| Author |
Message |
Tsitra
Username: Tsitra
Registered: 03-2006
| | Posted on Friday, January 12, 2007 - 11:00 pm: | |
Have you noticed the new change at Ebay. Take a look at any auction that has multiple bids and click to see the bidders list and you should see Bidder1 Bidder2 and so on. I guess you can no longer view the ID of the bidder except for the winning bid at the end of the auction. This should take care of the 2nd chance offer fraud that has been going on a LOT! This makes me very happy!! Say By, By to all of the scum and evil that has taken the fun out of Ebay for a lot of People. I think Ebay has taken Positive steps to eradicate this sub-human entity that lurks waiting to pounce on the innocent. What do you guys think? Will this work or will the bad guys still find a way? I think there day is done. |
Dave_g
Username: Dave_g
Registered: 01-2002
| | Posted on Friday, January 12, 2007 - 11:51 pm: | |
Tsitra...Theis is perhaps the dumbest thing that EBay has ever done. It leaves it wide open for shill bidding of all types. Don't buy the story that they did it to cut down on scams, it was done for one reason and one reason only-to increase EBays profits. They are attempting to eliminate all "outside Ebay" transactions by elimininating the communication between sellers and potential buyers. Most of the best deals are made "outside of EBay" after the inital contact is made.
They have made it impossible to make a decision on auction bidding. You can no longer look at the history of the other bidders to determine if they are a like collector or a high bidder or a shill.....
You also can no longer look at what others with similar tastes are biddin on...
This move will have serious impact on the collector and I think it really opens the door for a more open marketplace like Craigs list.
EBay sucks |
Fingersmcoy
Username: Fingersmcoy
Registered: 10-2006
| | Posted on Friday, January 12, 2007 - 11:51 pm: | |
Im shocked and appalled that its taking this long to straighted out a problem like this.Ive noticed problems that should have been cleared up years ago, that have just recently been rectumfied.Just an aside note e-bay just bought some ticket distributer.They make no bones about how much profitt they make.I remember last annual gathering the speaker said "they have or make more money than some small countries"It hard to immagine what can e-bay really do w/ the profitts they make, except gobble up small businesses, like an hungy hippo.I dont think this is good for e-bay. Maybe they should think about creating small e-bays?I really dont know??When a Co. or Org. gets too big , problems seem to follow.It wouldnt surprise me if some of the higher ups have multi/ million dollar off shore bank accounts, collecting interest.Sweet!!! |
Tsitra
Username: Tsitra
Registered: 03-2006
| | Posted on Saturday, January 13, 2007 - 12:32 am: | |
Dave_g, I think some of your points are valid, but Did you notice if you look at the bid history for an on going auction you can see all of the details of the people who are bidding, except for the ID of course. I think this makes it less likely that shill bidding will be going on. At a fast glance you can see the bidders feedback percentage, there approx. number of feedbacks, how long they have been an ebay member, 30 day history of bidding, number of items bid on, you can see what the percentage of his total bids are with the seller that he his currently in bid with or in bed with if he is shill bidding for the seller. |
Fingersmcoy
Username: Fingersmcoy
Registered: 10-2006
| | Posted on Saturday, January 13, 2007 - 1:13 am: | |
Shill bidding goes on all the time- how can you stop it- among friends.Get a bunch of friends together making bids to push up the price and you have a shill tree! WOOOOOOOOpeeeee got to love that e-bay. |
Dave_g
Username: Dave_g
Registered: 01-2002
| | Posted on Saturday, January 13, 2007 - 1:27 am: | |
Tsitra..You missed the point comletely. What you don't get to see it what the person is bidding on (can help you make a decision on bidding if you know that -for instance-another Ibanez collector is eying the same guitar, the other bidders in auctions that person bids on (to help weed out shill bidders and their multiple ids)
The summary info that you can see is just not enough information...just enough to give you a false sence of fair play
I think that shill bidding has always and will always be a major part of EBay...they have just made it easier. |
Cooltouch
Username: Cooltouch
Registered: 12-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, January 13, 2007 - 2:21 am: | |
I don't understand how this change will make shill bidding easier. eBay knows the IDs of the bidders, and will still be able to spot obvious shill bid practices. Perhaps other members will no longer be able to spot shill bidders, but I wonder if this was ever a major deterrent? Seems to me that eBay would have software routines in place that could spot this sort of activity with a higher degree of accuracy than could be accomplished by relying on members' reports.
