How to prove to our users that they are not being cheated? [closed]

Question

I have an information theory question about how to prove (or at least give statistical evidence) that an auction website is not shilling its users.

We recently launched a pay-per-bid auction website. It is a new type of auction where the users pay to bid on timed auctions. Each bid raises the price and increases the time of the auction. The last bidder when the time runs out gets to buy the item.

The problem is that users are suspicious that we may be cheating them. I have no such intentions as the trust of my users is of paramount importance to me. However, the model could be implemented by other unscrupulous sites and it would be straightforward to cheat bidders. I need to put measures in place that will show our users that we are legitimate.

I am committed to running an honest operation. The challenge is how to prove this to the world? Any approach will need to be balanced with preserving the privacy of users.

Some ideas I have are:

• show IP address of each user

• solicit testimonials from winners who have received their merchandise. Have them mail in photos of them with their merchandise and a recent cover copy of their local paper.

• show some broad information about each user, such as home state and country

I am looking for any suggestions.

Update

Some great suggestions. So far:

• Provide behavioral information about each users:

  • when joined
  • which auctions took part of
  • stats for auction - bids placed, cost

• do not publish personally identifiable information. No IP address, since people who did not win could exact retribution on the winner.

• public forum for discussion and address questions

• solicit testimonials from users to show that people do win and do receive products.

  • how can we show in the testimonial that it is not "invented" by us? I am thinking of perhaps asking to include a photo with a recent local newspaper. This would be hard to fake on a large scale, and how distribution of winners through time and locality.

Do you believe it would be OK to show the home State and Country of user, or would that be too much personal information?

Answer 1

1. Provide as much information as possible to users, such as who won, how much was paid, how many buys/sellers a user has made, etc;
2. Provide a feedback mechanism on individual auctions and users;
3. Have a public forum for discussion on results, support issues and complaints by users;
4. Don't require users to use other pay services you provide to get results, such as your own snipe system;
5. State your policies clearly on your Website. This should include, at a minimum, a privacy policy, discussion of how the site works, an FAQ and steps you've taken to prevent any appearance of impropriety or conflict of interest (eg employees aren't allowed to participate); and
6. Have a complaints and dispute resolution mechanism.

This isn't a technical problem. It's a social problem. The only way users are going to feel confident in the results is with transparency and professionalism.

Answer 2

Isn't that something like swoopo.com?