Safeguarding Member IDs launched on eBay.com and eBay Canada

Following the implementation of Safeguarding Member IDs in Australia and the UK last November it is now to be rolled out in the US and Canada. Bidders ID's will be hidden when bidding rises above $200 in the US and C$220 in Canada.

Rob Chesnut posted on the US announcement board adding that he acknowledges concerns over shill bidding (which unlike in the UK is actually a crime in several US states). eBay users will no doubt hype shilling as being a much bigger issue than eBay would like, and they would do well to learn the lessons from the UK workshop on Safeguarding Member IDs which Tamebay reviewed. Sadly the workshop in the UK failed to communicate the rationale behind the Safeguarding Member ID's initiative instead concentrating on shill bidding.

A Tamebay guest blogger, sean_coolness, has published "Safeguarding Members IDs is not a licence to shill" which explores the information divulged regarding bidder activity. The article demonstrates that it's actually easier to identify shill bidding once Safeguarding Member IDs is implemented than was the case previously.

"Safeguarding Members IDs is not a licence to shill"

Sean_Coolness has been an eBay member since 2001, and describes himself as "addicted". Specialising in motorcycles, he feels strongly that eBay should do everything they can to protect his customers from the fake 'second chance offers' which have left too many people with no goods and no money. Here are his thoughts.

Let me first say that I totally agree with eBay's new Safeguarding Members' IDs policy, because it stops fake second chance offers dead!

Sellers of high value items, like myself, suffer greatly from scammers sending out fake second chance offers to underbidders. The scammers had the underbidders' IDs from the items bid history, and could see just how much that person had bid. So it was pretty easy for them to send out a fake email which looked identical to eBay's own. Too many people have fallen foul of this, and enough of them, sellers and bidders alike, have complained about it that eBay have finally taken action.

This is a controversial decision which many think gives the seller greater scope for shill bidding. This simply isn't true.

click for full screenshot

In the new style bid history, there is a link to each bidders' bid history, showing their activity not just with the current seller, but with any seller. So if a seller is using a second account to push up the price, which is what shill bidding is all about, it will show. You can see how many times the bidder has bid on this seller's items, how many other sellers' items they have bid on, and other such information which was previously hard work to compile from the various searches available in advanced search.

click for full screenshot

In fact, a glance you can see the whole bidding activity of the bidder, and in far more detail than previously readily available. Coupled with eBay stopping private feedback, this actually reduces the scope for dodgy sellers to push prices up by shill bidding.

It has also been said by others that shill bidding is a "lesser" crime than fake second chance offers, as people who enter their maximum bid, and stick to it, can't be pushed higher by shill bidding. Where as with fake second chance offers, people have been ripped off for hundreds and even thousand of pounds. I'm not so sure I agree with this, but I do understand the sentiments.

So, with the bidder's identity hidden from general view, is it still possible to see if a seller is shill bidding, or getting a mate to regularly bid up their auctions? The answer is basically yes:

1) Using the link provided by eBay you can see how many different items and the number of sellers the bidder has bid on. If the bidder has only ever bid on one seller's auctions, but has bid on many different items, you can draw your own conclusion.

2) If a high value item is re-listed a good number of times, I would suspect the dodgy seller has "won" their own item in their efforts to push the price higher than genuine bidders are willing to pay. Remember there are a number of legitimate reasons why a seller has to re-list an item once or twice, so this isn't a hard and fast rule.

3) Common sense. Never underestimate your gut feeling.

Finally, not all sellers of 99p no reserve auctions are dodgy sellers; some of us use it as a sales pitch to generate more interest in our items :-)

Sean_Coolness

Shhhhhhilly....

Don't tell eBay but...

For those who are worried that the Safeguarding Members' IDs program will lead to an increase in shill bidding, there's an easy way to still see who the bidders are. Goofbay's regular bidder checker doesn't mess around with Bidder 1 and Bidder 2, but tells you who's really bidding.

Of course, last time Goofbay made it possible to see private bidders and view private feedback, eBay made them take it down. We don't expect this one to last, so use it while you still can.

And you ain't seen us, roight?

Safeguarding Members' IDs workshop review

Todays workshop on Safeguarding Members' IDs was dominated by discussion of shill bidding, with participants failing to be reassured by eBay's statement that they have invested in new shiller-detecting systems. Sadly, it failed to communicate any of the positive aspects of eBay's recent changes.

