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 Replies: 9 / Views: 2,122 |
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Valued Member
United States
331 Posts |
I imagine this has been asked before but I'll ask anyway. Is there anyway to send or find out a bidders e-mail? I have an interest in a relatively specialized collecting area and seem to always be bidding against someone with the same interest. It would be very useful for historical research reasons to see what direction and items they specialize in but the only info I have is their hidden bidder ID. Would it be ethical to ask a seller to forward my e-mail to another bidder if we both bid on the same item? Or is the risk of collusion an overriding concern? Would it be acceptable after the auction is over? Thanks in advance for any answers!
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1915 Posts |
Other than the email address being used for the buyer's PayPal account, a seller really does not have email contact with buyers on ebay. As far as contacting the seller, if you contacted me, I would report you to ebay for trying to do business outside of ebay. Now if you want to contact them on your own, I would suggest go to the seller's feedback, and click on the user name of the buyer in question after they leave feedback. On the members info page click the contact member link. It will not be an email, rather a message in the ebay messaging system. Who knows what the reaction will be from the buyer, as this is pretty murky waters you tread. |
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Pillar of the Community
Canada
3167 Posts |
As a seller, I would never give out a buyers email, as I would not want the same done for me. I do contact each buyer by email after shipment, because I found that it was the most popular method with the buyers. Sadly for you, I don't think there is a way for you to contact the members bidding against you. I think ebay does this to prevent threatening between bidders. |
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Moderator
 Australia
16849 Posts |
It definitely isn't OK for a seller to give out contact details of one of their bidders or buyers to a third party. It's a breach of ebay privacy rules and the seller can find themselves suspended from ebay if they were foolish enough to comply with such a request and the third party complained about it to ebay. It is ethical to ask a seller to forward either your contact details or a message from you on to a third party, though it is extremely odd behaviour. I imagine most sellers wouldn't want to risk their reputations by doing something that even remotely resembles spam. Agreed the best way is to wait until the auction is over and feedback is left by the person you want to contact, and contact them directly rather than involving the seller. Don't say "infinitely" when you mean "very"; otherwise, you'll have no word left when you want to talk about something really infinite. - C. S. Lewis
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Valued Member
 United States
331 Posts |
I think from the reaction I got from the question I'm not going to try. I don't want to be "That Guy"! Maybe I'll run into him/her at a show or on-line sometime. There can't be many people that specialize in collecting Western and Atalntic Railroad notes. Especially by series and denomination. Thanks for the responses!
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Valued Member
United States
374 Posts |
In the old days I contacted other bidders a few times. Same deal we were bidding on the same items and all it was doing was pushing the items past there worth.In the eraly days people always overpayed for some reason. I also would save certain bidders with the same interests to check on what they were bidding on. It saved me time for looking for the items from thousands of listings. This was in the early days of ebay. Nowadays I would never contact another bidder for any reason. |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
9792 Posts |
You could always put up some of your duplicates or unwanted pieces and see if that brings him out of the woodwork! Just a thought, you would see all bidders on your auctions, and should be able to match up the feedback scores.
"Buy the Book Before You Buy the Coin" - Aaron R. Feldman - "And read it" - Me 2013! ANA Life Member #3288 in good standing since 1981, ANS, Early American Coppers Member (EAC), Colonial Coin Collectors Club member (C4), Conder Token Collector Club member (CTCC), Civil War Token Society (CWTS) member, Liberty Seated Collectors Club (LSCC) & Numismatic Bibliomania Society member (NBS), USMex, Member in good standing, 2¢ variety collector. See my want page: http://goccf.com/t/140440 |
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Locked
822 Posts |
Quote:
As a seller, I would never give out a buyers email, as I would not want the same done for me. No but I see you use Auctiva. Do you use their end of auction emails? Most Auctiva users do. If you do, you give Auctiva the buyers email, then they send an ad loaded spam email to the buyer disguised as a thank you. Every single solitary time I get one of those, the seller gets negative feedback. Every time. |
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Pillar of the Community
Canada
3167 Posts |
I don't use Auctiva at all really. I just like their slider that they put in my listings. I have never made a sale on their site.
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Pillar of the Community
United Kingdom
856 Posts |
Like IHPO8S, in the early days of ebay you could see bidder IDs and I did get in contact with a couple of other collectors with similar interests this way. We are still in touch and I have learnt an awful lot from them. Si if someone contacted me via ebay I'd be OK with it. After all, I can always just ignore them if I'm not interested. But maybe from the reactions here, hoping you'll run into each other at a show is a safer idea! |
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Replies: 9 / Views: 2,122 |
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Posted 07/02/2013 9:04 pm
