EBay introduces absolute anonymity for (shill) bidders Internet

Brilliant actually. Saved me a lot of typing.

Before I get started I just want to comment on the poster above who thought a high bid was suspicious... Experienced bidders often place a high maximum bid to insure that they will be the winner. They will bid the maximum amount they are willing to pay for the item instead of constantly returning to check the bid and upping their amount each time someone outbids them. If you see a massive jump from say $5 to $21, don't think the bidder of $21 was up to something nefarious or mentally challenged. A jump like this usually means that the $5 bidder had set his/her maximum bid at $20. The second bidder outbid the $20 maximum of the first bidder resulting in the $21 bid. Another bidder may come along and outbid the second bidder resulting in a jump from $21 to $41.

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I feel that making the identity of buyers anonymous on eBay may make it difficult for other buyers to identify and track the activity of shill bidders. But, it also offers protection to buyers that serve as a counterbalance. The protection of buyers was part of the motivation behind it...

1) Sellers cannot see the identity of those bidding on an item; therefore they cannot contact them and offer to sell them the item outside of eBay, which takes away the buyer's protections through eBay (PayPal payments, etc.). Sellers may do this to save money and have no ill intent towards the buyer. However, in the past buyers lost considerable money dealing with sellers outside of eBay.

2) Buyers cannot harass other buyers for spite. Buyers were doing spiteful vengeful things to each other when they lost out on auctions for desired items. They would send nasty messages and/or bid the price up on other items the targeted buyer was bidding on just out of sheer meanness. In fact, the problems of buyers harassing buyers could have been almost as bad as the sneaky shill bidding of some of the sellers.

3) Sellers now only know the identity of the winning bidder. In the past, they would know the identity of all bidders. Therefore; if the winning bidder did not pay for the item, they would often offer it to the next bidder in line. They would ask that the buyer pay for the item outside of eBay's payment system to save themselves money. Again, the buyers lost the protection of eBay's system. Many sellers were only looking to save themselves some money, but some collected the payment and never shipped the item. Since it was done outside of eBay, there was no third party documentation of the sale.

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eBay does have software that allows them to track and identify shill bidders. They do catch people all the time and have often banned sellers from eBay because of it. The system does have weaknesses - it is far better at catching the sellers who are sloppy and use the same bogus IDs repeatedly for shill bidding. Savvy sellers can easily beat the system.

Catching the savvy seller at shill bidding and proving it to eBay can be difficult with the hidden identities of bidders. However, if you are a victim of shill bidding you do know it. The anonymous bidder will have the typical coded ID (something like a***t) and you can easily see that this person incrementally jacked your price by making repeated bids. This could have been done in innocence by a bidder who wasn't sure he/she wanted the item; they were probing your maximum bid, not wanting to bid more than they had to bid. But if you click on the bidder's coded ID and you see that the bidder has a totally virgin account - they have no other active bids on another item, (0) feedback score, and have bid on nothing else in the last 30 days (only shows 30 days as of this writing) you can be pretty much 100% certain the seller is engaging in shill bidding.

Savvy sellers will set up single use accounts (it takes less than 5 minutes to get a free e-mail account and start a new user account at eBay), they make the shill bids and never use that account again. Most sellers are small scale, so taking the time to create single use accounts is not a big deal. They will also only need it to shill bid on those items whose prices are still low close to the close of the auction. Thus, if they have 20 items closing on one day, only one of those items may still have a max bid that is low enough to impact their profit margin.

Most shill bidding is motivated by the desire to get a decent price on an item - not fair, not legal, but understandable. However, this destroys the purpose and principle of the entire auction process. When people bid/sell at eBay, they are gambling that they will get a bargain and/or acquire a rare collectible. Shill bidding is unethical and slants the benefits of the auction process to favor the seller.

