eBay auction

eBay Inc. (NASDAQ: EBAY) is an American Internet company that manages eBay.com, an online auction and shopping website where people and businesses buy and sell goods and services worldwide. In addition to its original U.S. website, eBay has established localized websites in several other countries. eBay Inc also owns PayPal, Skype, and other businesses.


 

• 1Controversy and criticisms
• 2Intellectual property in auctions
• 3eBay customer support
• 4Other eBay controversies
• 5References

[top]Controversy and criticisms

eBay has its share of controversy, ranging from its privacy policy (eBay typically turns over user information to law enforcement without a subpoena to well-publicized seller fraud. eBay claims that their data shows that less than .01% of all transactions result in a confirmed case of fraud. However, eBay states that their stated fraud statistic both undercounts and overcounts fraud.


Fraud

One mechanism eBay uses to combat fraud is its feedback system. After every transaction both the buyer and seller have the option of rating each other. They can give a "positive", "negative", or "neutral" rating and leave a comment no longer than 80 characters. So if a buyer has problems, he or she can rate the seller "negative" and leave a comment such as "never received product".

Weaknesses of the feedback system include:

• Small and large transactions carry the same weight in the feedback summary. It is therefore easy for a dishonest user to initially build up a deceptive positive rating by buying or selling a number of very low value items, such as e-books, recipes, etc., then subsequently switching to fraud.
• A user may be reluctant to leave honest feedback out of fear of negative retaliatory feedback (including "negative" in retaliation for "neutral").
• Users and generators of feedback may have different ideas about what it means. Ebay offers virtually no guidelines.
• Feedback and responses to feedback are allotted only 80 characters each. This can prevent users from being able to fully list valid complaints.
• Accounts with good feedback can be hijacked by phishing giving a con artist the appearance of an excellent trading history. This problem is particularly prevalent in certain areas, such as digital cameras.
• Although Ebay protects sellers from getting a negative feedback from a deadbeat buyer (once the non-paying bidder case is decided in the seller's favor), they do not offer the same protection for a buyer who gets a deadbeat seller.

eBay acknowledges weaknesses in its feedback system on its own policy pages, noting several of the above points.

When a user feels that a seller or buyer has been dishonest, a dispute can be filed with eBay. An eBay account (whether seller, buyer or both) may be suspended if there are too many complaints against the account holder.

Many complaints have been made about eBay's system of dealing with fraud, leading to its being featured on the British consumer rights television program Watchdog. It is also regularly featured in The Daily Mirror's Consumer Awareness page. The complaints are generally that eBay sometimes fails to respond when a claim is made, and since eBay makes its money on commissions from listings and sales may not be in eBay's interest to take action against large sellers.

Frauds that can be committed by sellers include:

• Receiving payment and not shipping merchandise
• Shipping items other than those described
• Giving a deliberately misleading description
• Knowingly and deliberately shipping faulty merchandise
• Counterfeit or bootleg merchandise
• Knowingly selling stolen goods
• Inflating total bid amounts by bidding on their own auction with "shill" account(s), either the seller under an alternate account or another person in collusion with the seller. Shill bidding is prohibited by eBay and, in at least one high-profile case involving Kenneth Walton (and his accomplices Ken Fetterman and Scott Beach) has been prosecuted by the federal government as criminal fraud.

Frauds committed by buyers include:

• PayPal fraud: Filing false shipping damage claim with the shipping company and with PayPal.
• Credit card fraud, in the form of both stolen credit cards and fraudulent chargebacks.
• Receiving merchandise and claiming otherwise
• Returning items other than received
• The buyer sends a forged payment-service E-mail which states that the buyer has made a payment to the seller's account. An unsuspecting seller may ship the item before realizing the E-mail was forged.

Other controversial practices of users

• Sellers of inexpensive items may benefit from inflating the shipping cost while lowering the starting price for their auctions, because some buyers overlook the shipping cost when calculating the amount they are willing to spend. Since eBay charges their fees based on final sales price without including shipping, this allows sellers to reduce the amount they pay eBay in fees (and also allows buyers to reduce or avoid import fees and sales taxes). This is called "fee avoidance", and is prohibited by eBay policy, as are excessive shipping and handling charges. A danger to the buyer in such cases is that in the event of defective merchandise, the seller may claim to have met his refund obligations by returning only the minimal purchase price and not the shipping costs.
  
