More And More "Private" Bidders And Feedback!

Hey all, This is my side of the story... I buy & sell on e Bay although the same as most of us I'm a collector first & fore most but I DO have a "private" feedback.

Why?... I don't believe making my feedback hidden should be a problem to anyone, as you can still see my totals anyway. Obviously if you have a positive they say something good & if you get a negative obviously it's not good, it's a pretty easy concept... And this is mine...

Member Profile: madbudgie0 (253)

Feedback Score: 253
Positive Feedback: 98.5%

Members who left a positive: 257
Members who left a negative: 4

All positive feedback received: 440



Basically although I don't have anything to hide, I'm just a private collector in the true sense of the word, who would very much prefer that everyone else doesn't know what I'm doing. Also I like it private because I and don't appreciate the sticky beaks & my competition look at what I buy & what I have payed. And I find this also cut down on the spam emails I get related to something I had bought recently. So PLEASE don't ever hold this against me if your ever looking at something I might be selling!

And the other suggested "Won't Buy" items are the private auctions... This I believe IS another matter, although I have bought from these type of auctions before I'm a lot more careful about who I buy them from. And if I have bought something rarer I actually do appreciated the fact other don't know it me who has bought it. But in say that I can not see any real justification for them at all and only breeds a mentality of "shill bidding" or the implication "shill bidding".

Hey bobby131313... Thanks for your critical reply, I did mention this was only the way I did things and to give everyone else the other side of this discussion. But I feel you still had a few things incorrect in your reply...

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Big problem. Did you get the negs buying or selling? I don't know. Did you get a neg because a package got lost in the mail, or because you called a circulated coin MS68? I don't know

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If you took the time to actually look at my e Bay ID apart from what I posted you would also see...
1. I have been a long member of the e Bay community.
2. 3 out of my 4 negatives were longer than 12 months old, so your never going to know apart from that 1 still current. So if I was buying, I would take these further two things into account.

Out of interest... the 4 I have are my bad luck...
1. Was for selling and I miss graded... They got their monies back! Then I coped the Neg, learnt a very valuable lesson here.

2. Item was damaged in the mail, and the buyer threatened me physically via email me, so I reported him to e Bay (by the way waste of time) & told him to get stuffed.

3. Was a retaliatory one, for something I bought, that was miss described, and the seller refused my refund.

4... Again bought an item (from the US) it was a $100 note, it was miss describe on the largest scale & the worst I have ever seen, 3 full grades out on what I was quoted via emails before auction close.

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Impossible, if your trying to be viewed as respectable seller. ebay or anywhere

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I did fail to mention when selling I normally un-privatize my feedback for this reason. And with most of your other points I can see what your thinking, so I guess this is what were talking about, personal choices.

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Sorry, but with private 98.5% feedback, I would never buy from you. If I could read the negs and look at the feedback of the people that left them for you, I might. Your making a big mistake and costing yourself money. Big time.

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Although I think I have answer most in this posting, Bobby131313 I would be very disappointed that you would not buy from me given all things I have mentioned and that to you, this would not add up to an someone you could deal with, & then miss a potential item needed, even if I'm not perfect.

I was just try to make the point in my first post & now not all private feedback buyers or sellers are up to something or are hiding anything most of us are good guy's & gals.


And on my positive note...
Happy to be here!

Is there a way to hide the items you buy/sell in your feedback?

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Is there a way to hide the items you buy/sell in your feedback?

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Yes, you can make the auctions themselves private. This is usually only done legitimately in the mature categories (no one will buy these items if everyone can see that they do) and highly competitive categories (like DVD's) where bidder interference runs rampant. IE: "I have the same DVD you're bidding on cheaper".


However, it does happen in coins (and other categories), when the seller knows they're being dishonest and doesn't want bidders to be warned. Right Swamperbob?

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If a person leaves a feedback, is it really necessary to see what that item is they are leaving feedback for? A positive feedback could say "outstanding ebayer, fast & speedy shipping, and well packaged." Is it really important to know what that item is? It is like going to the supermarket and having the store keep track of everything you buy. How creepy is that?

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Yes, it is important. Someone could be a fantastic seller, selling x-ray equipment, which is their specialty. Then they inherit a big coin collection and decide to sell them on ebay, but they know nothing about coins. The x-ray equipment feedback doesn't mean quite as much now. At least to me.

If I came across the above scenario while looking to buy coins, I certainly would ask more questions, if needed, than I would with a seller that sells exclusively coins and has good feedback.

The supermarket analogy really doesn't apply here. When was the last time you heard of someone being a victim of fraud at the supermarket?

Supposing I wanted to buy something of a personal nature, why would I want anybody to see what it was? That's my only issue.

First, madbudgie0, welcome to the forum! While we may not agree among ourselves on many issues, we keep our differences at the level of polite society rather than rabble.

Next, while I see a certain amount of your viewpoint for keeping your feedback private, I think you need to be reminded that we are discussing coin auctions in which individual items are sold for hundreds or thousands of dollars, not auctions for CDs or DVDs with only $14.95 at stake. Your attempts to rationalize private feedback are, to me, weak and without foundation and, like the others, I am not convinced that you are not trying to hide something.

When I look at a coin in which I am interested where a couple thousand dollars is what I expect to pay, I look at the WHOLE auction before I bid; I am not rich enough to gamble this kind of money on what might be a losing or fraudulent proposition. Because I do not usually know the seller, I want to find out everything I can about this person to give me the confidence to bid without any possibility that I might be defrauded; this is an issue of trust and I want to be able to trust the seller to give me an open and honest auction. With only one exception, all that I am going to learn about a seller is what is contained in this auction; the exception is that I always contact the seller prior to my first bid on a high value coin - the response to my message in terms of erudition, honesty, guarantees, ethics, and openness will be the final factor to determine if I bid or not. Unviewable feedback is a major, major red flag to me; I cannot conceive of any circumstance wherein I might be persuaded to bid on an auction with private feedback.

I CAN guarantee you that with your private feedback unviewable to me and with no history of past auctions (I have no idea if you specialize in coins or mostly sell widgets) for someone who has been an eBayer for only two years and three months and with a very poor feedback score of 98.5%, your coin auctions would not get a second glance from me or any other big bidder. I am such a bidder; if I want a coin badly enough, I will pay WAY over market value to get it, but I want some guarantee I am receiving fair treatment.

Further, the big loser in this issue is you, at least on the seller side. Without the trust inherent in open feedback, you are not going to attract bidders who will give you top dollar for your coins. Indeed, you may sell otherwise excellent and good value coins, but you are going to receive only a fraction of what they normally might sell on ebay. As a good example, we on the forum recently attempted to persuade a seller and forum member that he would be far better off cracking a coin out of a non-tiered slab and submitting it to a reputable third party grading service. Instead, he listed it in the near-fraudulent slab, advertised it at the overgrade it stated on the slab, and received less than 30% of what he might have received had it been in a good slab and had he been more open and honest. Even worse, the first sale fell through and he relisted it exactly as before; this time, he received less than 15% of what might have been its true market value. He lost big because he was not open, honest, nor as it proved, trustworthy. We have not heard from him since.

From my own viewpoint, you appear to be otherwise open and honest by giving us your ebay ID, so you have already established a certain level of trust. In return, I invite you to review my own ebay profile: user ID "thefred2".

In summary, I urge you to drop the notion of private feedback, at least for your coin sales.