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I've been an occasional buyer at eBay. I love the experience and have had very few negative experiences. However, this could be because I bid primarily on antique gold jewelry and know my product. I also limited myself to buying only from UK, Australian, and US sellers with good reputations. Because of the pricey nature of these items, having a good rep is essential and very few unethical sellers will survive long selling this type of product. (Although the Chinese have become savvy at tricking the inexperienced customer.) Many of the sellers I've dealt with are exceptionally trustworthy individuals whose honesty, customer service orientation, and knowledge of product are impressive.

My only negative experience with bidding on antique jewelry at eBay was that I angered several other bidders when I won a piece they wanted and they targeted me briefly with spiteful shill bidding. Of course, I could identify them at that time and knew that they were competitors who had lost to me, not sellers. This does not happen now that they cannot see my ID.

However, this positive experience changed when I temporarily ceased bidding on antique jewelry because of the rise in gold prices. (I am a committed bargain hunter after all!) Now, I bid on loose gemstones to get my bling fix (only from reputable dealers) and collectible figurines (antique and/or high end). It is in the collectibles market that I am seeing unsavory behavior.

Yep, if Auntie Clara is selling the $150 Lenox cat with the gold collar and you are the high bidder at $15, don't be surprised if dear old Auntie engages in some serious blatant shill bidding several hours before the sale closes. Clara doesn't think she's really doing anything wrong - she's just scrambling to make sure she isn't losing money and doesn't understand why it is unethical and goes against the principles of shared risk between the seller and buyer that underlie the entire principle of the auction process.

I am so looking forward to the inevitable drop in gold prices!

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Buyers do have a way of getting back and protecting themselves from sellers who shill bid. Just as the savvy seller can set up an anonymous single use account, the buyer can do the same. Buyers who don't want to purchase an item after the seller engages in shill bidding, simply use the anonymous single use account to outbid themselves. They don't pay and never use that account again. Sellers know that some of the more savvy buyers will do this, but cannot petition eBay to investigate their suspicions because this would cast suspicion on them.

The danger of doing this is that an impulsive buyer may mistakenly leave an honest seller with a bogus sale that costs the seller money to re-post. Many buyers are inexperienced & paranoid because of their lack of knowledge. In reading posts about shill bidding, I have seen that some individuals don't really know what it is and call anything they don't understand about the bidding process, such as automated bidding when someone has a high max, shill bidding.

Even if done in self-defense, a phony bid is against eBay policy and is illegal in some locales for items in which an agreement to purchase is considered binding for some types of products (cars, boats, real estate, etc.). For most items, in most states, it is not illegal. In some cases, residents of some states can bring civil suit against buyers who do not follow through on the agreement to purchase and in those states; it is often the case that this can only be done if the buyer is also a resident of the state.

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People who use eBay a lot know that it functions as a self-correcting system. Those of us who have used eBay for a number of years have seen it evolve and change, improving in response to the problems and/or successes it has in the services & features it offers its sellers & buyers. eBay can never be risk free, but for the buyer who knows his/her product and the ethical seller who wants to have a small scale retail business, without the overhead of a store, eBay can be wonderful.

I don't believe that eBay's decision to hide the buyer IDs was in any way a conspiracy in support of sellers. Buyers also enjoyed benefits with this change even though the change does reduce their chance of spotting the shill bidders. In fact, I do recall that when eBay was considering doing this, there were a lot of buyers who were upset by the behavior of buyers who harassed them after they beat them and by sellers who sent them "second chance" offers, or offers for other products, and requested payment outside of eBay.

eBay is fully dependent on the satisfaction of both sellers and buyers. Even though the actual cash dollars are earned by eBay from the sellers, the sellers only make money if they have buyers who trust them and the eBay environment enough to do business with them. eBay would not intentionally make a policy change that put the buyer at risk and drive them away as a customer. This favors neither eBay nor the seller.

I think that the perspective that eBay did this to favor shill bidding sellers, although understandable, is not supported by the evidence. In most cases, the buyer can still tell if they are the victim of shill bidding and they can and should report this to eBay.

