Does anyone else get suspicious when bidding for items, and see's they're up against "Bidder, 1, 2, 3, 4, etc."?

Does anyone on here set up there auctions in a similar 'anonymous' way, and if so, what is the purpose of doing it?

As far as I understand it Ebay automatically makes it happen on expensive items such as cars, although you can set an auction as private if you're selling PVC traffic warden outfits for example.

As I understood it, that's the way all ebay auctions run now, they changed it a few months back.

They are always anonymous, this is not something the seller configures.

http://pages.ebay.co.uk/help/policies/safeguardmemberids.html

I asked this a few months ago and it turns out that Ebay change the names to bidder 1, 2 etc.
I thought it was somekind of organised crime when i first realised

I think ebay does it automatically now. I think intelligent bidders could get an advantage by researching the opposition bidders by looking at their feedback and similar items that they had bid on to work out where to pitch their own bids.

I certainly used to do this and it's made it harder for me to work out what's going on.

I thought it was a seller option to protect buyer identities, but it looks like its the default now, an THIS is what happens when the bidders ids are protected.

[Edited on 24/10/08 by r1_pete]

it stops people trying to sell there bits to people who are bidding on your stuff

It is also a good cover for rigging ie "bids off the wall" ---- auctions should be open and honest. Sellers should set realistic starting prices which are also automatically the reserve.

just use "bidnapper"