ebay question

I have a couple questions about ebay/paypal, and figured some folks on the list here might know the "straight scoop". 1) If some seller sets up an auction as private (yet it still shows up on the listings) - the deal is that no one can see who bid on it, or who is currently the high bidder. In this set up, how can I be sure the seller isn't bidding on his own auction to drive up the price? He's taunting me I bet demmit! heh 2) Hypothetically, say I sell an item on Ebay for... oh... $2500.00. The guy could pay me via paypal, or he could send me a cashiers check. Does Paypal report transactions to the IRS? Or more importantly, if I sell items on ebay all year... do I have to track all that and report to IRS? Never really thought of it cause it probably isn't much money anyways. But I am curious if ebay and/or paypal reports to the IRS. Jay West --- [This E-mail scanned for viruses by Declude Virus]