It helps to think of this using cold logic - the effect (hidden buyer IDs prevent easy detection of sellers who shill bid) does not mean that eBay supported or even desired the effect. It was done to prevent the difficulties presented by the open identities. The same illogical reasoning would have me saying "I am 10 pounds overweight because Lindt wanted me to be fat. After all, they do market such dang good chocolate and I just know they do this with the specific intention of causing people to eat too much of it." Just because you can spin a conspiracy theory around something, does not mean it is correct.

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To Avoid the Negative Consequences of Shill Bidding

1) Set your maximum bid at the highest amount that you are willing to pay. Give this amount careful consideration - pick a price that feels good to you, a price you would be happy to pay. This might be lower/higher than you should pay, but it is an amount you are totally comfortable with and can afford. If a shill bidder jacks the price on you and you win the bid, it should be a price you will not resent paying.

2) Report potential shill bidding to eBay. They are really working to control this.

3) Do not buy from sellers who you suspect are shill bidding. Keep good notes and share the names with your friends.

4) Know your product and watch the sales of similar products to see what price they tend to close at. Know that you can expect to pay a similar amount.

5) Carefully read the written feedback for a seller before bidding, especially if you are bidding on a high priced item (I do this regardless of the price).

6) Save the sellers names and/or write them down if you are pleased with their services and find them to be ethical & trustworthy. The best way to have a great buying experience on eBay is no different than it is in the ordinary retail marketplace - give your business to the people you trust first.

7) Your potential risk for shill bidding is at its lowest if you only bid a minimal amount. However, this does significantly increase the chance that you will not win the item. The choice is yours, but you may experience a far greater overall satisfaction with bidding on eBay if you set your true maximum. Otherwise, the winning bidder may well be someone who set the maximum bid at or near the amount you would have chosen. (I always do this and have no regrets.)

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Use eBay's user forum to discuss your selling/buying experiences, problems, questions, etc. withother buyers. You will learn about processes and procedures that may seem suspicious to you only because you don't understand them. You will also learn more about protecting yourself from nefarious sellers.

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Aside - My number one complaint is that fraudulent dealers who sell fakes (replicas of antiques, bogus art, etc.) sell fairly freely on eBay. These people are the equivalent of those guys who sell "Rolex" watches at flea markets. They are not successful with most of us, but they steal countless dollars from the naive. The feedback system helps with this to some degree, but sadly it is the naive who purchase the stuff and these people may be unable to determine that their $100 "Picasso" was painted by a Chinese kid in an art factory.

while browsing this weekend. Someone had a something for sale starting at $1000 but the first bid was for substantially more. Why would someone just throw money away on something no one else had bid on? They wouldn't. I see the item is gone now so someone must have caught on.

I apologise in advance for the length of the following comment. If you are an unethical shill-bidding seller, or a buyer who lives in Australia, the UK, Ireland or the Philippines and you are not concerned that, on these sites, eBay is effectively (and knowingly) "aiding and abetting" such shill-bidding sellers to cheat you, read no further.

A submission to government and others regarding unconscionable conduct by the online auction facilitator, eBay

eBay introduces absolute anonymity for (shill) bidders

5 July 2008

eBay is a very large international company with such a market share of the online auction business that their behaviour has to be viewed as "monopolistic" in nature.

As an eBay "junkie", predominantly a buyer, my principal concern with eBay is their recent introduction of whole-of-auction absolute anonymity of bidders to their Australian and, more recently, UK sites, and undoubtedly coming (again?) to the US. I consider this action to be unprincipled, unethical, reprehensible, even unconscionable; however you look at it, it is outrageous.

eBay has now obscured auction bidding to the point that genuine bidders have got absolutely no chance of detecting and thereby protecting themselves from "shill" bidding (a criminal offence in most civilised countries) by unethical vendors. Notwithstanding eBay's statements to the contrary, this application of absolute anonymity by eBay serves no purpose other than to deceive consumers; and the same criticism has always applied to eBay's other facility, "User ID kept private" (aka "the shill bidders' stairway to paradise"). Again, notwithstanding eBay's various pronouncements about shill bidding being banned on eBay, eBay is now knowingly "aiding and abetting" such shill bidders, at the expense of consumers.

