Bidstart's New Look

I received an email from Bidstart touting their new look. I have to admit I found it easier to navigate and easier on the eyes. Now all they have to do is make it where I don't feel like I'm the only person there!
Is this one of the drawbacks to collecting. After many years you have that and seen it as well.

I think old bidStarters are waiting to see if Stanley Gibbons turns the website upside-down.

I seem to find nicer items on Bidstart these days. As ebay's greed and ever increasing fees take hold the place for stamps is shifting away from the old guard. I actually have some animosity toward ebay as a buyer since it is nowhere near what it once was when it come to collecting stamps. They just don't understand how stamps work.

See you on Bidstart!

I think that bidstart is a great site especially for buy it now prices. Whenever I see a philatelic item that I am thinking of buying on ebay, I also check on bidstart for it to make sure I am not overpaying on ebay. Many times I have found the same item for less on bidstart than on ebay even from the same seller for the exact same item since some list the same item on both sites. I do recommend bidstart for those that are looking for more common items that they don't want to overpay for or that dealers don't bother to list on ebay because it costs them more to do so on there.

Bidstart is a great website *IF* you have your Scott numbers with you.. Haha

[This is essentially a copy of a post I made on another philatelic board. I feel that the topic is extremely important and that existing members over there may not be aware of one of the more insidious changes within the "new look" at Bidstart.]

Summary: Anyone now posting in Bidstart's blog/community/forum is posting not under the forum username they signed up under, but rather with their full legal name attached, without consent, and in many cases, without their even realizing it.

One of the most disturbing aspects of this whole issue is just how cavalierly Mark Rosenberg (or Stanley Gibbons) are treating this issue. I've had a back-and-forth with him on this, and he just simply doesn't see the problem.

I maintain that the widespread public release of members' legal names is a violation of Bidstart's very own terms and conditions, whereby they claim they will never distribute personal information to third parties. Releasing peoples' legal names to the public *IS* distributing that information.

I know that some maintain that people should have to post using legal names. I disagree with that approach, but that isn't the point here. You cannot just arbitrarily attach someone else's identity information to content without their consent. If you want to set up a new forum/community under that model, with that requirement explicitly stated in the new terms and conditions that's absolutely fine. People are then free to sign up to become members or not. However, to just "flip a switch" on an existing membership and arbitrarily publish legal names without re-presenting members with revised terms and conditions that reveal this, and by making this an opt-out rather than opt-in scenario without informed consent, is a big fat hairy problem.

This isn't what I (or any other existing Bidstart member) agreed to when signing up for membership.

Existing members, likely operating under the assumption that their posts were anonymous based on years of existing practice, upon attempting to post following the conversion, should have been immediately confronted with a notice to the extent of "this forum has changed its policy, and by continuing you realize that your legal name will be revealed to the public, and that you consent to this. If you do not agree, click back..." along with a checkbox signifying agreement that needed to be checked to continue.

Yes, it is THAT important. Rosenberg's notion that they mentioned it a few times in advance somewhere on their forum, is utterly insufficient, and in my opinion leaves Stanley Gibbons potentially liable for damages.

People are likely to be far more guarded in what they reveal about their location, their collection, their expenditures, etc., when posting using their legal name than when using an alias... as well they should be. If someone has nefarious intent and can associate a legal name with hints about location, it makes it that much easier to track down where they live.

Whether it is stamps, coins, or other collectibles, in our various collecting communities, we talk about items that have intrinsic value, sometimes significant. Never underestimate the allure that holds to people who prey upon others.

In this case, it wasn't until after I had made several posts on the new forum software at Bidstart that I even realized that they were now appearing under my legal name rather than "revenuecollector". That was a serious "Oh Sh*t!!" moment, not because I am necessarily paranoid about being robbed, but never in a million years would I have anticipated that any company that had access to my legal identity would publish it (1) without explicitly notifying me, (2) without my having to opt in or recommit to the Terms of Service, and (3) no way for me to change it.

Once Bidstart made that switchover, changing the name in your account to obfuscate the legal name to the public also now means the name on the shipping address of any Bidstart shipment or payment is wrong. Instead of simply creating a "community username" field, Rosenberg simply decided to publish the data from the name fields in Bidstart user accounts.

I realize that many will think I am overreacting about this, but I consider this to be a wholesale breach of trust, completely illegal, and if I had more resources, I would take legal action.

The most dangerous aspect of this is that infrequent users of the Bidstart community are likely unaware of this change and due to the wholesale redaction/modification of public commentary engaged in by Rosenberg, may never be, and not realize until after the fact that the seemingly innocuous things they posted on "the cute new blog" have just released their legal names to the world.

In short: You just don't do this.

-Dan

I was one of the earliest members of StampWants (which eventually changed names to Bidstart). I had joined the same month that StampsWants went online. After the sudden change on April 22, 2013, Dan's post is the exact reason why I was one of the first to leave Bidstart Forum after 8 years of membership.



And I can guarantee everyone that there was absolutely NO public mention of the new policy until it was unilaterally implemented on Monday, April 22. I suddenly found my full legal name publicly splattered on over 6000 old posts. In other words, the change was both unannounced and retroactive -- there were no options and no advanced warning. I accepted that he had changed things, but I protested to the point of leaving, regarding the retroactive implementation of the policy. After I informed him I intended to leave permanently because of the retroactive change, I noticed that he changed it so that old posts were "grand-fathered" and legal names do not appear on old posts. So I am grateful that I got what I requested.

He does not understand the difference between friends/acquaintances and seller/buyer knowing each others names, and having your full legal name splattered everywhere for all the public to see.

I agree that there ARE serious legal issues, which I doubt if anybody will pursue because it is not worth the money/time. Even if it were perfectly legal, the real problem is that the trust is gone. That is why I left the BS Forum that same day. It's hard to participate when the trust is gone. So I wasn't surprised about VSC being suddenly pulled out of Delphi and meshed into BS Forum, and equally suddenly again VSC being pulled out of BS Forum. Who knows what will happen anymore? I don't even buy anything from BS anymore -- that's how badly the trust has been shattered. It's too bad that my sellers had to lose paying customers because of all this foolishness.

Kim