I asked a variant of this question a year ago, but I would like some clarification on it.
If a seller conducts what Ebay calls a "private auction," one where the bidders' emails are revealed only to the seller, what is to prevent the seller from creating one, two, or however many ebay registrations to jack up the bids or to have "buddies" do the same? Since the "winning" bidder cannot see the other bids, how is he or she assured that it has been a legitimate auction? I wrote to Ebay asking this question, but they are about 48 hours beyond their promised answering within 24-36 hours.
After just getting burned badly on Ebay recently and still reading Kafka after all these years, my paranoia level has moved to code red.
Thanks.
Cheers.
Tom Hayes
Chagrin Falls, Ohio