• Sellers sometimes charge fees for use of PayPal as well. Although this is officially banned by eBay and PayPal (except in the UK) and is against some local laws as well as violating merchant agreements with Visa, Mastercard and Discover (again, except in the UK), eBay does not police for this and will only look at it if the auction is reported. Therefore inexperienced users often wind up paying these illegal and unenforceable fees.
  
• Auction sniping is the process of watching a timed online auction, and placing a winning bid at the last possible moment (often literally seconds before the end of the auction), giving the other bidders no time to outbid the sniper. Some bidders do this manually, and others use online services and software designed for the purpose. While disliked by many eBay users, sniping is not against eBay rules as users are expected to put in their maximum bid from the start and the system will automatically bid up on their behalf.
  
• Burying shipping charges or undesirable terms in a large amount of text.

[top]Intellectual property in auctions

Holders of intellectual property rights, have claimed that eBay profits from the infringement of intellectual property rights. eBay has responded by creating the Verified Rights Owner (VeRO) program, which provides to rightsholders expedited auction takedowns and private information on eBay users, but has likewise been criticized.

In June 2004 the jeweler Tiffany & Co. sued eBay claiming that eBay profits from the sale of counterfeit Tiffany products. As of July 2006, a trial date has not been set.

In September 2005, eBay's privacy practices relating to its VeRO program came under scrutiny when WNDU-TV reported that the Embroidery Software Protection Coalition was accusing United States buyers, identified by eBay, of copyright infringement, and demanding monetary settlements. eBay's privacy policy warns that eBay may disclose personal information on the request of any VeRO rightsholder investigating illegal activity; in comparison, competing service Yahoo! Auctions may disclose personal information in response to a subpoena or court order. Although, according to a University of Notre Dame law professor, there is no legal basis, in the United States, for copyright infringement claims against buyers, eBay's VeRO program may have allowed the ESPC to obtain private information without judicial oversight.

Some manufacturers have abused eBay's VeRo program, through which copyright and trademark owners can quickly protect their rights, by seeking to prevent all sales of their products on eBay.

In November 2006, a U.K. High Court ruled that a VeRO rightsholder's takedown request to eBay constituted a legal threat under design patent law. Since groundless legal threats under design patent law are unlawful, the ruling holds that groundless VeRO takedown requests based on design patents are also unlawful. Further, the text of the ruling appears critical of the VeRO program in general: "It is entirely wrong for owners of intellectual property rights to attempt to assert them without litigation, or without the threat of litigation, in reply."

[top]eBay customer support

A source of frustration for some eBay users is that due to the company's size, it offers no customer support by phone, instead referring all ordinary members to its online help features. Apart from a library of self-help resources, these features consist mainly of e-mail contact forms and "Live Help," which lets users chat with customer service representatives via instant messaging. In fact, most visitors to the eBay site will not find any company phone number listed at all. In addition, only registered users can contact eBay customer support via email through the site; those who merely wish to contact eBay have to sign up for an account first.

eBay does, in fact, have a phone support department, but that service is limited to members of the rank "Silver PowerSeller" and above, the company's term for members who sell at least $3,000 worth of goods per month on the site. The phone number for that service is not published, although there have been reports on eBay's own forums and weblogs that customers who manage to obtain the number through legal documents are rudely replied and told to use the online service instead.

[top]Other eBay controversies

Other notable controversies involving eBay include:

In May 2000, eBay seller Kenneth Walton auctioned an oil painting on eBay for $135,805, due to speculation that it might be the work of California modernist Richard Diebenkorn. Walton pretended to know nothing about art and claimed to be surprised by the price the painting fetched, and the auction attracted international media attention. In several investigative reports by The New York Times, it was revealed that Walton was in fact an experienced eBay art dealer with several unhappy customers, and that he had colluded with two other eBay sellers to bid up each other's auctions. The Times described this as a "shill bidding ring". Walton and his cohorts were banned from eBay and eventually convicted of fraud by the federal government in the first ever prosecution for shill bidding on eBay.

