How do you make your screenname 'private' when placing bids on ebay bid-style auctions??

[woodland_gnome]

You see your own ID when you look at a bid history etc. for the same reason you see your own face when you look in a mirror: YOU are the one looking. Log out and navigate back to a non-cached display and you will see your ID disguised in the same manner as you now see all the other bidders' IDs disguised (a***b type alias or "Private listing--bidders' identities protected"--note the plural, ALL bidderS" identitIES are extra-protected as the seller chose that option, and that is often NOT a good thing--or a translation of the latter into the language of the eBay website the listing was set up on--e.g. German for ebay.de, French for ebay.fr etc.)



Only you and the seller (and I would assume at least some eBay employees under at least some circumstances so they can do their jobs) see your actual ID in the bid history pages or the seller's feedback profile.

[7606dennis]

After looking at your feedback record under this ID, I can see why you would not want sellers to be able to view it.  Your option are:

1)  Set your feedback to PRIVATE.  However, since you sell with this account and you cannot sell with your feedback set that way this option is probably not feasible for you.

2)  You might consider setting up a separate buying account under a different user name.  The drawback here would be that as a new account there would undoubtedly be restrictions placed on it, at least, in the beginning.

Frankly, your bid retraction record would probably send many sellers scrambling to place you on their BBL.  Especially those that sell at auction.  However, by opening separate account from which to buy you may be able to bid on auctions that aren't aware of the retraction record on this one.  However, if you run up as many retractions on that one it probably won't help you for long.

Of course, you can always seek out only private listings to bid on.  That way only you and the seller would know you are bidding and the other bidders would not.  However, this would not block your ID from the seller.