Best,
Michael |
Fingersmcoy
Username: Fingersmcoy
Registered: 10-2006
| | Posted on Saturday, January 13, 2007 - 4:03 am: | |
How can you stop a seller from calling (on the phone ) 10 of his friends and asking them to keep bidding untill he (the seller says stop )This can be done by private e-mail also. How would e-bay know who your friends are(what computer program could stop them ? ) if they dont live in the same area,or state as you.These friends could also be friends that you have made through e-bay over the years.(this would be ideal)They could even get in on the profits(on big ticket items)If you told each friend ill give you a few bucks for bidding.To take this one step futher- There maybe groups of ppl. already doing this and the sales from each shill bid would get distributed equally to each bidder- on each sale.This has always bother me if this is really going on,or is this just my immag. gone wild????? |
Sixvsix
Username: Sixvsix
Registered: 03-2002
| | Posted on Saturday, January 13, 2007 - 7:30 am: | |
I've done deals outside ebay from around the world. I've been lucky so far but it is risky. I think experience and common sense lets me know if I may be shafted outside ebay but I gotta say that the deals I've struck have been worth it.
I too don't like the new system. I'm with Dave and like to see who I'm up against when I'm thinking about placing that bid at the very last second.
Daves right that it will trawl more money in for ebay. It won't make life safer for buyers. Because of the new set up we will be self pressurised to go outside the ebay system and strike a deal with the seller leaving buyers wide open for abuse. Outside deals will be nothing to do with ebay so they are off the hook as far as they are concerned.
I'd like to know who the hell they are consulting with when they do these changes.
six |
Gemberbier
Username: Gemberbier
Registered: 05-2006
| | Posted on Saturday, January 13, 2007 - 8:18 am: | |
Fingers, you wrote:
"If you told each friend ill give you a few bucks for bidding".
That is totally unnecessary. I think this happens, but with a closed wallet. A bid for a bid, so to say.
People who do this don't want to pay for setting a reserve. Why would they pay for shill bidding?
I'm not so fond of the eBay system. It made all second hand goods ridiculously expensive.
In Holland this happened because of the group who founded marktplaats.nl
They took over almost all recycle shops in the country. Then they cashed by selling their site to eBay for big bucks. And now they raising their prices with the help of eBay data.
It's the consumer who gets screwed. EBay is only good for sellers, because they pay the fees.
And they don't want us to see who is bidding, because if we would know one of our top guns is really after something we wouldn't unnecessarily interfere, because we'd know we wouldn't stand a chance anyway.
I think this bidder hiding has very little to do with bidder protection. It's just a way to keep us from knowing our competition and to let us bid like some stupid lemmings.
Ginger |
Fingersmcoy
Username: Fingersmcoy
Registered: 10-2006
| | Posted on Saturday, January 13, 2007 - 8:55 am: | |
The last paragraph is a little off- i should have wrote:each person in the shill bidding group would get part of the final sales(as long as there was a big enough profit made. |
Dave_g
Username: Dave_g
Registered: 01-2002
| | Posted on Saturday, January 13, 2007 - 10:47 am: | |
Cool..Get with it dude...."eBay knows the IDs of the bidders, and will still be able to spot obvious shill bid practices. Perhaps other members will no longer be able to spot shill bidders, but I wonder if this was ever a major deterrent? Seems to me that eBay would have software routines in place that could spot this sort of activity with a higher degree of accuracy than could be accomplished by relying on members' reports."....EBay isn't the auction police..in fact they go out of their way to not take sides on issues like this.
Please understand that EBay is interested in one thing only, and thats not fairness or running a scam proof auction either-its PROFIT ! No one at EBay is looking for shill bidders or "running software" to discover shills...in the end, EBay gets paid on every closed auction-regardless of the bidding strategies employed. They have created a community that is self regulated via the feedback system.....now they are stacking the deck by controlling the very system that was created to make the community independent.
EBay sucks |
Bigmike
Username: Bigmike
Registered: 10-2002
| | Posted on Saturday, January 13, 2007 - 10:58 am: | |
What Dave_g said in the previous post. eBay could CARE LESS if it's fair. All they want is their money... They're lazy and just want DA MONEY.
Still a good place to find decent deals. I do not like the invisible bidder stuff. I all too often see teams of guys repeatedly bid up the price on a buddy's item. They do not get my business...
BIG |
Dave_g
Username: Dave_g
Registered: 01-2002
| | Posted on Saturday, January 13, 2007 - 2:30 pm: | |
Mike, The problem now is -if the auction is over $200- you will not be able to identify the teams anymore ! |
Tsitra
Username: Tsitra
Registered: 03-2006
| | Posted on Saturday, January 13, 2007 - 3:35 pm: | |
I think a lot of what looks to be shill bidding is just some of these ebayers want to inflate there ego by seeing there I.D up in lights as the high bid. The simple fact is in the end they can't afford to buy the item they are bidding on so they get into a little early bidding war long before the item has come close reaching its true value and then they drop out once the price starts getting to high. The result of this is the same as shill bidding except for the fact that the seller probably has nothing to do with this activity. I do not think that true shill bidding is as rampant as some of you might think.