"Shill bidding going to ruin someone's Christmas" was one of the wilder statments made: just how, exactly? Shill bidding cannot push your bid any higher than you have bid. It does not leave you having paid out the entire bid amount with absolutely nothing to show for it. There were calls for SCOs to be discontinued, which would only cause the scammers to focus their attentions elsewhere. It's worth noting that spoof SCOs have been around for longer than real SCOs. Buyers who've been on eBay for a while may remember emails such as "I saw you were outbid, I have one just like it" or "I'm the seller and I have another": possibly that's where eBay got the idea of SCOs from!

Additionally there were concerns about not being able to add bidders to blocked bidder lists. With a limit of 1000 on the list this is not a practical solution, sellers should be using their buyer preferences more effectively. Blocking buyers without a credit card on file, or without a PayPal account cuts out most undesirable bids.

Concerns were raised that it will no longer be possible for the vigilantes to warn bidders on suspect auctions. However to do so is not only auction interference, but the correct action would be to report the auction itself.

The one lesson learned from the workshop is that eBay need to communicate the SCALE of the problem better. The workshop failed to communicate the extent of spoof SCO offers compared to the extent of shilling on the site, or even to throw a spotlight on the positive steps which have been taken by eBay this week.

Finally "How can I be certain that a seller’s Second Chance Offer is legitimate?" offers advice on how to check any second chance offers you receive are genuine.

eBay publicises Safeguarding Member IDs

eBay have started to publicise the coming changes to how User ID's are shown in auction bidding. Along with the announcement on the 21st they are also displaying a message when sellers log in

Safeguarding Members' IDs workshop 24/11/06 2-3pm

Following on from the announcement of the Safeguarding Member IDs Project due for adoption on eBay.co.uk next week, eBay are running a workshop on Friday this week at 2pm.

Whilst many eBayers are aghast at the possibility of increased shilling activity, it's a fact that a buyers bids can only be shilled to a level they'd be willing to pay, whereas spoof second chance offers rob a buyer (and in some cases multiple buyers per auction) of their maximum bid without them even receiving any goods! It has to be a welcome move to protect unsuspecting buyers from sending their money to scammers so bids over £100.00 on auctions will have User IDs masked.

On the subject of shilling, eBay believe they are improving detection and sanction offending members.

In the last several years, we've invested heavily in shill detection systems that enable us to proactively detect and investigate possible shill bidding scenarios with a higher rate of accuracy than ever before. Our systems collect more information on selling and bidding activity than our Community has access to, so we can detect patterns and identify members much more accurately.

The workshop looks set to be lively with those who are plagued with fake second class offers to their buyers celebrating, whilst those concerned with shilling will be vociferously voicing their concerns.

For those who trade on ebay.com if the ebay.co.uk project proves a success they can expect the program to roll out early in 2007.

Safeguarding Members' IDs to roll in UK

The Safeguarding Members' IDs initiative is to roll in the UK in the next few days.

Safeguarding Members' IDs in Oz

The Safeguarding Member IDs project is a new approach to auction-style listings that offers more privacy for our members through changing how bidding information is displayed. Following intensive development and review, as well as Community input, we believe the Safeguarding Member IDs project provides the Community with enough information about the bidders involved in an auction-style listing for them to feel confident in placing a bid – without revealing actual User IDs. We're implementing this new system on listings with a high bid of $200 or greater, which is where we believe it can have the greatest positive impact. The bid information for listings where the bid is lower than $200 will display as it does today.

On the bid history page for each listing we'll replace member User IDs with aliases (such as Bidder 1, Bidder 2 and Bidder 3) in the order of their bids placed.
For each bidder involved in a listing, we'll display the number of bids in unique categories that they've placed, a range that their feedback score falls within (i.e. 10-49, for instance), their percentage of positive feedback, their length of time as an eBay member, and the number of bids they've placed on the item.
At the end of a listing, the winning bidder's User ID will be displayed on the item page. Please note: Sellers will still be able to access bidder information on their listings through the Bid History page and the My eBay selling table.

Originally available only on the US Motors site, the feature has now rolled in Australia too.

Traditionally, bidder transparency has been the single safeguard in place to stop sellers artificially inflating their prices by bidding on their own auctions. However, eBay now have so many back-office solutions in place to track linked account activity. These make it much easier to stop shill bidders, so that displaying the names of bidders is no longer justifiable on those grounds when fraud prevention requires that they are kept hidden.

eBay must take the line that reducing fraud peripheral to the site is the highest priority; and if a choice has to be made, it's more important to save someone from being robbed of hundreds of pounds than to stop a shill bidder pushing a final price up by a fiver. This move will certainly make fraudsters lives more difficult, and I applaud it.