I was just browsing the first gen offerings on ebay, and i see the curent top bid on just about every car i looked at (project style) had the high bid from a name like bidder1 bidder2 bidder3...... WTF is that about?

Sounds like some shenanigans are afoot.

example1
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/1969-camaro-ss-drag-car-no-motor-or-trans-roller-street_W0QQitemZ110121230587QQihZ001QQcategoryZ616 1QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
example2
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/68-CAMARO-SOLID-PROJECT-CAR_W0QQitemZ190107538696QQihZ009QQcategoryZ6161QQ rdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

this goes on and on... just pick a car on the first gen list and check the high bidders.

Actually, i just went and looked at a nissan and see the same thing... is this a new ebay thing?
I do remember when i was bidding on things before, it showed usernames. Are all bids from bidder# now?

Brian

Ebay started doing this to cut down on fraud, the idea is that you do not know who the bidders are so you cannot contact them for bogus 2nd chance offers and other scams etc...

Ahhhhh....

Feel free to give me a smack to the back of the head.
It's been a while since my last project.
:)

Thanks!
i'm such a dork.

Brian

When ANY item on ebay get over a certain price, they use the bidder 1, 2, 3 and so on. The SELLER of the item can see in MY EBAY who the bidders are, but not the general public. This is the prevent someone from contacting the second or third highest bidder after the auction closes and offering to sell them the item in a second chance auction and trying to scam them into paying for merchandise that they don't own or it can prevent someone from contacting the losers and offering to sell them a similar item outside of Ebay. No shinagins going one. just one more way to try and protect both the seller and buyer of high price items from getting ripped off.:noway:

What's bad about it is you can't see who is bidding so I think it's easier for shill bidding to take place.jmo

The public can click on the bidder # and it will give info on how many times that bidder has interacted with the seller. If that number seemed to be large, that would possibly make me think about them being true bids or shilling going on. At least eBay is trying to work on some of these issues.