I think this new system could actually result in less inflated prices for the serious buyer. When the little ego bidders figure out that no one can see there ID they will lose interest and go away.
Another point to remember is some ebayers can't afford to pay the prices for the items they would love to have so they take it upon themselves to drive the price up in an effort to make sure the person who can afford the item will have to pay top dollar. Again, the affect of this is the same as shill bidding but is not true shill bidding because the seller has no control over this. |
Cooltouch
Username: Cooltouch
Registered: 12-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, January 13, 2007 - 8:23 pm: | |
Look, let me be clear that I don't care for this new practice either. Before writing my above post, I actually went to eBay, read their policies regarding shill bids, and even took their silly tutorial. Have any of =you= done this yet?
eBay has obviously been having serious problems with scammers ripping off bidders with second chance offers. It's gotten totally out of hand there -- like spam in my old email inbox. Nothing much I could do about the spam, so I changed email addresses. Nothing eBay could do effectively against the second-chance scammers, so they changed their policies.
Sure, eBay wants to make money. It's their fiduciary responsibility to their shareholders to do so. But I personally don't think that the motivating force behind this change -- which again, I don't really care for -- was an immediate increase im profits. They had to do something or else people would stop using their service, and then they really would be concerned about their profits. Plus, I also suspect there are liability issues involved, disclaimers or no.
Best,
Michael |
Fingersmcoy
Username: Fingersmcoy
Registered: 10-2006
| | Posted on Saturday, January 13, 2007 - 8:27 pm: | |
TS on your last point your exactly right! Its happened to me- and the bidder actually admitted it to me in an e-mail.The short story is i out bid him so he just through in another bid and raised the final price of the guitar by about 30.00.I hate when that happens. A famous person that sells guitars on line and realted stuff calls these ppl e-bay worms |
Texasbob
Username: Texasbob
Registered: 11-2006
| | Posted on Saturday, January 13, 2007 - 9:06 pm: | |
Would it not have been easier to just stop those second chance offers???
I want to know whom I am bidding against. Ebay makes millions and i think they could afford to come up with better security measures than this. Makes me want to rethink about using ebay again. |
Fingersmcoy
Username: Fingersmcoy
Registered: 10-2006
| | Posted on Saturday, January 13, 2007 - 10:11 pm: | |
What i always find odd is the bids you see are not actual bids.When I bid higher than the last bidder a crappy window pops up and says- YOU,VE BEEN OUT BID!huh? What is the point of showing bids if they are not the real bids?Im guessing thats what makes e-bay fun O-tay!It may seem like im an e-bay basher- but i have sold a-lot of stuff on there,and ive got some great deals.But no matter what- it seems to be the best game in town right now. |
Snowjays
Username: Snowjays
Registered: 09-2004
| | Posted on Saturday, January 13, 2007 - 11:02 pm: | |
I just received a second chance offer on that AR400 that finished from a jeff_clain@yahoo.com whoever he is.
If the bidders names are only available to Ebay and the two parties envolved, how did someone get my info, or have the scammers already figured out a way around the new changes?
Did anyone else here get the same emails? |
Tsitra
Username: Tsitra
Registered: 03-2006
| | Posted on Saturday, January 13, 2007 - 11:12 pm: | |
Snowjays, when did you place a bid and when did the auction end? I think this Ebay change just started yesterday so if you placed a bid before that or the auction ended before yesterday then the scam scum could have gotten your ID before this new Ebay change. |
Jchester
Username: Jchester
Registered: 05-2006
| | Posted on Sunday, January 14, 2007 - 1:17 am: | |
I didn't bid on the 400, so I didn't get any on that one... but I did get one...thru eBay mail, on a 2617 I bid on last week... from:
golfmaniac40:
!!! ATTENTION !!! DO NOT CLICK THE ''RESPOND NOW BUTTON'', CONTACT THE SELLER DIRECTLY AT: demorgan33@aol.com . IF YOU WANT TO PURCHASE THE ITEM.!!!
I forwarded it to eBay security, as soon as I got it, & never got ANY response.
We'll have to wait & see if the new approach solves anything.
BTW... I too, like to see who I'm bidding against. |
Snowjays
Username: Snowjays
Registered: 09-2004
| | Posted on Sunday, January 14, 2007 - 2:29 am: | |
I got the email today, but the bid was placed yesterday. But throughout the auction it had Bidder 1 Bidder2 etc, which was what I thought was supposed to stop this nonsense with these second chance crap. |
Sixvsix
Username: Sixvsix
Registered: 03-2002
| | Posted on Sunday, January 14, 2007 - 6:21 am: | |
!!! ATTENTION !!! DO NOT CLICK THE ''RESPOND NOW BUTTON'', CONTACT THE SELLER DIRECTLY AT: demorgan33@aol.com . IF YOU WANT TO PURCHASE THE ITEM.!!!
