posted on February 18, 2002 02:49:10 PM
Yesterday, I placed a proxy bid on a widget.
Today, I received SPAM sent directly to me at my registered eBay email address and not through eBay system. It was from the seller thanking me for bidding, wishing me luck and asking me to check out his other auctions and also his mother's auctions. I did not reply and instead forwarded this email with headers to [email protected].
I have no idea how he got my email address. I thought that was only available to the seller after the close of auction?
Needless to say, I see a red flag with this seller. So, I check out his about me page. There, I find links to homepages for both the seller and the seller's mother. From the seller's mother's homepage, I find links to the father's homepage. From the father's homepage, I find even more sites for the seller.
I researched all these screen names on eBay and didn't find anything substantial to worry about. I go out for a while and come back to check this particular auction. BINGO, my proxy has been bid up.
I checked the bid history, and even though it's not one of the previous screen names, I know it is the seller. He's no rocket scientist, his initials are in all the screen names and in this new eBay id too. The only bids placed by this new id are all on his auctions.
I have already retracted my bid and sent an email to safeharbor.
Is there a way to find out all the AOL screen names that somebody is using? If not, there should be!
[ edited by BananaSpider on Feb 18, 2002 02:53 PM ]
posted on February 18, 2002 03:02:19 PM
Nope, the moment you place a bid on an eBay auction the seller has access to your e-mail id.
I use it to check on the zeros+shades as soon as I see they've bid on one of my auctions. And I do this just to make sure their e-mail id is valid. It is a simple, "welcome aboard and happy bidding" message. I send it using my e-mail service - not eBay.
If the mail comes back, then I contact SafeHarbor and cancel the bid.
OTOH, I've gotten a lot of genuine thanks from newbies who had no idea that eBay was such a friendly place.
posted on February 18, 2002 03:37:39 PM
I did finally get around to checking that on my seller account and sure enough I could see my bidder's email address.
Does anyone know if there is a way to look up two or more AOL screen names to prove they are the same person? I am clueless when it comes to AOL.
posted on February 18, 2002 03:51:58 PM
I do not believe there is any real way to see of several ebay id's belong to the same person. Someone on aol could look and see if the screennames have profiles and look for similarities in them, such as same state etc. If I can help you in those respects let me know. Just email the aol names at the above name @aol.com. It would only take a minute or two to check it out for you.
posted on February 18, 2002 03:58:19 PM
there is no way to find out like asking aol if a person has many aol email ids and what they are.
but the guy who emailed you and asked you to check out his auctions,his mother's auction,his father auction etc,is logged on to aol with his aol iD ABC,and to check out the auctions of his other aol id XYZ,he just sign on to ebay as XYZ to get your email addr,then as he is still signed on to AOL under ABC,the email he wrote you said ABC.
so now you know he has at least 2 aol ids.
you can have 7 email addresses under aol,then of course you can have one for yahoo,hotmail ,juno and what else??
posted on February 18, 2002 04:24:58 PM
Hello
Guess this is sort of a side bar but It appears I don’t understand SPAM. I occasionally email a bidder as a welcome or what not, before an auction closes. I always thought that was a nice touch. I never considered it SPAM. SPAM to me is sending unwanted emails out in groups to unknown people (A fishing trip). Guess I was wrong
posted on February 18, 2002 04:34:40 PM
I considered it SPAM because it was unsolicited email asking me to check out his mother's auctions. It certainly was not related to our transaction because the auction had not even closed yet.
Incidentally, there is a link under Favorite Sites on the seller's About Me page. The link is called Other Items I am Selling which links to the "Mother's" About Me page.
posted on February 18, 2002 04:41:19 PM
surfsworth,
Thanks for the offer but I already know these id's are related. Linking to each other's homepages the way they do, each has the same address and phone number plastered right there. No secrets. At the bottom of each one, the seller takes credit for creating and maintaining all of the pages. I just wondered if there was a way to prove to eBay that this new id was also related.
dacreson,
SPAM is unsolicted email of any kind.
alwaysbroke,
I would not consider transaction related email SPAM (with or without a website link).
posted on February 18, 2002 04:47:00 PM
Many ISP's are offering multiple email accounts these days so it is bit unfair to single out just AOL.
Yahoo Auctions does not allow the email of any seller or buyer to be accessible unless they wish to do so. If a question needs to be asked by a buyer it goes through Yahoo and there is a Q&A tab on each auction for questions asked by buyers and any answers by the seller. No easy side deals, no spam, etc.
