Unavailable

I've never seen that either. Either eBay is having trouble, or the users Id really is 'Unavailable'

Its changed now to: "User ID kept private". Why/How would somebody do that?

If it's your auction, you set it up to keep all ID's private. One of the options is 'Is this a private auction?' If you checked it, eBay will keep all bidder ID's from being seen.

You might want to do that if the item you are selling is a little embarrassing for someone to bid on if their ID were visible, or could also be used to keep others from contacting your bidders.

If you created the auction as a "Private" auction then all bidders will show up like that. It's an option that you as the seller can choose when listing the item.

Usually only smut peddlers and antiquities dealers or those selling expensive items that dont want their customers poached use it.

Often times in high price auctions other sellers will try emailing the bidders to offer them a better price. Using a private auction would stop that. The negative to that posistive is that you cant tell who is bidding and that seller could be using their friend to jack up the price of the item and you'd never know. So that is the reason not everyone uses them on high ticket items. It sorta scares bidders away when they cant see who is bidding against them.

Damn, puppy raiser beat me to the punch again!

I'll get you next time puppy raiser, that much I promise you!!!!

Until next time...      

Oh dear! I must have pressed the wrong button when I created the listing. Now it has a bid I can't change it. I don't think anyone would be too concerned if others knew what they were bidding on...Its an old family bible!

You can only change or cancel an auction if you cancel all bids first.

You can however add 'additional information' to the end of the auction listing.

Don't know how, cuz I've never done it, but have seen it done so know it's possible.