On 28 May 2003, a U.S. District Court jury found eBay guilty of willful patent infringement and ordered the company to pay USD $35 million in damages. The plaintiff was MercExchange, which had accused eBay in 2000 of infringing on three patents (one of which is used in eBay's "Buy It Now" feature for fixed-price sales, 30 percent of eBay's business and growing). The decision was appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC). The CAFC affirmed the judgment of willful infringement, and reversed the lower court and granted a permanent injunction. eBay appealed the permanent injunction to the U.S. Supreme Court, which on May 15, 2006 found an injunction is not required nor automatic in this or any patent case where guilt has been established. The case was sent back to the Virginia district court for consideration of the injunction and a trial on another MercExchange patent the inventor claims covers the remaining 70 percent of eBay's business model. This case has been particularly controversial since the patents involved are considered to be business method patents.

On 28 July 2003, eBay and its subsidiary PayPal agreed to pay a $10 million fine to settle allegations that they aided illegal offshore and online gambling. According to the settlement, PayPal between mid-2000 and November 2002 transmitted money in violation of various U.S. federal and state online gambling laws. eBay's announcement of its acquisition of PayPal in early July said that PayPal would begin the process of exiting this market, and was already doing so when the ruling occurred. These offenses occurred prior to eBay's purchase of PayPal.

On 17 December 2004, Avnish Bajaj, CEO of eBay's Indian subsidiary was arrested after a video clip showing oral sex between two Indian students was sold online. The company denied knowing the content of what they were selling (because it is a venue, not a retailer) and removed the offensive material as soon as they became aware of it. The Indian government attempted to make the case that Bajaj had violated India's IT Act, which forbids "publishing, transmitting or causing to publish" obscene material, even though the actual material was never published on Baazee's servers. eBay supported Baazee's defense.

On 14 June 2005, eBay removed auction listings for originally free tickets to the Live 8 charity auction amid hundreds of complaints about such auctions. Normally, selling of charity tickets is legal under United Kingdom law.

In 2005, the Australian National Rugby League tried unsuccessfully to persuade eBay to prevent scalpers from selling Grand Final tickets online.

On 18 December 2006 eBay won a court case against Creative Festival Entertainment in Australia, allowing sellers to on-sell (or scalp) tickets for the Big Day Out concert. The case was won due to the big day out organizers not being able to fully enforce an anti-scalping policy printed on the back of the tickets. The presiding judge described the decision as "unfortunate".

Some have criticized the emphasis eBay places on its subsidiary PayPal as a method of accepting payments. eBay discourages sellers from using independent money-wiring companies such as Western Union and MoneyGram (Moneybookers is now allowed instead), stating that it prohibits or discourages certain forms of payment in order to reduce fraud. On the U.S. eBay, while sellers may accept such payments, they are prohibited from advertising them as a payment option. A similar policy applies to mailing cash as a payment option. Certain non-U.S. branches of eBay allow sellers to advertise wire transfers or mailed cash as payment options, provided such methods are not the only payment options the seller accepts.

In late 2006 eBay effected a policy a change which showed less information about sellers once auctions reached a certain value. This policy has been criticised for making shill bidding much harder to detect, to the potential disadvantage of buyers and significant advantage to unethical sellers who may artificially inflate the price of an auction. An investigation by The Sunday Times in January 2007 uncovered substantial evidence of shill bidding on eBay.

[top]References

eBay feedback changes

Source: eBay Newsletter (Wed 1/30/08)

1. Buyers will only be able to receive positive Feedback.
2. Positive repeat customer Feedback will count and Feedback more than 12 months old won't.
3. Negative and neutral Feedback left by the buyer will be removed for transactions in which a buyer doesn't respond to the Unpaid Item (UPI) or if the member is suspended.

Other links

Countries with localized eBay websites include Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, China, France, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, New Zealand, Poland, Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, and the United Kingdom

Chat with Rob Chesnut, Vice President of eBay's Trust & Safety Department

eBay Feedback: Fatally Flawed?

