eBay private listings - bidder's identities protected 0

[SquareChaos]

I was watching this page on eBay:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Comic-Original-Art-Ryan-Ottley-Invincible-64-page-10-Conquest-/282675607870?_trksid=p2047675.l2557&nma=true&si=dk0tT9d7geWQ3lfdU2w60OK4ZE0%3D&orig_cvip=true&rt=nc

 

I've used eBay more than a few times over the years as a buyer, and quite a bit as a seller, but I never knew you could mark a listing as private and hide all bidder information. Am I the only ignorant one here? Finally, why would someone want to do this on an OA page - it makes me rampantly suspicious. Am I being paranoid?

[artistlost]

17 minutes ago, SquareChaos said:

I was watching this page on eBay:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Comic-Original-Art-Ryan-Ottley-Invincible-64-page-10-Conquest-/282675607870?_trksid=p2047675.l2557&nma=true&si=dk0tT9d7geWQ3lfdU2w60OK4ZE0%3D&orig_cvip=true&rt=nc

 

I've used eBay more than a few times over the years as a buyer, and quite a bit as a seller, but I never knew you could mark a listing as private and hide all bidder information. Am I the only ignorant one here? Finally, why would someone want to do this on an OA page - it makes me rampantly suspicious. Am I being paranoid?

I don't think you are being paranoid at all. I don't see a reason for this at all unless you are up to no good. eBay already makes it so you can't see the bidders only their feedback so this extra step taken by this seller seems fishy. Also, I am not all the familiar with Invincible art sales but that price seems REALLY aggressive.

 

mathew

[SquareChaos]

4 minutes ago, artistlost said:

I don't think you are being paranoid at all. I don't see a reason for this at all unless you are up to no good. eBay already makes it so you can't see the bidders only their feedback so this extra step taken by this seller seems fishy. Also, I am not all the familiar with Invincible art sales but that price seems REALLY aggressive.

 

mathew

I'm no expert on it, but while it is a bit aggressive, it does have a fan favorite (Conquest) appearance and there was semi-recent movie news. My initial estimate was $400 - $550, but honestly, it isn't like you see a lot of pages show up all of the time.

Still, couple that with the new seller (July 2017) and private bidders...

[Claudio]

I would not bid on private listings on ebay.  Probability of shilling is way too high

[Madman1138]

I am also leery of bidding on private auctions. It seems most of the forgery sellers use that method on their listings so you can't look up their past items when checking their feedback. I can't even think of another reason you'd want to do a private listing otherwise. I don't see how it protects bidders, like the sellers that use them say. Since eBay started blanking out the bidder IDs years ago there is less chance of warning potential bidders and it only makes it harder to catch shill bidding and forgery sellers that fly under the radar. 

[J.Sid]

Heritage / ComicLink don't let you see the bidders' identities, do they?

 

[vodou]

11 hours ago, J.Sid said:

Heritage / ComicLink don't let you see the bidders' identities, do they?

It's all shillsville, every venue. Even if the opportunity is not taken advantage of as often as the paranoid would suggest, it easily can be. This hobby, like it's big brother comics, is rife with enough bad actors that nobody can convince me, especially after last year's revelation that it doesn't happen or happens so infrequently as to not matter.

[comix4fun]

12 hours ago, J.Sid said:

Heritage / ComicLink don't let you see the bidders' identities, do they?

 

Ebay doesn't allow that either. The non-private auctions give 2 letters out of an entire screen name and the feedback number of the bidder. They are effectively hidden. 

The extra layer of "private auction" is superfluous if the reason being given is "privacy" or to hide bidder identity. 

 

[J.Sid]

On 10/6/2017 at 10:53 AM, comix4fun said:

Ebay doesn't allow that either. The non-private auctions give 2 letters out of an entire screen name and the feedback number of the bidder. They are effectively hidden. 

The extra layer of "private auction" is superfluous if the reason being given is "privacy" or to hide bidder identity. 

 

My point was, why single out  eBay private auctions as being untrustworthy?

[SquareChaos]

1 minute ago, J.Sid said:

My point was, why single out  eBay private auctions as being untrustworthy?

I originally posted about this because the linked private auction appears to be far outside of the norm for the average eBay listing. I'd never encountered it before, and while even a normal auction masks most of the bidder data, you may at least have a shot at detecting patterns in the seller's previous listings if they've only built up a small number of shill accounts.

 

I don't personally have the history or experience with Heritage / ComicLink that I have with eBay so I can't comment on that, but I do know there are some who believe pretty much all selling platforms can be, and likely are, manipulated.

[comix4fun]

1 hour ago, J.Sid said:

My point was, why single out  eBay private auctions as being untrustworthy?

Mostly because it's redundant from a privacy perspective. In fact, the only advantage of private auctions over regular, from a practical perspective, is how it allows sellers to operate free from allowing potential buyers to see any possible bidding irregularities that could be red flags of shilling and other types of bid manipulation. 

[Panelfan1]

On 06/10/2017 at 1:34 AM, J.Sid said:

Heritage / ComicLink don't let you see the bidders' identities, do they?

 

Ok. But the art goes to them and they become the defacto seller.  If an item is fake-  Hopefully they won't list it.