blatant shill bidding was (again) taking place.] When is eBay management going to come to terms with the fact that absolute anonymity of bidders was always going to be a seriously flawed concept and as such is ultimately going to have a detrimental effect on eBay’s business?

I think eBay should reverse this latest decision on anonymity; indeed I think eBay should do away with all non-unique anonymity of bidding, certainly the absolute form of anonymity used in Australia, and also, in particular, the “private” auction facility (or at least apply a substantial minimum starting value qualification), as all this anonymity—particularly the private auction and the Australian form of totally anonymous alias (“Bidder x”)—serves too effectively as a hide for shill bidders, and anyone who argues otherwise is either being disingenuous or is a naïve fool.

In lieu of such a reversal I think we can predict a downturn in buyer activity—particularly in Australia. Certainly, this is one person who will be doing less buying on eBay (or at the least I will be treating eBay auctions as “closed tender” transactions), particularly when I see anonymous bidders (dealers?) with large-quantity feedback (where that feedback detail is available to other bidders) nibble bidding on items. And, anyone who nibble bids (let alone bids at all) on a seller-selected “private” auction is surely naïve or, quite probably, a shill. With absolute anonymity in effect, potential bidders would be wise to now assume that anyone “nibble” bidding is probably a shill.

And just to show us how genuinely concerned they about shill bidding eBay has made it a simple matter for us report same: first you click on “Security Centre”, then you click on “Contact Us”, then you click on “Email us”, then you select “Listing violations”, then click on [Continue], then you select “Fraudulent listings …” and “Seller is using … (Shill Bidding)”, then you click on [Continue], then you click on “Email us with your question or concern.” I challenge you all to test your ability by trying to find your way through this maze without the use of this roadmap. If you do manage to find your way through you will finally encounter an email dialogue for the reporting of shill bidding; the prompt eBay (automated?) response to which will invariably be a negative boiler-plate:

“eBay is concerned about violations on the site and I have thoroughly investigated your report. In accordance with our site policies, I have found that there is not enough evidence to show that [seller] has violated eBay’s shill bidding policy. I understand your concern about this situation, and can reopen the investigation if any additional information can be provided.”

In lieu of receiving eBay’s prompt advice that eBay intends to do away with all non-unique anonymity in bidding and/or in the case of “private” auctions, severely qualify its use, one has to consider reporting this situation to the Office of Fair Trading and to the media and anybody else who will listen. I can see the television “Current Affair” show promo now: “eBay not concerned about shill-bidding sellers ripping off buyers,” or possibly, “eBay Australia introduces absolute bidder anonymity to protect shill bidders.”

What say you eBay? …
_________________
Clearly, the lunatics at eBay have taken over the asylum and are bent on burning it down.
“The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits.” ~ Albert Einstein.

[lotr]

Philip,

Yes, it's disheartning to see eBay Australia stoop to such levels to hide shilling and other illegal activity. However there are other venues in Australia (and New Zealand) that still believe in transparent bidding.

No doubt UK and North American eBayers will revolt when it's introduced in those markets too.
_________________
Free eBay auction & PayPal fee calculators: http://auctionfeecalculator.com

[PhilipCohen]

Bidder anonymity has already been introduced elsewhere but, unlike in Australia, it is not absolute anonymity in that the style of alias used elsewhere (a***b (nnn)) is a contraction of the actual ID plus the feedback count which allows one to watch for that bidder on a seller's other auctions. We, in Australia, cannot even do that now as the alias used here (Bidder n) is absolutely anonymous. One can only wonder if eBay is considering introducing this absolute anonymity to all its national sites.

[MightyBigDeals]

From a different perspective, as predominately a seller, I also agree any level of anonymity in the bidding process is treacherous. Because eBay has spoken out openly that they are no longer interested in buyer education and buyer education must still occur, the brunt of the responsibility has fallen onto sellers. You can understand that having a seller try to educate a buyer about eBay processes and policies is next to impossible because buyers don’t view sellers as impartial. So, as I hire additional buyer education specialists, here is the real-life example we start orientation with:

[PhilipCohen]

What a shame it is that eBay appears not to listen to their customers. And you say that the alias "a***b (nnn)" is causing you trouble; you can imagine what buyers in Australia think of the absolute anonymity of the alias, "Bidder n", used here.

[up4sale]

When your talking millions of items for sale daily, By helping shill bidders even just a little means many thousands of dollars for ebays bottem line..... Thats why they do the things they do. Follow the money. They pay smart people big money to come up with ideas like this..... Its not the same ebay we grew up with . Its a money machine now.
_________________
James Christie
http://www.up4sale.net

[Ming the Merciless]

Two words, friends, two words:

EBAY LIES.
_________________
The best way to expose corporate slugs is to lift the rocks concealing their hiding places and expose them to the light of the media, business oversight agencies, and law enforcement.

