Why doesn't look like I'm betting against eBay

Question

Every time I find a item to Bid on No One bids on the item until I bid on it and Then I can't even see who the Bider is saying it's a private Bider All Of A Sudden I feel there's something going on with this biding on ebay And this is not the first time this happened it seems to happen all the time on items that don't get bid on they'll sit there 3 and 4 days and no one will bid on them and then all of a sudden when I bid on them now there's a private bidder I think it's time to close my account...

woodland_gnome · Answer

Do you mean that as soon as you bid you are immediately outbid (or that you placed a bid higher than the Starting Price and some of it was used up to outbid another bidder? If so, what steps did you go through before you bid to determine that there was no prior bidder? What did you see after you bid to either confirm or dispel your earlier conclusion (or reach it if you didn't take steps before bidding) that you were the first bidder? What was the time of the other bid vs. the time of your bid?

If you mean you entered your bid and then someone bid sometime (how long?) after you did, why would you be suspicious?

There is no such thing as a "Private Bidder." There are "Private Listings" and there are users who have chosen to make their feedback histories somewhat more "private."

ALL bidders' and buyers' identities are hidden on bid histories and seller's Feedback profile (from everyone but that particular bidder/buyer and that particular seller, and I would assume at least some eBay employees in at least some circumstances) by substituting an alias in the same way as every other bidder/buyer for that particular listing and/or page, either:

1. An "a***b (#)" alias where "a" and "b" are randomly selected characters (formerly selected randomly from the actual username's character set, but it now appears on at least some pages the characters are not necessarily in the username) and "#" is the user's feedback score (if the user has chosen to make his/her Feedback Profile "Private"--NOT a good idea--that word will appear instead), or

2. "Private listing: bidders' identities protected" or a translation of that phrase to the language of the eBay site the listing was set up on if the SELLER chose that option (buyers have no choice in the matter except in choosing which listing to bid/buy/offer on). Experienced buyers are wary of such Private Listings in auctions as it is too frequently used to hide evidence that the seller is shill bidding to run up the price.

stuff4divas · Answer

@puttys2012 yes, many people keep their ebay id private and most don't bid until the ending part of the auction.

to close your account, click on this link> https://www.ebay.com/help/account/changing-account-settings/closing-account?id=4199