On 08/26/12 11:36 PM, Rob Atkinson wrote:
>> It would be interesting to know whether this seller often has bidders
>> with private feedback. I've sold a few items on eBay, and never had
>> one. The fact he has at least two on one auction is suspicious. If he
>> gets lot of auctions private feedback bidders, then I would be very
>> suspicious.
>
> I have never seen or heard of "private" feedback until now, but I have
> a guess as to why it is used.
>
> Assuming it is a user option that can be chosen, it gets to the reason
> why eBay started going with bidder/buyer identification with most of
> the ID starred over i.e. j******8 or some such.
> The story I heard was that back when the whole user ID was shown,
> there were frequent auctions in which two or more bidders knew each
> others identity. In some cases there might be what I will term
> unpleasant events following some auctions and winners didn't like it
> being known that they had won.
I think there was other things too. Someone would warn a bidder that the seller
was a crook.
I had an auction which I won for a computer from what was supposedly a UK
seller.
* On eBay UK
* Listed in pounds sterling
* Gave a location as Stoke on Trent, which is in the UK.
The seller also added VAT after the auction. I was a bit annoyed by this, but
paid it. Then someone else warned me that this seller was not in the UK, but in
the USA, was not VAT registered and so should not charge VAT. I eventually got
my VAT back. The computer turned up from the USA about 4 months later. All the
seller done was take everyones money, then ship a container of them to a
shipping company in Stoke on Trent.
Also, it was easy to bypass eBay fees for other dealers. They could see user
XYZ
bid on an item but did not win, so they would contact that bidder and offer to
sell them the same item, bypassing eBay.
> Well being a casual eBay user (never even sold anything there) I'm not
> real swift on this, so it only dawned on me a few days ago that you
> can still find out who won an auction, albeit later on, if they leave
> feadback, because then their whole ID is visible along with
> information about the auction. So my hunch is that the "private"
> business is to prevent that.
> Rob
> K5UJ
>
I think it would be hard to sell anything on eBay if you chose to keep your
feedback private, as buyers wont want to touch you.
But it is quite rare to find people on eBay with private feedback. To find two
or three on one auction is a bit suspicious.
I've just looked back at the items I recently bought, which were not
buy-it-nows, so I can see the feedback of all the bidders. Not one is private.
I
just done a search for "agilent" and looked at the items being sold. These are
often high value items, and I can't see any with feedback withheld.
Personally, I remain suspicious of that auction for the 300A's,
--
Dr. David Kirkby Ph.D C.Eng MIET
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