I agree with Jeff's thoughts on Ebay's new bidder ID protection policy. I have avoided bidding on "Private" listings on Ebay in the past. My feeling is that if there is something to hide then it's not worth taking the chance of being artificially bid up or the listing being fraudulent. Before I bid on an item I always research the seller and other bidders. I always ask the seller to send additional pictures of the item I am interested on. There have been some sellers that don't want to send more pictures or say that all the information I need is in the listing. Needless to say I don't bid on these seller's items. I am sure that we all have had some bad Ebay experiences. Too many times you can find bidders with no history of bidding on phonograph related items all of a sudden bidding again and again on an item. Also, you can sometimes tell if the bidder is located near the seller. With the new policy from Ebay of not revealing the bidder's ID, it will be harder to detect scams. With every new policy that Ebay comes up with it doesn't take long for the professional scammers to find a way around it. This new policy, in my mind, has good intentions. But, I think it will also discourage bidders. Maybe the best way to bid on items is to just put in one bid and not look back at it until it closes and avoid the frustration. It all boils down to what you are willing to pay for an item and whether or not someone else thinks it is worth more. If a shill bidder is the high bidder at the end of the sale then you can be sure that the seller will be relisting it at some time.
Ken Brekke -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Jeffry Young, D.O. Sent: Tuesday, January 16, 2007 10:09 AM To: [email protected] Subject: [Phono-L] Protected Bidding on ebay! Any experiences or comments on bidder identification protection on ebay?! I am always worried that the bidding is sham bidding in these auctions, artificially raising the price? I actually look for bidders whom I have bid against in the past. This lends towards legitimacy, but also confirms what I am bidding on, others that collect the same thing are also interested. Has anyone bid, or won anything with these bidder identification protected auctions? The seller of the Zonophone-A is doing that with that particular auction. Jeff Young Wisconsin _______________________________________________ Phono-L mailing list http://phono-l.oldcrank.org
