How/where can we get an anonymous identity as a bidder?

[best-price-gifts]

I just saw this "private listing - bidders' identities protected". How to do it? thanks

[scifan57 · Accepted solution]

Every bidder's user ID is hidden. Only you and the seller can see your user ID,everybody else sees a masked user ID such as this. X*****Y(42).

[rose-dee · Accepted solution]

It looks like you're referring to "Private Listings" -- these are set up by the seller, not buyers/bidders, usually for very sought after or higher-priced items, or sometimes the seller has a particular reason to protect his or her bidders' identities. It means that the details of the purchase will not be displayed on the winning buyer's/bidder's feedback.  I personally don't use it, as I think eBay works best when every transaction is an open one, however...

If your concern was about your identity being disclosed during the bidding process, the earlier reply is correct, that is, while an item is being bid on, other bidders will see an anonymous pseudonym that protects each bidder's identity until the auction closes. 

[dmil8030 · Accepted solution]

Hello 'aimelle',

The listing you are seeing is set up that way by the seller.  All the people who bid in that auction will have that, yourself included.

There are many reasons why a seller might do it, - when you win the auction the item does not appear in feedback, just the comments.  So if there are a lot of complaints about an item, unless people say what the item is others will not know which product to avoid.

Some sellers believe that all purchases should always be private and that what anyone buys is nobody else's business.  Still others do it to shill up their own items and the only identity they are protecting is another of their own.  Hence, some folks won't touch a 'private' auction with a barge pole.

In theory, however, if it is an honest auction and you treat it like any other, -- bid the highest you are willing to go as late as possible, -- then the end result should be the same as any other.  The following link will tell you how sellers go about setting this up if you wish to have a look:

http://pages.ebay.ca/help/sell/private.html

And for those times when you see the word 'private' in parenthesis beside someone's ID, some bidders choose to make their feedback private.  Sellers, however, cannot have private feedback.  This link tells you more about that if you care to know:

http://pages.ebay.ca/help/feedback/profile-public-private.html

[best-price-gifts]

Thank you very much all. Yes, it definitely answer my question 🙂 and thanks fo the extras... will go read further more on all subject mentionned ^^