Hi meetstores,
What you saw is called safegaurding member ids (in eBay lingo). How it works is - for items where bid has gone up to 10,000 or beyond, eBay does not display the complete user id of the bidder. This helps us in ensuring that the bidders do not get spoof mails or fake second chance offer. It is not a result of shill bidding. The strong back end process at eBay make shill bidding extremely difficult. You can get more information on this initiative on the following link:
http://www2.ebay.com/aw/in/200709.shtml#2007-09-03125951
Regards,
Sapana
PS: Enhancing SMI -- adding transparency for items over Rs. 10000
Last January, we introduced an important Trust & Safety initiative called Safeguarding Member IDs (SMI). This project protects eBay's bidders on high-end items from fake Second Chance Offers and other malicious email.
While SMI has been very effective in protecting our marketplace from fraud, we also realize that it reduced transparency on the site, and, for some bidders, took away some of the magic of that makes eBay so unique. I'm pleased to let you know that this week, we have made the following adjustments to the User IDs displayed on bid history for items over Rs. 10,000:
▪ 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 Rs. 10,000 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. Please note: Sellers will still be able to view the actual User IDs for bidders on their listings through the Bid History page.
Also, please understand that to protect our Community, we might make further changes in this masking algorithm in the future, but will only do so if absolutely necessary and with advance notice. We expect to add more enhancements in the future, although our intent is to move cautiously so we can ensure we’re preserving safety.
