2 biiders, same ID ???

[dutchman48]

Look at this auction # 380998818727

2 bidders with the same ID but different feedback bidding on it

How is this possible?

[ricarmic]

Hmm I don't see two identical bidder ids with different feedbacks? I see multiple high bids from the same bidder. It is probably possible for the bidder id to be duplicated though because it is just a random generated thing anyway so we don't know who the real bidder is. Possible that it randomly generated the same one? Anyway I may be missing what you are seeing.....

[jpdjb5]

I see two biders with same ID S***S but two different Feeback score.

However, those ID are randomly generated by eBay to protect bidder identity. First time I see that in the same auction.

Looks like another eBay "glitch".

I did a check on Bid history for each one and It's look OK : Bid history aren't the same.

[dutchman48]

	Member Id: s***s( 6 )	US $10.00	Sep-27-14 09:40:25 PDT
	Member Id: s***s( 249)	US $10.00	Sep-27-14 10:22:01 PDT
	Member Id: s***s( 249)	US $8.50	Sep-27-14 10:21:33 PDT
	Member Id: s***s( 6 )	US $8.00	Sep-27-14 09:35:56 PDT
	Member Id: s***s( 249)

Both bidders have same ID    s***s

[dutchman48]

Never saw it before, hence why I posted.

[mr.elmwood]

No.

Bidder was in at $8.50 with a $10 proxy. Someone else came along and overbid the $10 causing the $10 proxy to show.

[dutchman48]

Look at the s***s that both bidders have been assigned, Not the bids.

[mr.elmwood]

No.

Look at their bid history. It is the same bidder, over bidding themselves.

[dutchman48]

One has feedback of 6 and the other over 200. How can they be the same bidder. Look at the bid history I posted above

[rose-dee]

I think the explanation is in the randomly-generated "pseudonyms" that eBay assigns to each bidder. 

I've noticed (on auctions where I happen to know a bidder from her current FB score and the type of item she bids on) that the eBay "bots" seem to just pick and choose random letters to represent a bidder, not necessarily the first and last letters (or digits).  If they did, I think other bidders -- especially ones who know their competition -- would pretty quickly figure out who was who.

So, in your example, the bidder with 250 FB may have an ID that starts and ends with an "s", or may have two "s" somewhere in the ID, and so does the bidder with 7 FB. 

It's not hard to imagine cases of this occurring:  "rose-dee" may pop up as "r***e", or (more likely) as a different combination of random letters each time.  I don't think the three asterisks necessarily represent precisely 3 missing letters either -- they could represent a whole string of missing text.  So, for example, taking two random letters from Mr. Elmwood might also generate "r***e". 

I don't think it's as mysterious as you might think -- just the result of random computer generation of a limited number of alphabetical characters.  With only 26 to work with (maybe 36 if you include 10 digits as well), that means sooner or later two people may be shown with the same two letters, especially in a really busy auction with a lot of bidders.  Actually, I would say that such random duplication helps to keep the true ID even more secure.