What reason could eBay have for increasing the level of bidding anonymity from that of a bidder-specific level (as currently used in the US) to an absolute level? The only possible reason can be to make shill bidding "disappear". If shill bidding cannot be detected, then genuine bidders cannot report it and, as a consequence, eBay will not have to waste any of their valuable resources pretending to do anything about it.

On 26 February, on the eBay Workshop Board michelleoz@ebay.com, in anticipation, posed the following question and a response 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 [now] 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."

Space does not allow the matter to be here explored with further examples but it is apparent from many of the statements made from time to time by eBay that nowadays very little that eBay says can be accepted at face value, and the first sentence of the above answer ("No - the changes will not make shill bidding any easier.") is a classic example of what appears to be a progression towards habitual disingenuousness - it is a patently absurd statement. Of course total 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 "User ID kept private" facility has already enabled shill bidders to operate on eBay with little fear of detection - notwithstanding eBay's dubious claim of having "sophisticated tools" for the detection of such shill bidding. 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 for shill-bidding sellers operating on eBay: if the supposed "buyer" does not pay then the seller pays only the nominal listing fee.

Michelleoz@ebay.com, also said:

"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."

The "detailed information provided on the buyer" now supplied is, to the contrary, 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. The supply of this "detailed information" may seem like a good idea in theory; in practice this information is an ambiguous, confusing, and pointless set of statistics: in some circumstances it can actually make a genuine bidder look like a shill.

And, do please explain to me how eBay can possibly say that "Our experience is ..." and that eBay "still get good quality member reports" (?) when genuine bidders, in Australia and the UK, at least, now have effectively got absolutely no chance of detecting shill bidding activity? How does eBay measure this negative? This statement and the balance of this particular response is simply more disingenuous tosh.

On the same workshop venue danieloz@ebay.com responded to a questioner who asked if there was 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."

This whole response smacks of outright disingenuousness, and if ever there was another patently absurd statement, it is the last sentence: "Once again, this initiative [the introduction of absolute anonymity] has no impact on shill bidding [and] there is no correlation between hidden IDs and shill bidding."

The form of "anonymous" alias currently in use in the US ("a***b (n)"), although comprised of two (initially) randomly generated characters and three interposed asterisks, is the alias used consistently for that bidder across all auctions, and when viewed in conjunction with the accompanying feedback count, "(n)", is effectively bidder-specific and still offers a genuine bidder the opportunity to watch for suspicious patterns of bidding by individuals across a particular seller's other auctions.

On the other hand, the non-bidder-specific absolute anonymity of the form of alias now in use in Australia and the UK ("Bidder n") is just that, totally anonymous, and serves no other purpose than to deceive the consumer. The whole bidding process, rather than being "open and transparent" as it used to be, is now "closed and opaque". For buyers, in particular, eBay is no longer "a safe and fun place to trade."

It should also be mentioned that whatever you are prepared to pay, you should now "snipe" your bid very close to the end of the auction, because if you lodge a maximum value proxy bid early in the auction, a shill bidding seller can keep "nibble" bidding until your maximum is outbid and can then (apparently) withdraw their last bid (with some ridiculous excuse) so that you are again the "winning bidder" but you pay the highest amount you were prepared to pay regardless of whether or not there were any other genuine bidders. Not a bad trick, eh? Certainly, early "nibble" bidding is now only for nave buyers (and shill bidders).

eBay claims that absolute anonymity of bidders was introduced to stop fraudulent "second chance offers" being sent by direct email to underbidders. This reason is disingenuous in the extreme. This supposed problem could have been better controlled by other means - and indeed has so been controlled with the recent blocking of access to underbidders' direct email addresses.

