I didn't realize that the first and last letter shown on the eBay ID's don't necessarily match the actual first and last letters of a user's ID, until now.

I was bidding on an item and also had it in my watch list. I got a reminder from watch list that it was ending soon, so I pulled it up to look at it without logging in. It showed the high bidder was something like "p***h" whereas my eBay ID is "cottonchipper". This particular auction is on eBay Canada if that makes any difference.

I don't guess I'll be spending anymore time trying to decode who the high bidder is on chips I want.