slightly OT: eBay search by Bidder

[D. Bergin]

Originally Posted by thecatspajamas

I noticed this as well. I hope that it's only temporary, as it was one of the few useful tools remaining, but with it actually being disabled rather than just hidden, I fear that it's gone for good.

As for why one would use it, I sometimes like to look and see what other items a new-to-me buyer has made when I get an oddball offer from them on one of my items. Just another way to make a quick character judgment sometimes when the buyer is otherwise unknown to me. For example, if they're giving me down the road for daring to ask $1000 for something, and they offer to "take it off my hands" for $200, but I look at their history and it shows they have never bought anything over $20, it's really hard to take them seriously.

It can also be useful in some cases for investigating unusual and shill bidding, and as Tom said, just seeing what your buddies have bought lately to see if they need an impromptu "congrats!"

Oh, and it's also useful for stalking Tom and making off-Bay offers to anyone he's buying Louisville Colonels stuff from I say that jokingly, but I understand that scenario has played out many times (even among Net54 members) with competitors stalking each other to interfere with the other's eBay dealings.

Yup, all of the above. It's one of the few tools left for a seller to help protect themselves from sketchy bidders.

Like the guy you have blocked because he has too many unpaid items on his record, he contacts you and asks why he's blocked, and you go and look at his bidder list and noticed he has bid on 100 things in the past week, look deeper and see he had a ton of retractions and is just generally a problem bidder.

Or the guy who can't pay you until next month because his grandmother is in the hospital, his dog just died, and he needs to pay for surgery on the bunyon on his big toe...but you look a little deeper and see he's still throwing out bids and spending thousands of $'s, getting feedback from others, but for some reason can't pay YOU.

It's just a general way to suss out fishy bidders, and as mentioned already, keep track of some of the suspected shillers.

[D. Bergin]

According to the boards on Ebay, it seems this is a knee jerk response to the recent security breach, with this particular report being the culprit.

http://www.fool.com/investing/genera...rity-conc.aspx

An emphasis on the following quote:

Researchers at the New York University Polytechnic School of Engineering and NYU Shanghai have discovered a privacy flaw that allows site visitors to view a buyer's complete purchase history. That's a severe privacy breach, potentially revealing very personal information.

So apparently these geniuses have "discovered" a security flaw, that has existed on Ebay for as long as anybody can remember.


As recently as yesterday, Ebay pinks on the forums were pretending they didn't even know this was an issue, and would contact the tech team.

http://community.ebay.com/t5/Weekly-...2179096/page/2


Apparently the tech team has been contacted and is working on the problem. The suspicious part of me thinks it will only continue to be a problem as long as people keep asking about it.

[thecatspajamas]

Originally Posted by D. Bergin

According to the boards on Ebay, it seems this is a knee jerk response to the recent security breach, with this particular report being the culprit.

http://www.fool.com/investing/genera...rity-conc.aspx

An emphasis on the following quote:

Researchers at the New York University Polytechnic School of Engineering and NYU Shanghai have discovered a privacy flaw that allows site visitors to view a buyer's complete purchase history. That's a severe privacy breach, potentially revealing very personal information.

So apparently these geniuses have "discovered" a security flaw, that has existed on Ebay for as long as anybody can remember.


As recently as yesterday, Ebay pinks on the forums were pretending they didn't even know this was an issue, and would contact the tech team.

http://community.ebay.com/t5/Weekly-...2179096/page/2


Apparently the tech team has been contacted and is working on the problem. The suspicious part of me thinks it will only continue to be a problem as long as people keep asking about it.

If the reason mentioned on the boards that Dave quoted is accurate, then I fear that this feature is gone for good. Ebay does not have a good track record of implementing or updating potentially-useful features these days, but does have a long history of quickly removing anything publicly criticized, saying they are taking action, providing no details until everyone goes away and quits asking about it, and then never reinstating or successfully revising anything. The current programmers seem to be slowly dismantling or corrupting the base system that the early programmers put in place, and I doubt any of the original programmers are still around to tell them why those useful features were put in place to start with.