Further, generally, a member can now only contact another member via the eBay messaging system, so it is not now possible for anyone (including scammers) to ascertain who another member is (or their direct email address) if that member does not want to disclose such details.

And, it is not now possible to contact any but the winning bidder of an auction as the winning bidder's "contactable" member ID is the only ID disclosed at the end of an auction.

So, apart from what would appear to be another nonsensical and disingenuous claim by eBay that there was a problem with scammers "guessing" members' direct email addresses from members' IDs, there is, in fact, no need for any increase in the level of anonymity at all; and there certainly is no need for the level of absolute anonymity that we in Australia and the UK now suffer: again, that level of anonymity serves only to deceive the consumer.

eBay apparently claims that they are only a "notice board provider on which members post notices" - surely, another absurd and disingenuous contention, as it is they who make all the rules by which member must play and it is they who have created the totally anonymous bidding structure, here complained of, that now enables shill-bidding sellers to mercilessly "rip off" buyers without fear of detection.

eBay apparently also suggests that as simply a "notice board provider" they should not be subject to any regulation (indeed, I suspect that they are terrified of the possibility of any such regulation) and that therefore they can apply whatever conditions and processes that suit them, without any consideration to the effect on their eBay member consumers.

So, it appears that all an unethical trader has to do to avoid an "Office of Fair Trading" is to put a "notice board provider" between themselves and their consumers. Now, there is an interesting concept for the consumer lawyers. Surely, any such notice board provider should at least be barred from knowingly providing the processes that allow such unethical traders to more easily operate, to the detriment of consumers, without fear of detection

If you follow eBay's line of reasoning that they are only a "notice board provider" then, with regard to the current matter in the U.S. of Pennsylvania State Board of Auctioneer Examiners v Barry Fallon, indeed all sellers - not only those agents, such as Mr Fallon, who act for others - who list on eBay and choose to offer goods for sale by the auction process must be "auctioneers"! Surely, for every auction, someone has to be the auctioneer, and surely, it is eBay that is this auctioneer, after all, as previously stated, it is they who create all the rules and processes by which everyone else must play, and in particular, the process that now allows shill bidders to have a field day every day without fear of detection.

The logic of this organisation is totally incomprehensible to me: I cannot make up my mind whether these people are simply disingenuous or just plain stupid: how could a person of any intelligence possibly think that the introduction of such total anonymity of bidding could create anything but a shill bidders' paradise, and have other than a serious adverse effect on buyer confidence? No, they simply cannot be that stupid (can they?) and therefore it has to be a cynical exercise in disingenuousness.

Maybe the answer is contained in this email quote from eBay: "... 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" (that is, eBay needs to protect its income 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 - and detectable, which it no longer is. 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?

Apparently, this totally anonymous "Bidder n" alias, announced in November 2006, to be applied on listings with a high bid of $200 or greater, was introduced onto the US site in January 2007 but was subsequently replaced in August 2007 by the bidder-specific style alias ("a***b (n)") - but still only for auctions over $200, viz:

"... my Buyer Experience group has teamed up with Trust & Safety and the Community over the past few months to look at ways to make the bid history more transparent without jeopardizing the safety that SMI has added. I'm pleased to let you know that this week, we'll be making the following adjustments to the User IDs displayed on bid history for items over $200:
"Actual Feedback Score is back - We will be bringing back the bidder's actual feedback score next to each member's respective User ID.
"New User ID Masking - We are replacing the current aliases (Bidder 1, Bidder 2 and Bidder 3) with a masked ID that consists of two random characters from the member's User ID - for example a***b. For any given member, this masked ID will be consistent across all auctions over $200 for which they place bids. At the end of a listing, the winning bidder's User ID will be displayed on both the item and bid history page."