A different seller was trying to do the same thing with a 59 LP Jnr a couple of days back. I mailed him and read him his fortune
There must be a percentage of completely stupid and naive people out there who are gonna fall for this scam.
The 'Bidder' thing has been going on for over a week now.
six |
Snowjays
Username: Snowjays
Registered: 09-2004
| | Posted on Sunday, January 14, 2007 - 7:31 am: | |
Yes, so how do they get the bidders details when it's supposed to be confidential? |
Jchester
Username: Jchester
Registered: 05-2006
| | Posted on Sunday, January 14, 2007 - 12:04 pm: | |
From what I've seen, they don't really get any details. They use the eBay mail system... i.e. "Contact Buyer" & eBay sends the mail.
You'd think that if eBay can filter out anything even vaguely resembling Rickenbacker references, they could filter their own damned mail system for these second chance scammers! |
Brentm
Username: Brentm
Registered: 03-2005
| | Posted on Sunday, January 14, 2007 - 12:41 pm: | |
Has anyone ever actually purchased anything from a Second Chance offer? The only time I tried is when the highest bidder turned into non-paying bidder. Then the second chance offer seemed like an insult to the #2 guy. |
Jeffsailor
Username: Jeffsailor
Registered: 01-2004
| | Posted on Thursday, January 18, 2007 - 1:02 pm: | |
FYI...
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16686937
The sad part in all this is that eBay has accomplished absolutely nothing with their changes. I received a bogus second chance offer just this morning on the 2640. The disturbing part about the offer was that it came addressed to my eBay-linked email account (from outside eBay, mind you) and contained every detail about my bid amount, etc. I bid after the changes went into effect so I believe my bidder ID was hidden to all but the seller.
Given that, I suspect that these offers are actually be constructed from auction information that is coming directly out of eBay, either from an employee or vendor, etc. I just can't imagine that the people making the offers are manually targeting specific auctions. Its getting to the point where I receive a second chance offer on everything I bid on. I think its much more likely that someone is getting a "dump" of completed auctions electronically and is having second chance offers generated auctomatically to losing bidders based on certain criteria (amount of bid, etc).
eBay should consider taking a real close look at their own house.
js |
Ibanezfreak1960
Username: Ibanezfreak1960
Registered: 03-2004
| | Posted on Sunday, January 21, 2007 - 1:41 pm: | |
I emailed the scammer demorgan@aol.com above and randomly asked, "do you still have that rare RATT guitar for sale?" And here was thge reply I got last night. I made up the item off the top of my head.
First of all, thanks for your reply. Secondly, as noticed from the message you got through ebay, i've sent you this second chance offer because the winner of the auction didn't reply to my emails. There are bidders that bid on auctions for fun and i hope you're serious and we can make a clear deal. Now for the start, i will explain you the steps for making this transaction happen. You can see that the price is your last bid on eBay. So, if you are really interested, all you have to do is to send me exactly the following details:
eBay ID:
First name:
Last name:
Address:
City:
State:
Zip:
Total amount:
I need the details exactly like i have requested them, because i'll have to forward the details to eBay. Shortly, they will contact you with an invoice in order to complete the transaction! I am dealing only through eBay. Thanks |
Michaelkaufman
Username: Michaelkaufman
Registered: 11-2002
| | Posted on Wednesday, January 31, 2007 - 6:18 pm: | |
Explain this: the bidders are not 'private'. Is the recent eBay 'change' optional?
http://rover.ebay.com/rover/1/711-1751-2978-71/1?AID=5463217&PID=1802666&mpre=ht tp%3A//cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll%3FViewItem%26item%3D280077253391 |
Bigmike
Username: Bigmike
Registered: 10-2002
| | Posted on Wednesday, January 31, 2007 - 8:10 pm: | |
The only way AND I MEAN THE O N L Y W A Y to take a 2nd Chance Offer seriously if it is at your eBay account when you login. This other stuff of hiding bidders, well it's a shame... I feel it can mask shill bidding... And if I see someone from HERE bidding on something I'd likely hold back and let them have it... Except if it was a BYRDLAND copy... |
Tsitra
Username: Tsitra
Registered: 03-2006
| | Posted on Wednesday, January 31, 2007 - 10:00 pm: | |
Only if the price goes above $200.00. Anything below $200.00 and you can still see the bidders I.D.
I think I am about the only one here who does not mind the new system. I guess because most of the auctions I have won have been with the BIN option.
This new system has been in place for a number of weeks now so are you guys still getting as many fake 2nd chance offers or have you noticed a decline? Are you getting used to the new system or are you hating it just as much? |