I am not sure why you feel AOL is being singled out in this thread. If I am singling out AOL by stating the facts, then so be it. The seller and his alledged family members are AOL users with AOL homepages. I don't know anything about AOL so I posted here for more info.
posted on February 18, 2002 08:29:10 PM
banana spider,
it is just good marketing if someone shows an interest in one of your items by bidding on it,he may be interested in what else he has or his mother has or his father has or his sister/brother/uncle/aunt/grandma/grandpa has??
dont you think it is kind of overkill to trace and track him and his whole clan down and come to this board and ask others to help decipher this family??
ebay is becoming a big pain in the ass,they think they are the only game in town-dont do this,dont do that,dont let that revenue slips away.dont fall for it,ebay is sinking.
posted on February 18, 2002 09:02:42 PM
My ISP only allows me to have 3. 2 of which I have to pay extra for. I'll stick to one. I also have a MSN address so that I can use their messenger.
posted on February 19, 2002 12:29:22 AM
All the shill bids and seller's canceling of bids simply show that both buyers and sellers are more happy with fixed prices when Enron accountants can not manipulate the process.
posted on February 19, 2002 07:56:58 AM
I received a reply from safeharbor this morning and when I checked and all the id's are NARU. Good ridance! We don't need sellers like this on eBay. It gives every one of us a black eye.
stopwhining,
It is not good marketing. It is called shilling. My proxy bid was being bid up by the seller. It's against eBay's TOS not to mention unethical. You are a real piece of work suggesting that he was bidding against me because he might be interested in buying his own item. I posted here to ask if there was a way to find out if screen names were linked to one account because I am unfamiliar with AOL. I never asked anyone to help dicipher anything. I already knew I was being scammed.
posted on February 19, 2002 10:14:34 AM
Hi there, Safe Harbour always has me select the suspect email then right click on it, scroll down to propertys, click. Then details, click, - This shows all the details about the email addy and you can usually find a common point for the different users if they are comming from the same household. Ebay will have you cut and paste the message detail/ Message source if they need proof that you received the message from the person/s. They have all the info needed to detect the shill partys once you tip safeharbour.
Good Luck
Ok4
posted on February 19, 2002 11:32:04 AM
While eBay may go after an individual AOL member that is abusing the system with multiple IDs, eBay will not take any blanket action against AOL accounts in an attempt to stem multiple IDs.
Ebay has some sort of marketing relationship with AOL and its millions of members, so eBay will do nothing to damage that relationship. There seems to be enough tech issues with AOL email addresses etc., without attempting a tech solution to the AOL multiple ID problem.
posted on February 21, 2002 05:03:13 AM
Thats the reason I stay with AOL-because they allow several screen names. I have 3 AOL screen names(email addresses), one for auctions, one for friend correspondance, and one for newsgroups. I still cant figure out how AOL screen names have anything to do with shill bidding though. Anyone can have multiple email accounts originating from the same person. Bear with me though if I'm wrong..I'm only on my 2nd cup of coffee : )
MEOW
posted on February 21, 2002 08:17:08 AM
katmommy,
you can apply for ebay membership for each aol email addr you have .
since you can have 7 email addr,you can have 7 ebay ids.
you can use these ebay ids to bid on your own auctions,other people's auction etc.
some use one to buy,one to sell.
some use one to sell in one category and another in other categories.
but all these ebay id could have something in common,like your mailing addr,bank account ,credit card ,ss number,driver license number ,phone number.
posted on February 21, 2002 09:07:39 AM
I realize about the ID's on ebay and having several email addresses but anyone can do that. All they have to do is get a yahoo email addy, a hotmail addy and several others from other email providers. All I meant was that ANYONE can do it..it is not just AOL users. As far as the original post, if that guy is using his aol screen name as his ebay user ID ..he aint too smart if he's trying to get away with something. Oh..one more thought for Bananaspider. AOL users can delete screen names, create another several times a day and even bring an old screen name back to life after several months. Sounds to me like this guy is not too bright as he is leaving a paper trail whether he realizes it or not.
MEOW
posted on February 22, 2002 04:58:42 AM
Please remember that if a seller bids against your proxy bid, yet later cancels his bid, he has acquired valuable information with which to manipulate your bid later on. He now knows how high your proxy bid went. And if he cancels quickly, nobody else will know that same information.
Therefore, if nobody else bids against you, he can use a 3rd address to bid high enough that your bid goes up, yet you still win. I am suspicious of all auctions that have canceled bids, for that reason.