(ref: http://www2.ebay.com/aw/core/200611021302372.html
and http://www2.ebay.com/aw/core/200701081004422.html
and http://www2.ebay.com/aw/core/200708241544222.html
and http://blog.auctionbytes.com/cgi-bin/blog/blog.pl?/pl/2007/8/1188006091.html).

Notice the difference in the treatment between the UK and Ireland (and ask yourself why so?):

"On eBay.co.uk, each bidder is assigned an anonymous name such as 'Bidder 1', 'Bidder 2', which is used consistently throughout the duration of the listing. The colour of the star next to the anonymous ID indicates the bidder's Feedback score (e.g. 10-49 = yellow star). Note that anonymous names may be used for different bidders across different auctions.
"On eBay.ie, the anonymous names will use two random characters from the User ID, with three asterisks in between, e.g. 'x***y'. The bidder's actual Feedback score will be shown, and the masked ID is consistent for that bidder across all auctions."

(ref: http://pages.ebay.co.uk/help/policies/safeguardmemberids.html. However, although this "Help" topic statement clearly indicates that Ireland is using the bidder-specific anonymous alias (x***y), this is not the case: the totally anonymous alias (Bidder n) is now being used!)

Undoubtedly, eBay retreated from absolute anonymity ("Bidder n") on the US and CA sites because of the response of North American consumers: undoubtedly the consumers did not appreciate the shill bidders being given free reign over them. The question then is, why are we in Australia still suffering this absolute anonymity - now, for whole-of-auction - and why has the UK (and apparently Ireland) recently reverted from the bidder-specific anonymity back to this absolute anonymity? If you log onto other eBay sites you will notice that the only other country that appears to be suffering absolute anonymity is the Philippines; all the rest have bidder-specific anonymous aliases!

We in Australia have never seen the bidder-specific form of anonymity ("a***b (n)") currently in use in the US (and previously in use in the UK); we got absolute anonymity ("Bidder n") right from the commencement of the increase in the level of anonymity in November 2006 and then for whole-of-auction in February 2008. Australia being a small market eBay can apparently afford to trial their outrageous ideas here without too much affect on the bottom line (and another such example is the naive attempt to impose "exclusive dealing" for PayPal). However, absolute anonymity has now been (re)introduced to the UK, and one can only assume that eBay intends to (re)introduce same to the US in due course.

With all the radical changes made by eBay recently (absolute anonymity of bidding; the "grab for cash" in Australia with the attempted introduction of exclusive dealing for PayPal; seller-unfriendly tinkering with the "feedback" system) it would appear that the new "trail boss" of the cowboys at eBay thinks that he is still riding the range of the old wild west of the 1870s, and that he can do whatever he likes regardless of the effect on the sheep (aka consumers) grazing thereon. Clearly, eBay management has a low opinion of the intellectual capacity of the sheep that graze on its slopes, but I am reminded of an old "Snake" cartoon strip, Q: Oh, great spirit, what is the lesson for today? A: Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups!

It may well be that the law has not kept up with such developments in online commerce, and that this supposed "notice board provider" can indeed do whatever they like. If that is the case, then it is about time that government regulators had a good look at such organisations (eBay in particular) and legislated to require from them acceptable practices towards consumers. Surely, in the case of reprehensible conduct, such as this deliberate obscuring of (shill) bidding, which serves no purpose other than to deceive the consumer, consumers have a right to bring that conduct to the attention of the appropriate authorities and expect that those authorities will act to give consumers relief from such despicable conduct.

But, action is required

There is not much point winging to one and other on the eBay bulletin boards, they are such hopeless, bottomless "bogs" that I doubt even eBay's robots read the posts thereon unless some eBay stooge "reports" them (notice how easy it is to "report" a post but how difficult it is to report a shill bidder). eBay certainly are not influenced by members' uncomplimentary posts: once eBay management have made up their minds, we will be inundated with the usually disingenuous, sometimes absurd, statements in support thereof, and we consumers have to like it or lump it; and there may well be nothing that we can normally do about that; unconscionable conduct surely is another matter ...