[PhilipCohen]

eBay Australia email sent to sellers, 10 April 2008:

“From 17 June you [sellers] will only be able to offer PayPal on your listings and pay on pick up (i.e. paid for when picking up the item).
“Pay on pick up can only be offered in conjunction with PayPal. No other payment methods will be permitted.”

Not wanting to scare you in the USA but eBay appears to use AU as a guinea pig: whole-of-auction absolute anonymity for (shill) bidders was introduced here first; it has also just been introduced to the U.K.; I have no doubt you in the U.S. will get absolute anonymity next!

And, I am not talking about the bidder-unique alias presently used in the US ("a***b(n)") which gives you some chance of noticing any suspicious bidding activity on a particular seller's other items, I am talking about a form of alias ("Bidder n") that is not bidder-unique and is absolutely anonymous and can serve no purpose other than as a very effective hide for shill bidders.

I can already see the smiles on the faces of all the shill bidders and I can also feel the heat being generated by the friction of them rubbing their hands together in anticipation of the lovely time they are going to have in the future.

Obviously these lunatics at eBay are going to apply the same process with this latest PayPal nonsense. Mandatory, exclusive PayPal is undoubtedly coming to the U.S. soon: be prepared.

I wonder what the “Consumer Affairs” and “Trade Practices” authorities in the various countries will have to say about this outrageous little restriction on trade (not to mention eBay’s complicity in “aiding and abetting” shill bidders with the introduction of absolute anonymity)?
_________________
Clearly, the lunatics at eBay have taken over the asylum and are bent on burning it down.
“The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits.” ~ Albert Einstein.

[PhilipCohen]

A response to a response from eBay to a …

From: Philip Cohen
To: Office of the President
Sent: Saturday, April 12, 2008 11:24 AM
Subject: Re: COHEN/Fwd: eBay's introduction of absolute anonymity for (shill) bidders (KMM287728763V74058L0KM)

Thank you for the response (does that mean that someone at eBay is forced to read submissions such as mine?), however:

The user-specific alias (ie, the contraction of the user ID, eg, “a***b(n)”), currently in use in the US (for how much longer one has to wonder) is quite sufficient to protect members’ privacy, or underbidders from any “fake second chance offers” (if indeed that is the real reason for the implementation of such bidder anonymity), and such a user-specific alias still allows bidders to watch for suspicious (shill) bidding patterns on a particular seller’s other auctions (if any).

On the contrary, the application in Australia (and now in the UK) of a non-user-specific absolute anonymity for bidders (“Bidder n”) means that bidders are now unable to make that judgment. Indeed the whole process is now “closed and opaque” rather than “open and transparent”.

Further, your claim that the new summary of bidder-specific statistics overcomes this problem is a nonsense. You state that “the eBay management team carefully considered this situation prior to rolling out to the site”, and I would agree that the supply of this anonymous bidder information may indeed sound like a good idea in theory; in practice this information is an ambiguous, confusing, and pointless set of statistics: it can actually make a genuine bidder look like a shill.

As for the repeated claim that ”... this change [to absolute anonymity of bidders] will not empower shill bidding on the site in any fashion,” what can I say, other than it is a patently absurd statement! Frankly, I have to suspect that your reasons for implementing absolute anonymity are disingenuous: I would not be surprised if it was not actually intended to make any shill bidding less obvious to the point that you don’t have to worry about it at all. The fact is that “absolute anonymity” (as opposed to the bidder-specific anonymity still in use in the US) serves no other purpose than as a hide for such shill bidding; the same comment applies to your “User ID kept private” facility. Shame on you!

Could I suggest that you spend some serious time looking at some of your auctions and see if you don’t indeed come to the same conclusion. Better still, I would challenge you to perform a “blind test” of your claim that, in lieu of bidder-specific aliases, this bidder information is of any value at all in the detection of possible shill bidding.

Regards
Philip Cohen


----- Original Message -----
From: Office of the President
To: Philip Cohen
Sent: Saturday, April 12, 2008 8:09 AM
Subject: Re: COHEN/Fwd: eBay's introduction of absolute anonymity for (shill) bidders (KMM287728763V74058L0KM)


Hello Philip,

Thank you for your recent email to Pierre Omidyar. As a member of the Office of the President I will be responding to your message on his behalf.

I would like to thank you for sharing your concerns in regards to the recent changes to User Ids on eBay. Please rest assured that the eBay management team carefully considered this situation prior to rolling out to the site. This change in how bidders' user IDs are displayed on the Bid History and Item Listing pages was done to help protect the privacy of our members. We firmly believe that this change will help to balance the need for openness and transparency in the marketplace with the need to protect our community from threats such as fake Second Chance Offers. I would also like to assure you that this change will not empower shill bidding on the site in any fashion.

Allow me to provide you with a little bit more background information on this situation. As part of this initiative, we also added additional bidder-specific statistics to provide the community with enough information about the bidders involved in a listing for them to feel confident in placing a bid. You'll see this additional information on listings where the user IDs of the bidders are masked.

Thanks in advance for your patience and understanding in this matter.

