Real Ebay Bidders or

[mgauction]

Anyone else notice a lot of ebay identities popping up with with a letter, followed by three snowflakes and ending with another letter -- example: c***o. Most of these have 0-5 feedback. Real bidders or shill bidders?

[cheyenne]

I've been noticing that myself. Anyone know what its all about????

[charlyg]

They have "hidden" real usernames to slow down on the "spam" sent to real users. IIRC

[johnallg]

Doesn't explain the large number of 0-5 feedback bidders.

[mgauction]

They have "hidden" real usernames to slow down on the "spam" sent to real users. IIRC

I don't understand, Charly. How does that work?

[charlyg]

* eBay safeguards your User ID by limiting how your bid history information is displayed to other members. While bid history, buying activity, and contact information about other members is helpful in evaluating a transaction and promoting a level of trust between users, potential fraudsters can also use the information to defraud members.
* When the highest bid, reserve or Buy It Now price on an item reaches or exceeds a certain level, other members cannot view your member-specific information on the Bid History page. Your User ID is shown to the seller of this item only. Bidders are assigned anonymous names which are used consistently throughout the bid history for an item.

[kenposurf]

Fact is..."off auction" transactions are driving ebay nutzo. People will often email a bidder who lost a given auction after the fact if they have a like item to sell. It is true that some sharks out there will try and sell something they don't really have, but I think it's more an issue of fee avoidance then bidder/seller protection for ebay...

[mgauction]

Thanks, Charly!

[beatlefreak]

You can bet with Ebay, it's always about the fees they collect.