Members are therefore invited to post further ideas or offer comment (the noting of any errors of fact would be appreciated) on the latest version of the above proforma submission (at AuctionBytes.com). That document may then be used to inform government regulators, members of parliament, the media, ombudsmen, etc, of this reprehensible action by eBay.

I know that I appear to go on and on and on, but how else can one try to cover every devious move, and disingenuous excuse for same, by this gaggle of cowboys without attempting to dot every "i" and cross every "t"?

Please feel free to mercilessly plagiarise any of my posts on the AuctionBytes.com; and remember, unlike eBay's forums, on the AuctionBytes.com forums you can discuss such matters and "stew" about it for a while and then come back and further refine your posts.

Sellers in Australia are currently squealing like stuck pigs: between the recent introduction of absolute anonymity for (shill) bidders upsetting buyers; the nonsensical new feedback system upsetting sellers and the publicity surrounding the farcical attempted "grab for cash" with "exclusive dealing" for PayPal annoying everybody; here, just about everybody (except the shill-bidding sellers) is unhappy.

We are now getting an increased flow of eBay promotional material here in Australia, including half price listings for sellers, etc. Now, why do you think that would that be? Unfortunately, it appears that the cowboys at eBay are totally incapable of understanding and/or admitting that they have made some bad decisions in recent times.

The fact is that although it is sellers who pay the bill, any ill conceived eBay policy, such as this absolute anonymity of bidders, that will reduce buyer confidence, will hurt ethical sellers - and ultimately eBay itself. But apparently nobody at eBay has the intelligence to understand that; then, probably, their only immediate concern is the triggering of the next executive bonus, for which they will require an improvement in the bottom line: a reduction in customer support staff will help effect that end; unfortunately, any saving in that area will probably be more than offset by a reduction in overall revenue.

I also like the idea that the communicative capabilities of the internet, that eBay has so well exploited, also gives consumers the best chance of bringing them to heel. I am not ordinarily a cruel person but I do enjoy poking a stick at these snakes. Keep the pressure on. Let's at least give them a run for their money (or, to be more precise, Donahoe's executive bonus scheme).

Write to your Member of Congress/Parliament/...

Disclaimer: Notwithstanding any statements by eBay to the contrary, no action taken by the current management team at eBay has anything to do with benefitting eBay users: eBay's every action is purposed solely towards improving eBay's bottom line, and consumers are hereby advised that if at any time there appears to be some benefit to consumers, that is purely coincidental.

Some more links to comment on some other contentious eBay matters

On the eBay "naughty chair" again!
http://www.auctionbytes.com/forum/phpBB/viewtopic.php?p=6498570#6498570

eBay Australia mandates PayPal as sole payment method
http://www.auctionbytes.com/forum/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=23275

A comment on the new eBay feedback system
http://www.auctionbytes.com/forum/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=23383

eBay introduces absolute anonymity for (shill) bidders
http://www.auctionbytes.com/forum/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=23227

eBay plea: Help needed reporting blatant listing violations
http://www.auctionbytes.com/forum/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=23341

An invitation to eBay: minutes of meetings
http://www.auctionbytes.com/forum/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=23326

Feedback changes in offing?
http://www.auctionbytes.com/forum/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=23126

Upcoming Licensing Hearing Could Impact Many eBay Sellers
http://www.auctionbytes.com/forum/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=23323

Psychopaths in the Workplace
http://www.auctionbytes.com/forum/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=23338

The latest version of the above comment (on AuctionBytes.com)
http://www.auctionbytes.com/forum/phpBB/viewtopic.php?p=6498345#6498345

And my substantial eBay shopping has cut back.

I no longer place a maximum bid amount on my first bid. If I want an item, I will bid at the end of the auction for the amount that I am willing to pay. If it doesn't win, so be it. I'll just find another one for sale on eBay.