Seriously. Online help is worse than the McDonald's drive through. I recently discovered that a seller I was looking at on EBay was obviously using shill bidders on many of his auctions in order to drive up the prices. I was attempting to fill out EBay's shill bidder notification form and I ran into trouble. Here is the transcript of my chat session with the EBay support person.

fyi: I still don't know why the bidder names were masked.

System : Thank you for contacting eBay Account Security Live Help! Your feedback is important to us. Please take time at the end of this chat to fill out a brief survey letting us know how we did today.
System : Crissy has joined this session!
System : Connected with Crissy
Crissy : Hello and thank you for contacting Account Security Live Help, my name is Crissy. How may I help you?
me     : Hey. I am trying to report a suspected shill bidding.
me     : The shill accounts are...
me     : 3***1, t***p, a***c, c***k, n***o
me     : but your reporting form says...
me     : Sorry. You must enter a valid User ID.
me     : These five bidders have strikingly similar names for this to be a simple coincidence. These bidders all have zero feedback and have won no auctions. They only appear to bid on cell phones and not win.
me     : All for the same seller
Crissy : Thank you for taking the time to report this issue. I will be reviewing it shortly. For future reports you wish to make, please use our webform:
http://pages.ebay.com/help/contact_inline/index.html
It will reduce wait time for our chat sessions and will send the information to the correct team for review in a more timely manner.
me     : I am using your webform.
me     : however, it is erroring on the shill account names. Did you not read my message?
me     : Are you not paying attention?
Crissy : Yes, the User ID's you provided me is not valid.
me     : Look at this item
me     : 250167472061
Crissy : I am, Philip. I thought that it's really the User ID's. I need the complete User ID's.
me     : That's the User ID listed in the auction
Crissy : I am sorry for the inconvenience in our webform, Philip.
me     : http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=250167472061
me     : UserID is listed as t***p
Crissy : Let me check on the item number.
Crissy : The user ID's are not valid. I checked the item number and the seller is "whattdeal".
me     : Yes. But the bidder is t***p
me     : Why are you telling me who the seller is?
me     : The shill account (bidder) is t***p
me     : Crissy? Can I talk to someone else?
Crissy : So I can pull up the account and also for you to check if I am right to pull his account.
Crissy : Yes, Actually there is a specific department for this.
me     : The seller of all of the auctions that I believe are being shill bid, is indeed whattdeal.
Crissy : I can send the link where to report this.
me     : Wait.
me     : I am on that page now.
me     : but...
me     : and this is why I contacted you...
Crissy : Yes?
me     : The form gives me an error on the shill bidder accounts.
me     : The error is... "Sorry. You must enter a valid User ID. "
me     : I have entered, "3***1, t***p, a***c, c***k, n***o"
me     : which is the list of shill bidder account names.
me     : Now, you tell me that they are indeed invalid anames.
me     : so, HOW ARE THEY BIDDING ON THESE AUCTIONS WITH INVALID NAMES?
Crissy : I'll check for the shill bidder usernames.
Crissy : One moment please, I'll try my best to pull all this usernames.
me     : Why do these names appear as 3***1, t***p, a***c, c***k, n***o in the auction?
Crissy : I can see that they are all listed that way..
Crissy : Please try to provide the seller username when you are reporting.
me     : Your form asks for both
Crissy : I can send you another link for filing a report.
me     : ok
Crissy : Oh, here is the good news, Philip! I already knew the bidders of the item.
Crissy : *I know already
Crissy : rebelredpa1, mirandapg, morenalupita, morenalupita, therxdoc, morenalupita here are the shill bidders of the item.
me     : oh. already reported?
Crissy : No, just please report them to the link I provided you.
me     : and why are their usernames masked?
Crissy : For security reasons, Philip.
me     : Why is my username not masked in auctions that I bid on?
me     : I want security too.
me     : and why is it so hard for you to answer that question?
Crissy : The General Support Department can answer you that, Philip.
me     : Is it some big secret why usernames are masked like that?
me     : Is it that you just don't know the answer?
Crissy : I am unsure, Philip. We have a specific department on concerns like that.
me     : oh, so you just made up the "For security reasons, Philip." answer you just gave me?
Crissy : Our department is lift the blocked don the account and for account take over.
me     : Well, I didn't understand that but I grow weary of our chat session.
me     : thanks.  I reported the issue using the usernames you provided.
Crissy : I am so sorry for the inconvenience, Philip. Much as I wanted to help you with this it's just that we have a limited resources in our department.

That took a lot longer to happen that it did for you to read.