If you're going to write the person at eBay responsible for this new policy, contact Rob Chesnut, Senior Vice President, eBay Global Trust & Safety. Here's his email address: Rob Chesnut <RChesnut at ebay.com> I have already sent an email to him - with this theme: "I hope you understand the gravity of this newly implemented change. It literally changes the entire character of eBay - and makes eBay a much less desirable auction site." Lyle

Don, thanks for your note. I don't like the new changes either. I wish you were right about user education, but we've tried it, and much to our frustration, it doesn't work outside a fairly narrow range of more experienced users. If you saw the numbers of scams I saw, and were familiar with what these fraudulent groups were able to do, I think you would have come to the same conclusion we did. -------------------------- Sent from my BlackBerry Wireless Handheld ----- Original Message ----- From: Don North <ak6dn at mindspring.com> To: Chesnut, Rob Cc: Don North <ak6dn at mindspring.com> Sent: Wed Jan 17 22:32:30 2007 Subject: Latest EBAY User Interface Policy - Hidden bidder IDs "As the internet evolves, eBay continues to strike a balance between preserving transparency and protecting our Community of members. eBay has decided to change how bid history information is displayed so bad guys cannot target bidders with fake offers using this information. In certain cases, some bidders will no longer be able to view Bidder User IDs on the Bid History page. Your User ID will be shown only to you and the seller of the item you're bidding on. Other members will see an anonymous name, such as Bidder 1, applied consistently to the Bid History page." As a member of EBay for the last 6 years who has purchased well over $25,000 worth of items (including many high ticket items over $500) I deplore this latest change to the user interface. I feel it is a misguided solution to a perceived problem (bogus second chance offers) that flys in the face of an open Ebay user community. I have purchased many high-valued items via Ebay (mostly specialty computer and test equipment) over the years and have received second chance offers from time to time. Determining which offers are valid and which ones are bogus is NOT a problem; the bogus offers invariably come from outside the Ebay messaging mechanism and usually require payment in cash via Western Union. Bogus second chance offers have never been a problem in my experience. On the other hand, the anonymous bidder IDs now implemented for items over $200 makes Ebay a much less attractive auction site for my use. I cannot now determine who the other bidders are, which has always been an important criteria for how I gauge the bids I will offer. I cannot determine if one of the anonymous 'Bidder N's is a shill bidder that is there to drive up the price. If I don't know who the other bidders are, by both user ID and feedback, I can't make a quality decision on the auction. If this practice of *hiding* user IDs continues, I will of necessity be forced to find other auction sites that don't hide information from me. Ebay will be relegated to low value, low ticket, low fee items for me. The solution to bogus second-chance offers is USER EDUCATION, not hiding user information behind a smokescreen. Don North ak6dn at mindspring.com