San Francisco Bay Guardian - Bias on eBay

eBay.com Feeback Policies - Overview

Circumventing Fees eBay. Retrieved on 2006-06-11
Excessive Shipping & Handling eBay. Retrieved on 2006-06-11

Tiffany sues eBay, says fake items sold on Web site, USA Today, March 22, 2004

eBay Privacy Policy Retrieved on 2007-01-10

Design right threat fails to stop eBay sales, 2006-11-14

eBay's Superb Customer Service (2006-09-19) Retrieved on 2007-06-30

Hafner, Katie (2004-12-30). Customer Service: The Hunt for a Human The New York Times. Retrieved on 2007-06-30

Hafner, Katie (2005-01-04). Hunting a rare breed: Human online support The New York Times. Retrieved on 2007-06-30

EBAY INC. ET AL. v. MERCEXCHANGE, L. L. C. (PDF) US Supreme Court. Retrieved on 2006-06-17

Federal Court decision on Big Day Out tickets eBay. Retrieved on 2007-02-05

Accepted Payments Policy eBay. Retrieved on 2006-10-20

Ebay UK payment methods allowed eBay. Retrieved on 2006-10-23

Sunday Times Reports Widespread Shill Bidding on eBay


eBay policies pages

Tobacco
Alcohol Policy
Drugs and Drug Paraphernalia
Offensive Material Policy
Bootleg Recordings
Firearms, Weapons and Knives
Used Clothing
Teacher's Edition Textbooks
Human Remains and Body Parts Policy
Animals and Wildlife Products
Digitally Delivered Goods
eBay Help: Prohibited and Restricted Items and Services




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eBay introduces absolute anonymity for (shill) bidders

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

2 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.”

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?

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.”

A Message from Rob Chesnut – Safeguarding Member IDs on eBay Motors
A Message from Rob Chesnut – Launch of Safeguarding Member IDs on eBay.com and eBay Canada
Bid History Update - More Details

Notice the difference in the current 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.”

Protecting eBay User IDs

Undoubtedly, eBay retreated from absolute anonymity (“Bidder n”) on the US site because of the response of US consumers. The question then is, why are we in Australia still suffering this absolute anonymity—now, for the whole-of-auction—and why has the UK recently reverted from bidder-specific anonymity back to this absolute anonymity, while Ireland has retained the bidder-specific anonymity?

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 someone else “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 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 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.

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 wholly unintentional.

Some more links to comment on some other contentious eBay matters

On the eBay “naughty chair” again!
AuctionBytes :: View topic - On the eBay “naughty chair” again!

eBay Australia mandates PayPal as sole payment method
AuctionBytes :: View topic - eBay Australia mandates PayPal as sole payment method

A comment on the new eBay feedback system
AuctionBytes :: View topic - A comment on the new eBay feedback system

eBay introduces absolute anonymity for (shill) bidders
AuctionBytes :: View topic - eBay introduces absolute anonymity for (shill) bidders

eBay plea: Help needed reporting blatant listing violations
AuctionBytes :: View topic - eBay plea: “Help needed reporting blatant listing violatio

An invitation to eBay: minutes of meetings
AuctionBytes :: View topic - An invitation to eBay: minutes of meetings

Feedback changes in offing?
AuctionBytes :: View topic - Feedback changes in offing?

Upcoming Licensing Hearing Could Impact Many eBay Sellers
AuctionBytes :: View topic - Upcoming Licensing Hearing Could Impact Many eBay Sellers

Psychopaths in the Workplace
AuctionBytes :: View topic - Psychopaths in the Workplace

[PhilipCohen]

For anyone who buys on eBay, a detailed case study of an instance of blatant shill bidding and the abuse of eBay’s proxy bidding system—all exacerbated by eBay’s introduction of “hidden bidders”—and a detailed comment on eBay’s disingenuous attitude thereto, at AuctionBytes :: View topic - Shill Bidding on eBay: a Case Study

I have had this problem as well...am still working out some safeguards.