That particular seller on Ebay does appear as if he or she is using shill bidding: especially the one bidder who has bid multiple times on auctions, has not won one, and one hundred percent of the bids were on that particular seller's auctions.
Ebay's argument that they masked the bidders' identity to protect the identity of those bidding may be true, though I am not sure how showing the username of an Ebay bidder subjects him or her to invasion of privacy or being hit with spam mail. Masking it, however, does make it much easier for a seller to use shill bidders without most noticing. The seller would have to become flagrant before such practices become apparent, as Steven has shown.
Cheers.
Tom Hayes Chagrin Falls, Ohio USA
On Fri, Dec 11, 2009 at 4:36 PM, K.R. Bennett
<kerriganbennett@comcast.net>wrote:
> The shill bidders seem to be scamming eBay as much or more as they are
> scamming us. The seller could easily protect his or her interests by using
> a reserve price, but that would result in a higher fee for eBay and might
> not attract the same bidding interest from buyers.
>
> You'd think eBay would vigorously seek to stamp out this practice. Steven,
> I think that looks very bad for the seller. Have you considered going to
> eBay with your observations?
>
> Kerrigan Bennett
> Pleasant Hill, CA USA
>
>
>
> Archive-URL:
> http://search.bikelist.org/
> Date: Fri, 11 Dec 2009 11:35:48 -0800
> From: verktyg <verktyg(AT)aol.com>
> Subject: Re: [CR] Shill bidding pattern?
>
> That's been a problem with eBay ever since they started hiding every
> bidder's ID.
>
> It's supposed to protect us from scams. While it may protect a few
> inexperienced or not too bright bidders, what it really does is protect
> shillers!
>
> I stop bidding or don't bid when I see someone with no feedback or who
> has a lot of bid retractions running the price up!
>
> Have you ever tried to do a bid retraction???
>
> Chas. Colerich
> Oakland, CA USA
> _______________________________________________
>
--
Tom Hayes
Chagrin Falls, Ohio