Regards,

David Smith
Office of the President
eBay Inc.
_________________
Clearly, the lunatics at eBay have taken over the asylum and are bent on burning it down.
“The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits.” ~ Albert Einstein.

[PhilipCohen]

Oh dear me, I must have touched a sensitive spot on the eBay Forums (AU and US); all but one of the threads on the new totally anonymous IDs on which I posted have vanished (not just my posts but the whole of the threads); and I don't seem to be able to make any new posts (although I have not yet had any notice to the effect that I have been naughty and am required to go and sit on the "naughty chair" for the remainder of the debate).

It did take them a while to catch up to me though.

Oh, well ...
_________________
Clearly, the lunatics at eBay have taken over the asylum and are bent on burning it down.
“The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits.” ~ Albert Einstein.

[PhilipCohen]

Of course, the reasons given by eBay for the use of absolute anonymity of bidders (supposedly the protection of underbidders from fake "second chance offers") is disingenuous, and it is impossible to escape the conclusion that the use of such absolute anonymity serves no other purpose than as an effective means for the obscuring of shill bidding.

eBay could have effected the safe notification of genuine “second chance offers” simply by re-structuring the email notification with little more information than a hyperlink back to the user’s “My Messages” web page.

These eBay people can’t be that stupid, can they? It has to be disingenuousness, surely?
_________________
Clearly, the lunatics at eBay have taken over the asylum and are bent on burning it down.
“The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits.” ~ Albert Einstein.

[crymeariver]

[PhilipCohen]

From: Philip Cohen
To: Office of the President
Sent: Tuesday, April 15, 2008 6:33 AM
Subject: Re: COHEN/Fwd: eBay's introduction of absolute anonymity for (shill) bidders (KMM288315021V436L0KM)

Thank you for your further response. I guess I have to accept that in the matter of absolute anonymity of bidders my argument is not persuasive to you. I will therefore only restate the following paragraphs. Please do not feel obliged to respond further: I accept that further communication is pointless:

“The user-specific alias (ie, the contraction of the user ID, eg, “a***b(n)”), currently in use in the US (for how much longer one has to wonder) is quite sufficient to protect members’ privacy, or underbidders from any “fake second chance offers” (if indeed that is the real reason for the implementation of such bidder anonymity), and such a user-specific anonymous alias still allows bidders to watch for suspicious (shill) bidding patterns on a particular seller’s other auctions (if any).

“On the contrary, the application in Australia (and now in the UK) of a non-user-specific absolute anonymity for bidders (“Bidder n”) means that bidders are now unable to make that judgment. Indeed the whole process is now “closed and opaque” rather than “open and transparent”.

“Further, your claim that the new summary of bidder-specific statistics overcomes this problem is a nonsense. You state that “the eBay management team carefully considered this situation prior to rolling out to the site”, and I would accept that the supply of this additional bidder information may indeed sound like a good idea in theory; in practice this information is an ambiguous, confusing, and pointless set of statistics: it can actually make a genuine bidder look like a shill.

“Could I suggest that you spend some serious time trying to detect shills on some of your auctions and see if you don’t indeed come to the same conclusion (assuming that the obscuring of suspected shill bidding is not actually your intention). Better still, I would challenge you to perform a “blind test” of your claim that, in lieu of bidder-specific aliases, this additional bidder information is of any value at all in the detection of possible shill bidding.”

Regards
Philip Cohen

----- Original Message -----
From: Office of the President
To: Philip Cohen
Sent: Tuesday, April 15, 2008 5:14 AM
Subject: Re: COHEN/Fwd: eBay's introduction of absolute anonymity for (shill) bidders (KMM288315021V436L0KM)

Hello,

Good to hear from you again.

I would like to assure you that eBay takes shill bidding very seriously, and we are absolutely committed to prevent Shill Bidding from taking place on the site. While specific user IDs may not be visible in the bid history, eBay still has access to bidding information that helps us identify and investigate possible Shill Bidding. The eBay Safe Harbor team also has sophisticated tools in place geared towards identifying shill bidding.

As mentioned in my previous email bidder information is still in place which allows members to detect and report suspicious activity. While we proactively search the site for Shill Bidding, we continue to investigate Community reports of suspicious behavior, and take action where appropriate. Violations of the eBay Shill Bidding policy may result in a range of actions, including:

- Listing cancellation
- Limits on account privileges
- Account suspension
- Forfeit of eBay fees on canceled listings
- Loss of PowerSeller status
- Referral to Law Enforcement

For more information on the eBay Shill Bidding policy, go to:
http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/seller-shill-bidding.html

Thanks for your patience and understanding in regards to this matter.

Regards,
David Smith
Office of the President
eBay Inc.
_________________
Clearly, the lunatics at eBay have taken over the asylum and are bent on burning it down.
“The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits.” ~ Albert Einstein.

[crymeariver]

[jon79]

"The eBay Safe Harbor team also has sophisticated tools in place geared towards identifying shill bidding. "

hahahahah yah right
_________________
http://www.rottenbidders.com - share your bidder blacklist