Anyone else seing this trend?, buyers with names like g**2, a**1

[emeraldscales]

I recently decided to put a few things for sale on ebay and researched similar auctions that had already ended in order to guestimate how much I might make. Due to frustration with ebay and the rising costs of items on ebay, I haven't used my account too much. I was, therefore, surprised during my searches when I noticed that in many of the auctions, usually ones ending in a higher price than I would have thought, there are bidders with names that start with a letter, followed by stars, and then by either a number or letters: l***2, g**l.

These bidders never seem to be the winning bidder, and instead of their names showing up as blue with a clickable link to their profile and feedback, they appear black and only link to a list of the categories they have previously bid on. At first I thought these were limited to one or two types of auctions, action figure collectibles, but now I am seeing them all over--from clothing, to bedding, collectibles...everything! Does anyone know if these are scammers, or if they are just shill bidding accounts?

[Dialga-Brite]

It's ebay's stupid new way of "protecting" bidders.

Those weird names show up instead of the actual names. Although ebay says it is to protect bidders, I, like many people here, feel that it does more harm than good. For instance, not being able to see bidders names makes it easier for shillers to get away with what they do.

This is one of the reasons why some people here boycott ebay. I personally however just put up with it.

[Star Stealer]

If a listing ends for under $200.00, you'll be able to see the winner only and only once it's ended.
All other bidders stay anonymous to keep scammers from emailing them with false SCOs not from the original seller.

Now you get the SCOs alright but from the seller dumb enough to win their own auction.

I've been turning every SCO in.
I will never accept one